The Money Pit – Swamp Edition

Anyone out there old enough to remember the movie "The Money Pit" will remember that this crazy couple bought a house slightly in need of repair and subsequently spent thousands of dollars fixing it up. Yeah, well, they were a lot smarter than we were—at least they didn't live in the middle of a swamp where you can't even get contractors to spend oodles of money on. No. It took someone of our intelligence to buy an old log home at the edge of a swamp. Turns out the original owners built it with their own two hands and a few college students, none of whom apparently knew what a right angle is, or even a ruler. There isn't a straight wall in the place. But the 20 acres it sits on are gorgeous, if you like swamps, and we were dumb enough to fall for the scenery.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, we found a gusher in my bathroom. Of course there are no shutoff valves anywhere in the house. But we capped the gusher and pulled up the toilet to find the source. And discovered the floor had rotted out behind the lovely 1970's psychedelic vinyl flooring. And the toilet's plumbing was hanging "loose and free" beneath the floor. Wonderful. You wouldn't want to force plumbing to stay in one place, now, would you?

Over July 4^th, my hubby managed to replace the rotted floorboards and we bought some new vinyl flooring tiles—the ones that can handle wet environments. Then, this weekend, I finally got around to working on the floor. My husband indicated that he thought I would do a better job for some obscure reason. Like physical dexterity. Or maybe just general gullibility. But on the surface, it seemed easy enough, in theory.

I should have remembered that none of the walls meet at right angles or run in anything resembling a straight line. Everything is skewed, not to mention that the floor—once we took up the old vinyl—doesn't actually meet the walls in all places. Well. So we bought this floor leveler and some other gunk to fill holes. My husband did offer to fix the 1 ½" gap between where the floor ended and the wall began, by scooping some of the gunk into the gap. This gap, by the way, starts at one end as a 1 ½" gap and winds up as about a ¼" gap about 3 feet further along the wall.

"Where will that stuff run if the subflooring doesn't meet the wall, either?" I asked, watching him uneasily.

"Behind the wall in the downstairs bathroom." He replied, shoveling in the gooey gray mixture.

I went downstairs and shone a flashlight in the hole we broke into the wall to find out where the leak was coming from when we originally heard the gusher running through the walls.

Nope, no slurpy stuff running down the walls. Whew. That was lucky.

The washing machine dinged and I went into the laundry room on the other side of the wall to move the clothes to the dryer. A stream of gray goo was running down the wall, right into the pile of laundry sorted to be washed. And wait! That's not all! Part of the goo river ran over the curtains and window in the laundry room, too. By the time I got upstairs, my husband had figured out that the gunk wasn't filling the hole and had plugged it up to prevent all of the valuable stuff from running away.

After a break of washing the curtains and clothes with the hose in the yard, I returned to the house. My energetic hubby indicated he now needed to mow the lawn, so the bathroom was ready for me.

Gee. Thanks.

At least I found a use for my old manuscripts. I used the pages to cut out the patterns of all the crazy angles and circles to accommodate the plumbing fixtures and oddly skewed walls. I got most of the area around the toilet more-or-less done, although I noticed that the wall on that side had a skew of about 2 ½".

End of Saturday—too exhausted to cook dinner and discovering that old knees do not like kneeling all day. Hubby bought a pizza. I had a drink.

Day 2 – Sunday

Got up early and spent three hours ripping the last of the old vinyl out. Yes, while I freely admit one is supposed to rip out all the old before putting in the new. I didn't. I'm doing it all in sections. And it didn't make one iota of difference, except to exhaust me today, when I really hoped to finish. Hubby left for a business trip, confident and encouraging me to have it all done by the time he gets back in a week.

Don't let the door slam you on the ass, honey. Wouldn't want you to bruised and all.

One note to the manufacturer, while the new tiles are wonderful and relatively easy to put down, they come with pre-glued edges that overlap. Nice. But here's the problem: you didn't put paper that could be easily peeled off over the glue. No. That would have made it too easy. You had to leave the gluey edged unprotected so that it would be a total pain to try to ensure a piece would fit before actually gluing it to the neighboring piece. And so that when the cats and dogs came to investigate, all their fur and every particle of dirt in the house would collect on the edges….

And while today I smartened up and put on a pair of knee guards I use for gardening, I discovered that they were shedding black rubber everywhere. I hadn't noticed this in the garden since black rubber particles disintegrating over dirt isn't all that noticeable. But it is noticeable when all this black grit collects over the gluey edges of vinyl tiles.

But I'm over that. At least for today.

Suffice to say, I'm writing this blog because my hands are bruised, blistered and aching, as is every other part of me and just about the only thing I can do at the moment is type. And possibly drink, although I did that last night and I'm trying not to make a habit of it. The problem is, I still have about 5 tiles yet to put into place before I finish the bathroom, and each one has to be cut with skewed angles. One piece need to be 8 ½" wide at the bottom and 8" wide at the top. Not sure about lengthwise yet, because I was too tired to measure it.

This week I fully intend to get those final 5 tiles in place. It's not going to be perfect. It should match the rest of the house beautifully.

Then maybe I can get back to my real second job: writing fiction where no one tries to fix up their house with their own two hands. My characters get tortured, but not that much. I'm not that cruel.

Lots of good stuff

There's so much good news I hardly know where to begin! I've been working tons of overtime so I finally put some of it to get use. Our furniture was in pitiful condition. I have this odd idea that furniture is a permanent investment that once made, never has to be made again. Of course, my general cheapskate tendencies have always been strengthened by my family who love to give me their cast-off furniture so I never have to buy anything.

Well, I finally bought some brand, spanking new furniture! Got it delivered, too (instead of hauling it to the house sticking out of the back of our pickup truck). Went whole-hog.

That beauty of a chair my husband so loved, that leaned to the left and had the stuffing come out of it has been replaced. Even though the old chair is still sitting on our porch, waiting for us to haul it away to the "green box mall" (i.e. dumpsters) in the back of our pickup truck.

Yes. We're hicks. Which is an odd confession for someone who writes Regency romances set in the early 1800's in England. And who even went to school for a year at the University of Scotland in Aberdeen (a truly gorgeous place). But whatever. We are what we are.

And here is our NEW furniture! Looks just like the old junk, except the stuffin' has yet to come out. But give it time...

And the new furniture isn't all the "news fit to print" although some of it (the really, really GREAT stuff) will have to wait until it gets confirmed later in the year.

More good news: I've got two, count 'em TWO, new books coming out within the next couple of months!

The Bricklayer's Helper, a Regency romantic mystery, will be out August 6!

Vampire Protector, a contemporary paranormal romance will be out Nov 12!

And over the next few months, I've got all kinds of interviews and blogging dates with all kinds of wonderful people!

I've already got the following dates:

I blog with Romance in the Backseat the first of every month about gardening (another of my hobbies).

On the 3rd of every month, I blog with Voices of the Heart about whatever hits my fancy.

On the 18th of every month, I blog on my publisher's historical site, The Wild Rose Press Historical Authorshttp://twrphistoricalroseline.blogspot.com/, about all things historical.

The wonderful blog at  The LoveStruck Novice will be interviewing me on August 6, just in time for my Regency romance release.

And I promise there will be a lot more! Pretty exciting stuff.
I also have a third book coming out soon, a Regency romance entitled, The Necklace, from Highland Press. It's been a little delayed, but I still have hopes that it will come out this year. It is actually the "prequel" to I Bid One American. Once it gets released, I'll have three books in the Archer family series:
The Necklace
I Bid One American
The Bricklayer's Helper

Although they don't have to be read in any particular order, it does give a better "feel" for the family's history and interlocking stories if they are read (at some point) in that order.

Right now, I'm editing another Archer family book (it's gone through several titles, none of which I adore, but at the moment, I'm tentatively calling it: The Adventurers) as well as writing a contemporary mystery.

Things are moving right along, although they'd move a little more swiftly if I wasn't working all this overtime. :-) But I can't complain since the overtime did get me brand new furniture.

Finally, I added a picture from our garden, which is blooming with daylillies at the moment. Our veggies are also putting out all kinds of produce, including tomatoes, squash, and eggplants, so I probably need to get a move on and get outside. The weather has been atrocious with very high temperatures, so I'm spending a lot of time watering the plants (as well as the dogs and me).

Just for the heck of it, I also included a picture of the road to the mailbox. Despite the heat, the doggies enjoy romping through the cornfields on our 1/2 of a mile trek to the mailbox. It's not exactly uphill box ways, but that 1/2 of a mile feels like it on a hot day! But walking it does give me a much needed mile of exercise at least once a day.

Enjoy the weather and stay tuned--I'm hoping for more good news this summer, plus a release date for The Necklace!

Characters and their Code

Sometimes in writing contests, writers get lower marks and comments like, “I couldn’t warm up to your hero or heroine.” And although there really aren’t any rules, there are a few (very few) guidelines. Over the past few years, I’ve randomly written about characterization, and this is yet another blog on that topic, albeit with a slightly different spin.

Great characters need to have well-defined motivation that the reader understands and accepts. That’s a given. But sometimes, it’s hard to get “cozy” with a character because you can’t trust the character to do the right thing. That’s not to say heroes and heroines can’t make mistakes, or poor decisions, but they have to have the right reasons. Characters must have weaknesses or they won’t be realistic, however when push comes to shove, those weaknesses can't stop them from doing the right thing.

I always think about Monk (the massively phobic TV detective in the TV show “Monk”) and Becker (the truly obnoxious doctor with the big mouth in the TV show “Becker”) when it comes to great characterization. There is no doubt that given their personalities, they are about as far from “loveable” as you can get. But the odd thing is, you do love them and care about them. Why? Because when push comes to shove, they do the right thing. They may grumble and complain about it until you want to kill them, but they will come through for you.

You can trust them.

Interestingly enough, the comedy in “Becker” mostly consists of him SAYING the wrong thing—something mean and nasty—but immediately following that up by DOING something extraordinarily kind for someone who really needs help. He is a compassionate and caring doctor, even when he spouts the most horrible, mean and nasty drivel. And Monk may be germ-phobic, but he'll go into a sewer to save someone and solve a murder.

And that's the point. The bad qualities don't get in the way of doing the right thing. And in Becker's case, actions speak much louder than words. Becker and Monk will always come through in the end, regardless of their complaints.

The rules? Now, keep in mind these are mostly for romance genres, but they are still mostly true for almost every other form of fiction. Break the rules at your peril and with full knowledge of what you are doing.

1) Heroes and heroines can never cheat on spouses. Ever. And they can't really cheat on their betrothed, either. No cheating. There are ways around this, e.g. she thought her husband was dead, etc, but if you want a hero or heroine to be sympathetic, he or she cannot cheat on his/her partner. Otherwise, you're talking literary genres that are depressing and unromantic.

2) Heroes and heroines must do the right thing. They can grumble about it.

They can moan about it. But in the end, they have to do the right thing.

3) Heroes and heroines must be smart. They can make the wrong decision, but they can't be dumb about it. We all make bad choices because few—if any—of us can see the future or have all the facts. But we think we're making the only possible, and right, decision when we make it. It sounds logical and reasonable, given the available information. The audience must agree with this, even when it turns out horribly. And it must turn out horribly for there to be a story.

4) Heroes and heroines must be willing to sacrifice themselves for others at the critical point. They must be honest and have personal integrity. If they are a crook, they must have a personal code they live by—even if that code is warped. That's why we can love a hitman—because he acts with honor within his code (i.e. he gives back the money if he fails to kill the mark, etc).

Yes—they can have faults, but the reader must know that when the chips are down, the hero and heroine will do the right thing. That makes the character worthy of the reader's trust and sympathy. If the hero or heroine fails to act with integrity, then the reader's trust is broken. The writer must then redouble his efforts to regain that trust and make the hero/heroine still sympathetic. Each time the trust is broken, it will be harder to repair, until no repair is possible.

The real key is giving the character some sort of code, regardless of how warped it is, and making that character stick to it. Think of Mel Gibson in “Payback”. He was bad. Really bad. He did some pretty horrible things and yet…two factors made us go along with him:

• We understood his motivation—after all, they betrayed and tried to kill him 
•  He had his own, consistent code of behavior. He was internally honorable to his code. 

His code was his promise to the audience that he was worthy of our attention and affection.

Personal integrity may be an outdated concept, but it's still key to good fiction.

Special Guest Author: Wynter Daniels

And now for something completely different...as Monty Python used to say. I'm featuring another writer, today.


Biography

Wynter Daniels is the naughty alter ego of contemporary romance author Dara Edmondson She lives in Central Florida with her husband of more than twenty years and their two nearly grown children. They are all the slaves of two very demanding cats. After careers in marketing and the salon industry, Wynter’s wicked prose begged to be set free. You can find her steamy contemporary romances at EllorasCave.com.

Website: http://www.wynterdaniels.com/

Excerpt:

An Excerpt From: TROPICAL EXPOSURE
Copyright © WYNTER DANIELS, 2010
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

Chapter One

Marin Shay stared through her barred bedroom window and watched a man dressed all in black get out of a limousine in the circular drive. Over the estate’s high wall she glimpsed a dozen or so tall news van antennae. Backing away from the glass, she let the heavy curtain fall into place.

Those tabloid people with their long-distance lenses never relented. Wasn’t it enough that they’d splashed her dirty laundry over the covers of their newspapers and magazines for years? Did they have to know every minute detail of her life?

Didn’t matter now. Soon enough she’d be on her way to her yearly escape. No paparazzi, no scripts or directors, no cameras flashing in her face. And no entertainment empire to run.

A gentle knock tore her attention to the task at hand. She slipped on a curly blonde wig resembling her natural hair. “Yes?”

Joseph, her newest bodyguard, poked his head into the room. “They’re ready, Miss Shay.”

“Thank you.” She managed a smile, although she suspected Joseph would eventually sell any information he’d glean from working for her. A former maid had fetched a five-figure bounty for a pair of Marin’s panties on eBay just weeks ago. Her last hairdresser had auctioned off clippings of her hair. The obsession with anything and everything she’d ever touched or worn baffled her.

And that was precisely why no one in her employ had all the details of her travel plans. The two weeks of privacy were well worth the four flights, the dozen disguises, the hours she spent making her own arrangements under aliases. She’d even paid two decoys this time, rather than her usual one.

Unable to resist, she teased back the edge of the curtain again and observed a woman who looked amazingly like her slip inside the limo. Minutes later, as the car cleared the gate, most of the news vans hurried after like hungry dogs chasing a scrap of meat.

She couldn’t contain her curiosity at the spectacle in the driveway. The other decoy—cloaked in Marin’s own black designer cape and oversized sunglasses—hurried into an SUV with dark tinted windows. The driver loaded four Louis Vuitton bags into the back. As the sun set the vehicle pulled away and headed toward the gate. The remaining news vans took the bait and sped after it. Perfect.

She sucked in a relieved breath as all the tension evaporated. After removing the wig, she glanced in the mirror and hardly recognized her own reflection. She’d never colored her own hair before, had no idea how easy it was. Flat ironing had taken less than twenty minutes. Her signature blonde curls were gone, replaced by straight brown hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. Dark contacts and wire-rim glasses hid her blue eyes and her complete lack of makeup made her look like a teenager.

She tucked her hair into a cloth turban then slipped a wide-brimmed hat over that, making sure no stray brown locks escaped. The staff didn’t need to know she masqueraded as a brunette. Satisfied with her transformation, she strode from the room and headed to the mansion’s service entrance.

Fifteen hours and four flights later, she climbed out of an ordinary-looking rental car in Roatan,Honduras, with the men she’d hired to be both bodyguards and decoy husband and son. No matter that she and both men were around thirty, or that the bigger one looked at least part African-American. With a little Hollywood magic she’d picked up from her years in the business, they appeared to be a fifty-ish couple with their twenty-ish son.

The place she’d rented appeared exactly as it had in the pictures. Three stories of pastel blue dollhouse directly on the beach with a balcony wrapped around each level. She inhaled a breath scented with saltwater and flowers as she took in the view. More orchids than she’d ever seen grew in flowerbeds near the entrance. Mountains to the north contrasted with the ocean to the south. Several coconut palms flanked one side of the house, providing a little privacy from any telephoto lenses, although no one could possibly guess she was here. Even the bodyguards didn’t know who she was and hopefully had bought her story about being an heiress on vacation in need of privacy. One spoke passable Spanish, which might come in handy if she decided to venture into town, though she probably wouldn’t.

Inside the house, she waited for the men to close all the blinds before taking off the salt-and-pepper wig. The heavy, confining cage of her world fell away. She found her old, easy smile, the one she’d worn before fame had transformed her. The need to scrub herself clean of Hollywood’s poison suddenly overwhelmed her. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m dying for a shower.”

“Me too. But I’ll wait until you’re through in case the water pressure is a problem.” Tony, the man who’d played her son, gave her a wink. Most women would kill to have those thick, dark eyelashes. “The right amount of pressure is important.” His gaze dropped to her breasts, then rose to her eyes.

Awareness hummed through her, hardening her nipples to painful points. Automatically, she folded her arms over her chest. Lifting her chin higher, she pulled in a breath infused with the scent of his spicy cologne and male sweat. She grinned, wondered if he could take what he dished out. “I just hope it’s big enough.” She made a show of staring at the bulge in his pants. “I like big ones.”

That elicited another wink, this one more playful—and more inviting. “I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.”


Buy Link: http://www.jasminejade.com/p-8279-tropical-exposure.aspx

Making Grammar Clear

I’ve been thinking a lot about confusion abounds about passive voice, and I think it may be because of several related topics. These related topics have subtle relationships and because of that, they can cause muddled thinking. As a result, they often cause folks to give muddled advice or request imprecise changes to manuscripts.

This was brought to my attention because another member of a group I belong to, was chastised for using "passive voice" when in fact, she had not used passive voice at all. It occurred to me that often, editors use "passive voice" as a catch-all for several different constructions that may bug them. So I thought I'd make a stab at clarifying this muddy area.


So here are the related items that need to be separated and clarified.



Direct versus Indirect: Sentence Construction Element


Passive voice versus Active Voice: Grammatical Element indicating the object of the action


Passive versus aggressive characters: Human Behavior often exhibited by speech patterns



Direct versus Indirect


This is the one I blame the most for muddled thoughts about passive voice. Most of the time, when an editor, contest judge, or critique partner says your writing is too passive, the real problem may be a propensity to use indirect, rather than direct language.



“I wish you’d stop doing that.” Indirect.


“Stop doing that!” Direct.



Both are active voice. One is not better than the other, because they would be said by entirely different characters.



The first may be the perfect dialog for a generally passive character. You may have noticed that people who tend to have passive personalities often use more indirect language. These people, and characters, may have difficulty asserting themselves. Or they may have been taught that it is rude to make overt demands. And more females than males will speak in an indirect fashion. Females are generally more passive than males. Of course, this is a generality, but think about how women and men express themselves and you will see a general trend in speech that reflects overall behavior patterns.

So you can indicate such a behavior pattern by the use of indirect language, regardless of the sex of the character. 

And you might even need to incorporate passive voice.
And perhaps this is why there may be confusion, because a generally passive personality type is also prone to the use of indirect language. And more prone to the use of passive voice. Because passive voice can be used (indirectly) to say: “This wasn’t my fault, it was done TO ME, rather than ME DOING IT!”

The cry of the eternal victim.


Nonetheless, despite their relationships, these are all very different concepts. And when you write, you need to be conscious of the differences in order to interpret reader, editor, and contest judge comments. Often, readers, editors and contest judges are unable to distinguish between these indirect, passive, simple past tense, and the portrayel of a passive personality. So folks often confuse passive voice with indirect language.

But sometimes, a character really is passive and prone to the use of indirect language. And sometimes that indirect language incorporates the use of passive voice.

So it is not evil.


And in case folks need a quick refresher about passive, it is NOT identified by use of the word "was". That's like saying you can identify grass because it's green.
No everything that is green is grass. Not all grass is green.
Not every sentence containing "was" is passive, and not all passive voice sentences contain "was".

Passive voice is ONLY identified by determining the direction of the action.
If the subject of the sentence does the action, it is active.
If the subject of the sentence is the object/recipient of the action, it is passive.

She was thinking.  Active voice.
She got hit by a bus. Passive voice. Colloquial, but passive.Anyway, I wrote this because it occurred to me that what this hapless writer's editor might have meant when she complained about passive voice, was really an effort to eliminate some indirect language (or wording) rather than specifically “passive voice”. And she just used the phrase “passive voice” as a sort of catch-all.

At least I hope so, because I hate to think that no one knows what passive voice is, anymore. That would make me very sad.

Working Late

Working late tonight watching over some computer rebuilds, so in between the boring bits, I thought I'd update my blog. I've been really bad about that lately…seems like each year goes faster and each day gets shorter and shorter. I'd like to talk to whoever is in charge of time and ask for days to be 36 hours instead of 24. There is just too much to do.

Spring has really exploded around here. The warblers are starting to sift through on their migration north, the first male hummingbird visited the feeder today, I got my vegetable garden started, and the azaleas are beginning to bloom. This year, I bought a white hosta—I didn't even know there were white hostas ('White Feather' to be exact) and that little critter has already sprouted a few leaves! I couldn't be more pleased. If it works out, I'll be putting in a bigger order next year to fill out our shady hosta garden.

We also bought another plum tree, so we have three now. Got that planted, and added two hazelnut trees, as well. In the veggie garden, I've got zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, peppers, and assorted herbs sprouting. And the roses are starting to bloom! Sure, the daffodils are almost done for the year—which makes me sad as I just love them—but the roses will make up the difference for perfume and color. I've got several bushes I need to dig up and move, so I've got to get going on that. They are in bad spots and need to go into more "rose friendly" beds.

With all that work outside, I haven't had much time to do as much writing as I would like. But I'm making progress. My next Regency romance/mystery, The Bricklayer's Helper, will be out Aug 6, 2010, which will be here soon! I've got one more round of edits for my paranormal book, Vampire Protector, and it's due to be released in the Nov/Dec 2010 timeframe. I love that time of year for paranormals.

There is a long tradition in English literature of ghost stories being published in Nov & Dec, and you have All Hallows Eve (Halloween) and those long, dark nights leading up to mid-winter… What time could be more perfect for the release of a paranormal? I know I'm always dying for a good, creepy story in December. I love to curl up in front of the fire with the lights turned low, a cup of mulled cider, and a chilling ghost story. My favorite book, though, in that category is still The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I've never read a more frightening ghost story, and no matter how many times I re-read it, it never loses that edge.

Right now, I'm working on several stories, including another paranormal based upon one of the characters in Vampire Protector. I'm editing my first draft right now, with hopes of getting it into decent shape for submission to my editor at The Wild Rose Press. I'd like to submit it before the end of summer, but that may be too optimistic, as I'm facing quite a bit of overtime this summer for my day job (watching computers rebuild themselves, ho hum).

I'm also editing another Regency romance/mystery—the first draft is done; and I even have a contemporary mystery that I'm writing. I've only gotten about 4 chapters written, but I'm having a lot of fun with it. It is set on the coast of North Carolina because I just love that area and could not resist. If it was good enough for Blackbeard, it's good enough as a setting for a contemporary mystery!

That's it for now—have to get back to work (grumble, grumble).

Best wishes and sweet dreams!
Amy

Spring Tasks

Now that spring is here, I didn't do much in the way of writing-related tasks this last weekend. However, I did critique three chapters for other writers and revise one of my own chapters for a new mystery I'm working on.

I just couldn't stay inside.

So I planted six hostas in my shade garden, including one white one. I can't wait to see how that new one turns out—it should be gorgeous. They are planted in a bed that borders the woods behind our house, and there are a few dogwoods interspersed with hostas. I'm also thinking of adding some ferns, but we'll see how it looks this summer.

And we are expanding our tiny "orchard" and I added a plum tree, so now we have 3 plum trees. Also added two hazelnut trees. My husband and I love hazelnuts, so we're anxious to see if they prosper in our area.

I also added 3 blueberry bushes, as well as a few more bulbs in our flower garden, including several oriental/Asiatic lily hybrids, and a fuchsia bush. To anchor the end of my herb garden, I added a rosemary to replace the one my husband inadvertently killed last year.

Also got a couple of tomato plants inserted into one of those "upside down" gardens, and planted a pepper plant with some cilantro sticking out of the top.

Last weekend, I started 142 small pots of seeds, including the usual suspects: peppers, squash, tomatoes, various herbs, and cantaloupe. Some of the seeds have already started sprouting, so my next chore will be to hack a way under the huge rose arch that serves as the entrance to the veggie garden. The roses have really taken over, so I've got to open up a path under them, clean out the veggie garden, and get some of those early seeds, like the squash, put to bed.

Finally, I bought a fresh, 5lb bag of sugar because sometime this week, the hummingbirds will show up.

We got a nice rain last night to give all my new plants a good drink. The sun is out now, and I wish I didn't have to get back to work, because the garden is calling to me.

Lots to do out there!

Groups and Conflict

Groups and Group Think

I have had cause to think about group dynamics over the last week or so. Some of what I've learned is usable in the creation of fiction. Oh, it's nothing new or brilliant. And it's nothing that other writers have not used to their advantage.

Nonetheless, it is useful to me to document what I've learned.

If you want to read how other, much more brilliant writers have recognized and used group dynamics in their writings, take a look at Ayn Rand. She was very fond of writing about the implications of being the odd man out who has a brilliant idea that is unacceptable to Society (the group) at large.

Many writers have written about the loner, the odd man out.

This last week, I got to be the "odd man out" and suddenly, understood on a very personal level, what group dynamics really encompass.

I encourage other writers to think about this, as it can be a powerful concept in the hero's journey.

The hero frequently starts the story as someone outside the group, be it Society or just his family. The journey is often his (or her) attempt to rejoin Society. Sometimes s/he is successful, sometimes success comes from recognizing that s/he is doing better outside of the group.

So here is what I have learned, the painful way, about groups and group dynamics.

Groups encourage commonality of thought. At the beginning, the group will strive for consensus. The dominant member(s) will espouse ideas that are adopted by the group, thereby cementing relationships. This allows members to feel they understand each other and are all of a "common mind" which heightens the feeling of cohesion and understanding.

Once this happens, the group's "position" is cemented. They understand and accept each other.

At this point, if new members try to join the group, or members within the group, get a "new idea" or idea that is contrary to "group think", then the group pulls back. They look for a reaction of any long-standing members of the group to accept or refute the new idea, and they will support existing members of the group in order to maintain group cohesion.

If the new ideas do not come from leaders or well-established members, they are perceived as threatening. The person with the idea is reviled and thrust out of the group, because they threaten the stability of the group.

We have seen this time, and time again, throughout history. People with new ideas are ridiculed until the idea becomes commonplace and adopted by the leaders and members of Society, or groups within the Society.

This is where the conflict occurs and where authors can make use of such "natural conflicts" to build their story.

If a hero or heroine honestly knows the difference between fact and theory, and believes in "the truth" then that character may be in serious conflict with their social group or Society at large.

I have recently been in that position—where I was a new member of a group and showed ideas (with proof) that contradicted the established norms within the group. I was reviled and thrust out. And I re-learned what I had read about in Ayn Rand's writings, about the actions of the group versus the individual. You cannot hope to change ideas overnight, even if you have proof.

If you really wish to change group think, then you must convince the leaders that new ideas are THEIR ideas and allow months, if not years, for these new concepts to become accepted by the group at large. Think of how long it took Society to rationally discuss Darwin's theories.

It was a pivotal moment for me, because I realized how powerful group psychology is, and how this conflict can be the driving force in a novel.

Some of us are simply not meant to be members of a group, because we are unwilling to accept "group think" in the face of actual evidence and facts. Some of us will always be outsiders, because we believe in trusting the facts instead of hearsay and "belief". We're not team players unless the rest of the team is willing to test new ideas and accept them when the facts support them. What is interesting is that even scientific groups eventually become resistant to new ideas and can refute facts, although they are, generally, quicker to (eventually) accept new ideas if the evidence and proof is overwhelming.

Theories are theories. Much of what humans "know" falls into the category of theory. A theory is an attempt to explain the data collected through testing, but it is still open to interpretation.

Facts are facts. A fact is indisputable. There are surprisingly few facts. Much of what we *think* we know is actually just a theory that can be overturned if additional data is collected that refutes the theory.

There is a difference between theory and fact. And then there is opinion an all those other things…

So group dynamics can make an incredible source of conflict for your characters. There is a reason why Ayn Rand's books still sell. Whether you agree with her or not, it is still a powerful idea to write about a character that refuses to nod his head and go along with the rest of the sheep, just to be acceptable as a member of the group.

Some of us are not meant to be part of groups, though we always regret it. We want to be a member, but we are too willing to accept review new information and adapt to new ideas that may threaten other members of the group.

This probably makes no sense. But I'm already thinking about a character who, regardless of the pain of rejection, cannot in good conscience allow herself to believe what the rest of the group believes, just because that is the acceptable thing to do.

Troubles

Was thinking about my post last night about "showing versus telling" and how brilliant Crusie, Mayer, and Berney are in unveiling the characters in their books from page 1, and it reminded me of something.
Get your characters in trouble from page 1 and then make the trouble worse.
That's what they do. But here's the thing. Instead of random trouble that could happen to anyone, Crusie, Mayer, and Berney get their characters into specifically the kind of trouble that's generated by the character's flaws. And what is really cool, is that the flaw is often just the flip side, or by-product, of what is also best in them. How cool is that? Sort of like the old Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk is split into the "Good Kirk" and the "Bad Kirk". You can't have one without the other. You can't have a good trait without the bad. A person might have a violent streak—which is bad—but if they use that to defend the weak or save someone, well, that's good. And that's the kind of thing you can build a plot around.
Those gifted writers make it seem ridiculously easy, but I can tell you. It's a b!tch to write.
It means you have to understand your character's strengths and weaknesses, and then build a story around those strengths and weaknesses. Not just launch your characters into a situation that could happen to any old character. You can't just squeeze them into a plot to suit you. The plot has to suit the character's character. ;-)
I tend to forget (and maybe others do too) that what makes a good story, and great literature, is the characters. In fact, if you look at the classics, the plots are often goofy or non-existent—certainly not always memorable. It's the characters—how they are portrayed, what they do and say—that makes a book great. Only rarely does a wonderful book pop up that has a great plot and interchangeable/forgettable characters. Because we don't read for the plot, we read for the characters. We're all hopeless voyeurs, driving by houses at night, staring in the windows the authors lit for us. We don't care so much about the houses, but we're fascinated by the characters glimpsed eating, laughing, or crying, just past the shadows of the curtains.
Good luck—it's a daunting task, but well worth the endeavor.

Great Writing Techniques

This is actually "showing versus telling" phase II (or whatever phase I'm on at this point), but I didn't want to confuse blog titles. And I'll say upfront that I'm going to get a little cagey with references because although I'd like to include massive amounts of text from a couple of books, I'm afraid of getting the heck sued out of me.
So bottom line, get the following two books if you're interested in examples of total mastery of the technique of "showing".
Gutshot Straight, by Lou Berney
Agnes and the Hitman, by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer

You only have to read the first chapter of both, or either, of these books to understand this entire concept. It's right there, in brilliant writing examples.

What is "showing"? "Showing" is, in essence, telling a character's story.

That's it. Simple, right? Well, not exactly. And a of folks get the concept all mixed up with the mechanics of writing.

"Showing" is not your writing style, the grammar you use, sentence construction, or use/non-use of adverbs and adjectives. It is, quite simply, story-telling. (Which is sort of awkward, since we say "story telling" but it really should be "story showing", I guess, considering that's what writers are really trying to achieve.)

This difficulty in finding an exact, easily understood definition is exactly why it's so massively difficult to teach to others, or even describe in any coherent fashion. And why I keep going back over it, time and time again as I try to work it out in my own little pea-brain. But then I read Crusie/Mayer and Berney—and Berney really brought it home to me. I was completely blown away by the first chapter. It is the most beautiful example of what you should be doing that I have ever seen. Ever.

The first chapter is where most writers go "wrong". They are so anxious to plunge their characters into the story, that they try to tell us what the main characters are like. Hence "telling". For example, a writer may say: Shake was a smart wheel man who gallantly took the rap for his boss and ended up in prison.

That sentence is "telling" the reader that Shake is smart, gallant, and got jail time. The reader might justifiably argue, "How smart could Shake be if he wound up in prison?" And the reader would be justified, because there is no evidence presented indicating that Shake is smart. Or gallant.

So…Berney didn't make that mistake. He starts Gutshot Straight with Shake involved in a card game in prison. And Shake is playing cards with a tough psycho in jail for manslaughter. During the course of the game, Shake reveals move by move, his astute, experienced judgment—"showing" us that he's smart—in a way. And it shows us Shake's fatal flaws in judgment that keep putting him in bad situations—like jail.

The card game lets Berney reveal the kind of man Shake is, without long, drawn out explanations about how Shake could be wily and shrewd, but still stupid enough to get into trouble, repeatedly.

The really, really cool thing about this intro chapter: not only is it a brilliant portrayal of Shake's character, but Berney does two other things with this scene. Shake is playing cards with a real badass, and Shake (unwisely) wins. And Shake is two days away from getting out of jail, so if he gets into a fight, he won't get out-even if he manages to survive.

"So what?" you ask. I'll tell you—the tension is unbelievable. You want Shake to win, because the other guy is a vicious idiot. But if Shake wins, he may not live long enough to get out of prison. Shake has to do some quick thinking. So…not only does this scene introduce us to Shake, but it ramps up the tension! You're terrified that Shake is going to get the cr@p beaten out of him.

And wait! There's more. We don't just have this scene and then move into the "real story" which takes place after Shake is released from prison. Berney takes elements from this scene and those elements & characters become important again, later.

Holy moly, Batman! Berney is really workin' it…hard.

I'm going to give you just a little of the first part—hopefully not enough to infringe on any copyrights or get myself into trouble. I'll insert a few comments to help clarify how this text is working in the "show versus tell" arena.

Shake, on the other hand, was not just a rangy white guy up on another GTA, forty-two years old and feeling every minute of it. But he'd survived the last fifteen months here at Mule Creek and wasn't going to roll over just because some pumped-up, puffed-up con glared at him.

{NOTE: If Berney stopped here, he might have devolved into "telling" but the scene continues to show you exactly what Shake is made of.}

He called Vader's bet. "I'll pay to see that last card," he said, and gave Vader a friendly smile.

Missouri Bob, the dealer, took his time with the turn. Missouri Bob's hand was tooled with crude blue tattoos—roses and rose stems and thorns.

Finally, dramatically, he showed them the last card.

It's Shake's actions that show who he is, not the miniscule bit of description there in the first paragraph. We see his strengths, and more importantly, the flaws that drive the entire story. If Shake wasn't so smart, he'd be dead. But likewise, if he wasn't such a smartass, he also wouldn't wind up in so much trouble.

That's at least part of Gutshot Straight.

Crusie and Mayer are also masters extraordinaire of the art of showing the reader the character of the characters. In the very first paragraph of Agnes and the Hitman, we're shown Agnes's character in another scene that like Berney's, does triple duty. Like Berney, we're immediately thrust into a situation that shows the essence of Agnes's strengths and weaknesses.

We immediately like Agnes because she's defending her fiancé in a conversation that gradually reveals how unworthy her fiancé is of her affection. And she's got a sense of humor about it. Here are the first few sentences.

One fine August evening in South Carolina, Agnes Crandall stirred raspberries and sugar in her heavy nonstick frying pan and defended her fiancé to the only man she'd ever trusted.

It wasn't easy.

"Look, Joey, Taylor's not that bad." Agnes cradled the phone between her chin and shoulder turned down her CD player…

Now, if Crusie and Mayer were less adept writers, they might have resorted to describing Agnes and telling you that Agnes was a nice woman in a relationship with someone who was not right for her. Instead, we get a very brief conversation that is almost immediately (by page 2) interrupted by a nut with a gun breaking in to steal Agnes's dog. And she bops him on the head with her frying pan. (By the way, this is a hilarious scene, in a sick sort of way.)

Which shows us that while you may have thought she was a wuss stuck in a relationship with a man using her, she's not. Because she reacts quickly, and quite thoroughly, in defense of her dog. Gee, she really is kind. J She's got a dog. (That's sort of an inside joke—so many writers who have difficulty writing sympathetic heroines are often told to have the heroine own a pet of some kind…) But wait! There's more! Agnes has anger management problems and has been seeing a psychiatrist for therapy! Wow! Just like Shake, Agnes has major issues which are directly responsible for what happens in the story.

The character flaws are the story.

So we get to see Agnes in action—literally—which reveals a quick-thinking, smart woman, who has a lousy fiancé, and someone is after her dog. All in one and a half pages. Just like Berney, we get to see the hero/heroine behave in a way that perfectly reveals her strengths and weaknesses, creates tension (what is going to happen to Agnes' in her confrontation with the gun-toting idiot?) and sets up information & characters that come into play, later, in the major plotline.

Now that's "showing". No wasted time getting the tension going, and no telling the reader what he or she should think about the characters. The characters show us what to think about them by their actions.
-------That's all I have on that subject for this evening.

Awkward Sentences

I was just trying to avoid a flame war about passive voice when I happened to pull an old, much-beloved book from my shelf, "The Last Word on the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense". So many people are was-phobic these days for absolutely no reason at all. And insist on confusing passive voice with the use of "was".

Anyway, I wrote about that a few blogs ago. There are many fine grammar references covering that topic in nauseating detail. Suffice to say passive voice has next-to-nothing to do with the use of the verb "to be". Passive voice is strictly about action. Active voice = the subject performs the action. Passive voice = The subject is the recipient (object) of the action.

So, I was reading this book again because it has very interesting information about how language is used. If you write, you really need to understand your medium and how people (your characters) use language. Books like the verbal self-defense ones give you insight into how language is used with a bit of grammar thrown in.

It's brilliant for coming up with speech patterns for bad guys or even those secondary characters who may not be all that nice, after all. Like the heroine's evil boss. Or the hero's rampaging mother.

What fascinated me, and gave me an A-HA! moment was a section on some of the things that make sentences awkward. Now, there are lots of things that can contribute to awkwardness, such as simply not understanding how to form sentences. But this assumes you do know how to form a decent sentence. But what you may not be thinking about is the number of words between the subject and the predicate phrases. If there are more than nine words, your short-term memory may have difficulty remembering which subject goes with which predicate, leading to re-reading and awkwardness.

Let me explain.
Here's your standard, complex sentence.
Beth told Larry that mom forgot the Theatre was closed on Sundays.

That breaks down to these embedded sentences:
"The Theatre was closed on Sundays" is embedded in "mom forgot the Theatre was closed on Sundays".
And that last sentence is embedded in "Beth told Larry that mom forgot the Theatre was closed on Sundays".

Most people can handle that--it's basically three sentences stuck together.

But if any of those pieces is longer than nine words--then we tend to forget what the subject was before we find the predicate. That makes the sentence awkward. For example:

That mom forgot to bake the cake even after we called to remind her several times and even sent her three e-mails about it made Beth furious.

The subject is "That mom forgot" and the predicate is "made Beth furious". You have to read through 21 words between "forgot" and "made" and remember "That mom forgot" to make sense of that sentence. That's hard for our short-term memory, and leads to folks having to read the sentence twice to pull it together.

Although this rewrite isn't great, either, it is easier on the reader:
It made Beth furious that mom forgot to bake the cake even after we called to remind her several times and even sent her three e-mails about it.

That's not as awkward since the subject and predicate are slam-bang next to each other--making it easy on our memories.

Another part of this is, best case scenario, you should try to make your sentential subject seven-to-nine words long or fewer.

Oops, forgot to define "sentential subject". Sentential subjects are basically subjects that contain another (embedded) sentence (or even two or three sentences). For example, That mom forgot made Beth furious. The subject is "That mom forgot". That means the subject = a sentence, making it sentential.
Versus a simple subject like: Wine makes Beth drunk. Where "wine" is the subject all by itself. :-) (And a very tasty subject, too!)

Anyway, I find language fascinating, even if I'm not the best grammarian in the world.
The interesting thing is that I find the best nuggets of information on grammar in books that are not about grammar at all, but about psychology and the use of language. Or books on how to spot liars and deception.

It's all about communication and language.

Very interesting, even if I do say so, myself!

Showing, Not Telling

A while back I mentioned the old rule for writers: show, don't tell.
Then I ran across a book, "Gutshot Straight" by Lou Berney, that was a perfect example of showing and not telling.
It was as if some mysterious being said, "Oh, you want a perfect example? Here, try this."
This book grabs you by the throat and doesn't let you go. The main character, Shake, is in prison and about to be released. Now Berney had quite a job in front of him--he had to make you like Shake and plunge you as quickly as possible into the story.
If he had just described Shake as smart, told us a little about him, and then described the release from prison, it would have been, well, blah. A reader might ask, how smart could Shake have been if he was in prison in the first place? And considering what comes next in the book, the reader might decide Shake was not so smart after all. The reader's interest just might not be there. And it would have been boring.
So Berney could simply not just tell describe Shake and his situation. And he didn't. He shows it in a brilliant way. It's funny and tense.
Our first glimpse of Shake is in prison, just a few days before he's to be released. He's engaged in a card game with some of the toughest guys in prison. And he wins.
He wins because he's great at reading people and smart--but not smart enought to stay out of trouble. Because now, the toughest people in prison are angry at him and try to pick a fight with him, knowing that if he gets into trouble, he won't be released. This is when we see how creative Shake can be, in the ingenious ways in which he avoids getting killed and still get released on time.
The story of Shake's life, as it turns out. He's smart, but not smart enough to stay out of trouble.
And it's all done through dialog and action. The reader sees Shake in action. We aren't told what he is like. We see it from what the character does and says.
The reader is immediately engaged and sympathetic. We all KNOW people get beaten up in prison. People die. People get in trouble and don't get released on time. We know the danger and we like Shake because he was smart and had the guts to win the game. We're tense right from the beginning.

The really cool thing is that these initial pages aren't just about showing you Shake's character and getting your heart revved up. Because the situation is woven into the story. Facts from this chapter have an impact later, and what you learn about Shake's character in this scene is expanded upon as the novel progresses.
This is brilliant.  It's what writing is all about. It's characterization at its finest.  The character drives the plot--because Shake makes bad decisions (it's how he wound up in prison to begin with) but has the courage and intelligence to work his way out again...mostly. And isn't that really what life is all about? Trying to survive your mistakes?
If you get a chance to read at least the first chapter of "Gutshot Straight" you will have the most perfect example of "showing" I have ever run across.
Bravo, Mr. Berney.
I just hope I can do as well.

Desperate for a Holiday Gift Suggestion?

Holiday Gift Suggestion
It's that time of year when desperation increases to a fever pitch as you struggle to complete your collection of gifts. I recently spent several hours--which turned into several days--searching the web for ideas.

So I humbly offer up this as a possible alternative: a cookbook. Or perhaps a cookbook along with some cooking utensils such as a muffin tin or cookie sheet. And there are always new items in the kitchen section. I know I recently became fascinated by all the silicone items for baking.

And since the holidays are a time of year devoted to friends, family, and nostalgia, what could be better than an old fashioned cookbook? The Rowley Cookbook is a collection of recipes dating from 1916 through 1960 and includes many old favorites that most adults will remember fondly.

I transcribed the recipes for the book from my grandmother's old ledger that she used as a cookbook after she got married. Much of it was, unfortunately, written in washable ink that had faded or disappeared altogether. However, thanks to new technology I was able to scan, enlarge, and see the actual indentations in the page left by the pen strokes and thereby recreate even those recipes that appeared to be gone forever.

Just reading through the table of contents brings back warm memories of all the delicious treats grandma made for us. During the holidays, she baked boxes and boxes of cookies and candies, and throughout the season, the house was filled with the aroma of vanilla, cinnamon and chocolate.

Some recipes are intended for the holidays, such as the Jule Kaga recipe collected by my grandmother from her Swedish and Norwegian friends in Wisconsin.  The list of holiday recipes in the book includes: Jule Kaga; Holiday Fruit Cake; Christmas Dixies; three varied recipes for Christmas Cookies; Sand Bakkels (2 versions); Spritz Bakkels; Kolacky and Rosettes.

Below is a recipe for sugar-coated muffins that was always a favorite of mine. It is particularly wonderful to wake up on Christmas morning to find the kitchen filled with the scent of cinnamon and these warm muffins on the counter. It was almost better than the gifts under the tree.

So if your desperation is reaching monumental proportions, how about a muffin tin and a cookbook?
Or better yet, a muffin tin, a paper bag full of sugar-coated muffins, and the cookbook that contains the recipe?

And just to wet your appetite, here is the recipe for Sugar-coated Muffins:

SUGAR-COATED MUFFINS


2 c. flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
2-½ tsp. baking powder

(Sift the 3 preceding ingredients together)

3/4 tsp. salt
1 egg
3/4 c. milk
1/3 c. shortening

Mix together and bake at 350° for approximately20 minutes.

1 c. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ c. butter

Mix sugar and cinnamon in a sack or plastic bag. Melt butter and drop muffins in melted butter and then shake in the sack of sugar & cinnamon.

Happy holidays and best wishes!
I'm going to do some baking now.  I've made myself hungry...

Myths and Show vs Tell

Lately I was witness to an online writing class that propagated some misinformation and made my head explode. So I had to write a "rebuttal". The class was theoretically on "show versus tell" which is the writer axiom that you should "show" your reader the action or scene versus just telling them. More on that later.

So, anyway, this teacher equated telling with passive voice (NO relationship exists) and worse, equated passive voice with the use of past progressive verbs (NO relationship exists).

I was appalled because the creation and spread of "writer myths" only serves to confuse ingénue authors. It is a disservice and gives other online presenters a bad name.

So I am picking up the role of the grumpy grammarian—and this is a role to which I'm ill-suited. I'm not particularly good at this either. I mean, I've never been able to make sense of Strunk and White's "Elements of Style" so who am I to set myself up as an expert?

Well, I do check and double-check my information. And I've included the references I used to write this blog. They are at the bottom.

Note: a Tell is a gambling term meaning an involuntary or unconscious gesture, expression, or indication of what someone is thinking/planning. A tell telegraphs what an opponent has or is about to do.

In this article, a Tell is the hint or shortcut way to identify something. It should not be confused with "telling" as in "Show versus Tell". If you know what I mean. J

Here goes.

Myth 1: Show versus Tell

Definition:
Telling is bad, showing is good. Sometimes. Sometimes you need to tell when you just need to move the story along (or have length limits). Telling is to simply tell the reader what the character is feeling, i.e. she felt angry, rather than showing the reader, i.e. she screamed, stamped her foot, and threw a frying pan at his head in a burst of rage.

This has absolutely nothing to do with passive voice, verb tenses or the use of the much maligned word "was".

The Tell for Show versus Tell

Telling: Telling is almost always just an adjective or adverb, and it is a word or two long. Or a brief phrase. So it's really short. That's how you identify when you are telling and not showing.

Showing: Long, long, long. Takes at least a sentence and usually an entire paragraph to adequately show. May actually involve several paragraphs. It is how you "prove" the character is feeling/seeing/thinking something.

Examples

Telling, ex. 1

Terrified, she struggled with her assailant.

Telling, ex. 2

The garden was beautiful.

In the first sentence, you're telling us that she's terrified, but you've shown us nothing to make us feel her terror or prove that she's terrified. The writer might think that it's so obvious that she should be terrified if she's under attack that this brief description "says it all". But that's the seduction of telling and why it's so easy to tell versus show. Because it's efficient, particularly when dealing with the obvious.

This may be useful when you need to move a scene along, or when the scene only involves secondary, unimportant characters. But you can't always tell or your readers will never become engrossed enough in your characters to care about them. Your story will fall flat because you don't explore your character's views, feelings, perceptions, or surroundings.

In the second example, you're telling the reader that the garden is beautiful, but giving us no proof or indication that it is beautiful. Why is it beautiful? What's in the garden that makes it beautiful?

Showing

She panted in short gasps. Her arms shook as she gripped his wrist and pushed it upward. But he was strong—stronger than her—and his blade descended, closer and closer. Fear rippled through her as beads of icy sweat rolled down her sides. Her damp hands slipped a fraction. The tip was just an inch from her face. She was going to die. She could almost feel the cold, sharp metal plunging through her vulnerable eye into her brain. She blinked as if her fragile eyelid could stop that blade. Twisting, she desperately tightened her aching, trembling muscles, using her last ounce of strength to hold him off.

And so on.

In the second example, a description of the flowers in the garden, the style of gardening, and your character's opinion of the garden—what aspects she likes, for example—would show that the garden is beautiful and make it showing instead of telling.

See how long that showing paragraph was? That's the tell for showing. You are showing the reader how the character is feeling, why she is feeling it, what she's doing, and what she is thinking.

And it has absolutely nothing to do with verb tenses or passive voice.

Myth 2: "Was" + "-ing" verb is Telling

The use of was + a verb ending in –ing has absolutely nothing to do with showing versus telling—which involves how you describe your character's emotions or paint the scene. Equating "was" + "-ing" with telling is an incredibly misleading statement and perhaps the teacher of the online writing class just got carried away. Or said something she didn't really mean. It is perfectly acceptable to incorporate varied sentences including "was" + "-ing" verb forms while showing. Ironically, it would actually be hard to incorporate "was" + "-ing" verb forms into something that would be "telling" as opposed to "showing".

She was reading a book when she was attacked.

That's actually neither showing nor telling. The showing/telling point comes when you describe her reaction to this.

Telling

Terrified, she ran away.

Showing

She heard a noise and glanced up from her book, heart pounding. A man was running toward her. Light glinted off the knife in his hand. Who? How did he get in? Moving without thinking, she threw the book at him as she scrambled to her feet and sprinted toward the kitchen. If she could reach the back door, she could escape—she just had to make it make it that far. Just a few yards to the door…

Unfortunately, the online teacher also compounded her misleading statement by claiming that was + a verb ending in –ing is passive voice which it is not. It is a progressive form of a verb showing a continuing action (versus an action which stopped already). As in the above example (which is showing) where: A man was running toward her.

And it isn't the verb form that identifies passive voice.

In fact, was + a verb ending in –ing is almost never passive. The only way to make it passive is to add the word "being" in between was and the verb as in: She was being hit.

Myth 3: Passive Voice and "Was" + Verb Ending in "-ing"

Definition: "Was" + verb ending in "-ing" is past progressive. Past progressive means the action is continuing. This verb form is often used to indicate some continuing action that occurs concurrent with some other action, i.e. She was thinking of work when the bus hit her. That sentence is active, not passive. The action of thinking was underway, continuing and concurrent with the action of the bus hitting her.

To break it down:

She was thinking of work when the bus hit her.

Active voice for both clauses: "She was thinking" and the adverbial clause "when the bus hit her".

"She" is taking the action of "thinking".

In the adverbial clause, the "bus" is taking the action of "hitting" the object of the action, "her".

She was thinking of work when she was hit by the bus.

This complex sentence has an active component and a passive adverbial clause.

Active clause: "She" is taking the action of "thinking".

Passive adverbial clause: "She" is both the subject and the object of the action. The action is "hit" and the doer of the action is the "bus". But the "bus" is not the subject. "She" is the subject. So the recipient (object) of the action is also the subject. That is what makes it passive.

Note: in that sentence you probably want the passive construction to keep the focus of the reader on the woman, rather than switching focus to the bus. Who cares about the bus except in the aspect of what it did to the woman?

And "was" + "-ing" verbs are not and will never be tells for telling versus showing. Past progressive is related to how you construct your sentence, not what your sentence is describing. Showing versus telling is about what your sentences are describing, not how the sentences are constructed.

Myth 4: Passive Voice and "Was"

Definition: Passive voice is where the subject of the sentence is the recipient (object) of the action, rather than the doer of the action. It has to do with the subject/object of the verb, not the particular verb form used. "Was" is much maligned. Writers need to get over the idea that using "was" is bad or always indicative of passive voice.

And get over the idea that passive voice is always bad while active is good. This is only sometimes true. Sometimes you need passive voice to retain the focus on the subject (i.e. your character) rather than changing the focus to an unimportant object. However, the reasons to use passive voice aren't the subject of this blog.

The Tell for Passive Voice

Passive Voice: Passive is indicated by the subject. Is the subject doing the action or the recipient (object) of the action?

Another way to look at it

She was hitting the bus. This is active. It is also past progressive.
And most likely, no one got hurt. The object of the action is the bus.

She was hit by the bus. This is passive. It is past and passive. And it is this form that gives "was" a bad rap, and why so many people assume that when you see "was" it is passive. But as you can see, "was" isn't a good tell, because the real tell is if the subject is also the object of the action. The subject and the object of the action are both the woman.

You'll notice that in order to make it passive, you have to remove the –ing verb and replace it. Hinting that "was" + "-ing" is rarely a passive construction.

I've written previous blogs about passive, so I won't go further into it at this point.

And, as promised, here are the references I used in writing this blog:

"Instant English Handbook" by Madeline Semmelmeyer and Donald Bolander

"Harbrace College Handbook" by John Hodges and Mary Whitten

"Plain English Handbook" by J. Martyn Walsh and Anna Kathleen Walsh *This is my favorite

"Creating Character Emotions" by Ann Hood

Good luck and don't believe everything you read on the Internet. Not even me. J

Quickie Holiday Post

Just a quick, short holiday post as I'm trying to clean house and do all my chores in one day. Blogging is a great way to temporarily avoid housework.

We got our tree up--well, that sounds a lot more impressive than it is, because we just have a cheap little tree sans decorations, although I also got some cheap little clear plastic boxes with twinkly lights inside to be the "presents" around the tree. But at night it does look sweet. And if I get more ambitious, I might even put out some of my hundreds of other holiday decorations like little Santa candles and so on.

And yesterday, I spent some time making minature moss gardens to give as gifts.  The substrate is some old bark from trees decomposing in our woods, then I added the moss which grows everywhere here.

Finally, I added some more small fragments of bark to act as tiny tree stumps growing out of the mossy ground. They came out a lot better than I thought they would. For the jars themselves, I used some Weck canning jars. I ran out of the rubber gaskets to use them "for real" for canning, so I'm putting them to good use, now, in another way.

As far as care, well, they don't need much.  Just a little watering now and again and indirect light. The bigger jars were old potpourri jars that folks gave me over the year.  The largest jar has an additional "boulder" at the base of the "tree stumps" to give it a little more interest.

So if you're running out of ideas for gifts, this is one.  Of course, I'm also encouraging folks to get their very own copy of my cookbook, The Rowley Cookbook, available from Amazon.com.  It's got a bunch of old recipes that you probably won't find elsewhere, although there are plenty of the more common ones as well.  Most of the recipes are from the years of the Great Depression, so there are a lot of "hot dishes" (i.e. casseroles) that make the most of a few ingredients.

But one of the better reasons to buy it during the holiday season is the huge number of cookie and cake recipes.  My grandmother always baked boxes of cookies for the holidays--so many that the house had a delicious aroma of cinnamon and vanilla all through the Season.

I'm hoping to make a few of her recipes this year--since I'm being severely stricken with nostalgia. (I'm also stricken with a complete inability to spell, but that's another story.)

So have a wonderful holiday and enjoy the Season.

Warmest of wishes for the best year ever!

Amy

Research May Be Key

Before I get started with my main topic for this blog, I wanted to share some good news. Over the summer, I transcribed my grandmother's cookbook with nearly 200 recipes from 1916 through 1960. It's called The Rowley Cookbook, and it's now available, just in time for the holiday season from Amazon.com. It was a true labor of love and I'm very glad to have it published for all my family, friends, and anyone who enjoys good, home cooking.

It is interesting to talk to other authors, particularly about the research they do for their novels. I may have said this before, but I have noticed that those authors who do the most background work are often the ones who also "make it big". And this is true even for those authors who write complete fantasies like Harry Potter.

Fantasy writers spend months, if not years, developing their worlds and working out all the rules and inner workings of their universe. The more richly complex and yet consistent that setting is, the higher the quality of the story. And yet often, while the author spends a considerable amount of time working out that background, it may be only briefly visible to the reader.

Research is like that. You do a great deal—perhaps months of research—just to have one small reference ring true.

So a lot of writers decide to skim through the research, or perhaps decide it is simply not that important. For example, there are a great many writers who will write a historical and their research is simply reading other historical novels. They often say that modern readers find too much accuracy to be off-putting and that it produces a stilted, unreadable novel.

What they don't realize is that the research must be done to produce a setting for the characters that strikes the reader as true to life. You can't, for example, have a reader believe that your Regency heroine whips a revolver out of her petticoat and squeezes off five or six shots (depending upon the revolver). Revolvers weren't in common use until the middle of the 19^th century, around the time of the Civil War, although early models were available slightly before that. And there were oddities such as the pepper box earlier. However, the point is that it would be anachronistic to include a revolver in a Regency story.

And the inclusion or rather, exclusion, of anachronistic details so your book is accurate will not make a stilted, unreadable manuscript. Writers should not confuse the use of detailed accurate settings with the belief that accuracy equates to a boring story. What makes a stilted, boring story is stilted, boring dialogue, poor plotting, and cardboard characters.

This holds as true for contemporary as it does for historical books. The stories that end up hitting the best seller lists are those which are well grounded in a realistic setting. I believe this is why so many folks give (and get) the advice to "write what you know". That is, in essence, short hand for saying, do your research. If you are writing what you know, then one presumes you don't need to do as much research, since you've already, in essence, done it. You know it.

But it would be equally wise to say, "write whatever you wish as long as it's well-researched." And if it's fantasy, then plan out the rules to your universe to keep it consistent. That is the "research" for fantasy worlds.

Well, I'm repeating myself now so I'll stop. I really wrote this because I'm shortly planning on expanding my website with information I've collected in doing research for my latest work in progress, Deadliest Rose. Some of it is downright gross, because for some inexplicable reason, I've become absorbed in medical developments and techniques of the early 19^th century. But I find it fascinating and hope sometime soon to include some of my research on my website (http://www.amycorwin.com). If nothing else, it will help m keep track of information I may need in later novels.

That's all for this evening. Hope you are having a wonderful holiday season!

That Darn Writing Life

I'm working really hard on NaNoWriMo but so far have only written 22,000 out of the required 50,000. The book is going well, though, and I love the story. It's a historical mystery entitled Deadliest Rose, although I might rename it to, A Deadly Rose. I just hope to work in a few more twists and turns. The evil doer is probably pretty obvious, much to my chagrin, but it's really more of a suspense than a mystery so maybe that is okay. And you definitely don't want to receive a rose if you're a character in this story. J

Good News (If Any)

More like, all the bad news you can handle.

We've got a bad leak in one of the bathrooms and didn't realize it, so we're going to have to rip up all the flooring and replace it as it rotted out the wood. Heavy sigh. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, my washing machine and refrigerator both died and I had to replace those.

Then the power supply in my computer died and I had to replace that. Since one of the CD/DVD drives is also bad, I bit the bullet and ordered a new computer. I just hope my existing computer survives long enough for me to transfer my settings. I did back everything up, though—but it's a lot easier when I rebuild if I can just transfer the entire profile from the old computer to the new one.

Then…if I can sort of refurbish the old one, I may try to turn it into a primitive TiVo/DVR thing. That way, when it really does die, I won't care…too much. We've survived this long without a DVR. Anyway, it may be a way of using my investment in that computer—which was outrageously expensive and turned out to be a right lemon. (First the power button broke and I re-engineered a new one, I had to take the bezel off the front because the CD/DVD drives kept getting hung up on it, then the power supply went on the fritz, and then the 2^nd CD/DVD writer went bad…I mean, this computer was badly designed/engineered to begin with, anyway.)

What I'm Reading Now

I'm reading "Red Hot Lies" when I get a few seconds. So far, so good.

What I'm Writing Now

Working furiously on Deadliest Rose. Also just got the second rounds of edits for The Bricklayer's Helper and I expect to get the second round of edits for Vampire Protector shortly. Not to mention that my editor at Highland Press also told me to expect the first round of edits for The Necklace ever so shortly.

I'm also trying to continue submitting my contemporary mystery, Whacked! about the things folks do for love.

So…busy, busy, busy.

What—If Any—Thoughts I have

The writer community is all worked up about Harlequin's new venture, Harlequin Horizons, a subsidy/vanity press. That's where you pay them to produce your book, instead of vice versa. Sort of like your next door neighbor coming over to your house with a hacksaw and asking you, "If I give you $1,000, can I perform brain surgery on you so that I can call myself a brain surgeon?" You have to admire the guy's gumption and efforts, but…buyer beware.

I, personally, don't have a dog in that fight. I'm working to be a professional writer where I get paid for my work, so I'm not going to pay someone to produce my books. That's just crazy talk.

But I am curious about Harlequin's other publishing venture, Carina, which will be their e-publishing arm. They won't be putting out both an e-book and a paperback the way my current publishers do (The Wild Rose Press, Cerridwen, and Highland Press) but they will be a legitimate e-publisher. By legit, I mean the money goes from the publisher to the author. Not the other way around. And published works will be edited.

We'll see how that all works out. I have to confess, as much as I've embraced the who e-publishing thing, I still like seeing that paperback in my hands. J

Writing Extravaganza

I am so totally jazzed--I just got the cover for my latest historical romantic mystery: The Bricklayer's Helper. It is absolutely gorgeous. There is nothing like seeing that cover to really believe you have a book coming out.

That and the edits. Just finished the first round of edits and as usual, I'm torn between thinking it will never be good enough and marveling at the fact that I actually managed to write a coherant story. More or less.

And I just love The Bricklayer's Helper. The heroine, Sarah Sanderson, drives my poor hero, William Trencharc absolutely crazy. She is completely irrepressible. As a child, Sarah lost her family in a terrible tragedy and has been masquerading as a man working as a bricklayer's helper. But the murderer responsible for the death of her family has discovered her identity and it's up to William to keep her alive, solve the mystery, and keep his sanity.

And as fate would have it, I also just got the first edits for Vampire Protector, my first paranormal. And I've got a second paranormal I'm desperately trying to get into shape to submit to my editor.


Then, like an idiot, I signed up to do National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. Insane, I know. But I'll be trying to write 50,000 words during November on my latest novel: Deadliest Rose. It's intended to be a historical suspense, assuming I ever get the darn thing written. A murderer taunts an inquiry agent, Charles Vance, by sending him a rose. If the Vance can identify the rose, he'll have enough information to save the next victim. Unfortunately, this task is harder than it seems and grows even more complex and dangerous when he seeks the assistance of noted rosarian, Ariadne Wellfleet.

I'm really excited about the story as it forms another link in a chain of stories revolving around Second Sons, a London-based inquiry agency. I've written several mysteries featuring its agents, including The Bricklayer's Helper, and I hope to expand it.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I've got to get back to work. My mind is running about a million miles a minute with all the tasks ahead of me, not to mention my real job in the computer industry. Oh, yeah. I do need to get back to that as I have the slightly overwhelming task of upgrading 580 domain controllers from Windows 2003 R2 to Windows 2008 R2, Server Core. And another 'Oh, yeah,' there is no upgrade path. It's a bare metal install. Like...can I make this any more difficult?

So hope you are all enjoying the cooler fall weather, gorgeous autumn leaves, and looking forward to the holidays!
Amy