Wow, wow, and wow. This one's going to be hard to break down. The things that stood out to me in this book combine for a total effect that really left me speechless. So, yeah, this is hard to do.

I'm attempting here.

I really loved this book. I enjoyed the Twilight Series and will continue to enjoy it, but with The Host, Stephenie accomplished something truly outstanding.

She took a new species and implanted in me the need to hate that species. She then made me walk the walk and when push came to shove, I buckled, hopelessly in love. She proved her point well. Oh, we can say we write without this objective, but we all know deep down that to write good fiction we have to write persuasive fiction. We can't expect to collect a following without it. I think it's been some time since I thought so much about a set of characters and really looked at humanity like I was shown in this book.

Then again, strange as it may seem, the stand she took was a stand I intended with PC. This gives me some peace, but frightens me all the same. I'm not sure if I can accomplish what she did.

Descriptions:
To begin with, I want to mention Stephenie's gift of description once more. When it comes to focusing a reader, less is more, more in the right spot is better, and the right combination is perfect. The Host is a big book. But it's not full of filler. Every word is important and every sentence has a meaning. Once again, Stephenie uses her descriptions as a weapon that shoots straight into our hearts. We are dealing with a new species and the book is written through that species' POV. But she never forgets her readers. Never. So no, we aren't treated to a million descriptions of our normal everyday life. This, I'm thinking, wasn't an easy thing to keep from doing. We are taught that we should use descriptions only to describe what would be new or important to the POV character. How'd she manage to do what she did? Well, read the book and pay careful attention.

No cheap parlor tricks:
Ah, now we cut to the core of the matter. This is what sells her books. It's easy to throw a character into a fray, shake up the plot, and raise the stakes. We grow accustomed to doing this. It becomes our stock and trade. After a while, it becomes cheap and eventually hacky. So how do we avoid falling into this trap while at the same time keeping the book's tension high? Guess what? Stephenie did it. She did it in her Twilight books too. It just took me until now to notice it. When a problem arises, it seems normal, expected—not there just to give me a reason to keep reading. This leaves me feeling satisfied that she's not trying to sell me this tale, but instead she's simply telling me an amazing story that happened.

A foundation of trust reinforced:
How many times do we as writers fear we'll fall off our pedestal? Huh? Yeah, well, I feel it. Someday my books will sell, someday I'll have fans. And these fans will learn my style, my inner voice. When they open a new book of mine, they'll expect me to deliver what I have before. Yeah, we've heard this. Some say this is why we shouldn't jump from genre to genre. My opinion? These folks jumped on the wrong bus. It's not about genre; it's about how you tell your story. It's not about character voices; it's about your style.

My example of this:

Near the end it seemed every loose end had been tied up and I worried Stephenie intended to stop right there. I felt cheated already. But why? I mean, other writers do this. Isn't that what we're supposed to do? Finish the story but leave the reader wanting a bit more.

NO! Seriously, I hate this! I want to see my happy ending in motion. I want to peek into their lives and know for sure they have done what the writer left me thinking they were gonna do. I flipped through a couple pages and noticed that I wasn't as close to the end as I thought I was.

You know what zipped through my head then?

"Of course she wouldn’t do you like that, Shea! This is Stephenie. You know she gives you that last glimmer of hope you long for so much."

She never forgets her readers. She followed through on that trust she's already built. This is how Stephenie writes and this is what I expect from her.

So there are my craft points.

About the story though? Well, I'll be honest. I think Stephen King better look out. There's a new kid in town and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but she writes with a passion that compels me to love, to follow, and to realize there's more to fiction than just the shock value. It's not so much about how wild her imagination can be. It's more about how well she can make me believe that however off the wall the story is, I want it to be true! God, but I want it to be true!

Once I was Twilight fan, but now—now, I’m a Stephenie fan. She's got me for the long haul now. And yeah, I think this road will be VERY long and VERY fruitful.

No fear.

It has been some time since I've read a book that these two words popped up in my head. It might be because I read a book this week and I did feel the author was writing with fear. More on this later.

I've been living with fear myself lately. I have a dark fantasy I'm working on and I've been afraid. I knew I shouldn’t be, but I was anyway.

Ink Exchange –aside from the paranormal world—is the world I lived at sixteen. Melissa jumped in and wrote what had to be written with no fear for the outcome. There is no sugar coating. It's raw and alive, centered totally on emotions.

If she had tiptoed around the truth of the matter and not dug deep enough, the story would never have worked. It's dark and it's real and it was written without fear.

So what did I learn?

If it hurts to write it, if it hurts to read it, then it's probably the best thing you can do for your book. So I need to find my courage and put it to use. Courage=power. It's always been that way.

Thank you Melissa Marr! You fed me your courage and I consumed it to the very last drop. And it was good. And it was fulfilling. And I am stronger now.

So a friend of mine asked me the other day how I learned my characters without using an outline or doing those character sheets. I was puzzled. I really don't forget my characters eye colors, quirks, likes and dislikes. But they come up while I'm writing, so are stuck in my head well.

"Yes, but what about voice? Or how do you know how a character will react to certain things?"

Ha! And the answer found me. I write by what I call a dot-to-dot method. Usually my first scenes in a new WIP are scenes that contain conflict and are the major turning points in the book.

Put any person in a stressful situation and their true colors will shine through. You learn them well. Are they a coward? Strong willed, a fighter, determined. Do they give up easily? Can they keep their sense of humor under stress, or do they turn rabid?

I use the snowflake method to plan my books, but only use the first step which creates a short blurb. In this sense, I can create an entire book from one sentence. If you've never used it, I must say his method is amazing. Having the ability to tailor it to your own creativity is such a blessing.

But for me, turning points are written first and then all I have to do is work my way to each goal point.

We all know combining techniques is sometimes the best way to get things done. So, how do you learn your characters?

I did a small recommendation when I read this book, but now I'd like to work on a review of the craft. What I took away from Lessons from a Dead Girl is:

No excuses.

Believe it or not this was the first thing I learned about writing. Never make excuses for your characters' actions. Yes, this can be argued, it can be dissected. But the important thing to take away from this advice is that if I follow it I am more likely to develop a REAL person with my character.

Real people don't always do the right thing. Real people don't always understand their own actions. Sometimes the answer of, "I don't know," is really the answer--for the time being.

And it's here, as the reader, that we must put our faith in the writer. As a writer, this is sometimes hard. But believe it or not, the person writing the story may very well know how to plot, pull on my emotions, and develop a good story all from a totally different angle than what I would take. So relax and don't be a backseat driver for a little bit. Let the writer do what they do best: tell their story the way it happened.

To use this technique there is a gradual and consistent show of your character that at the end you understand so well. Lessons from a Dead Girl can show you how to use this technique for the right emotional appeal.

Over the years, I've received many, many critiques of my work, and I forgot this no excuses rule. From time to time, I become tempted to over explain, make excuses for my characters actions, and all because one person didn't get the subtle hints that were floating along in the story. Oh, so not good!

If you read this book and watch very closely you will see that Laine ignores a lot, turns her back on a lot, and basically acts very much like a human being. Go figure.

There were times when I was reading that I thought over and over, "My word, Laine, how come you can't see it? Aren't you looking?"

Well, guess what? Laine didn’t have a blurb to read about her life before she lived it. Laine is a real person with a real mind and a real confusion. Laine, like most of us, likes to live in denial. She also, like most of us, thinks about how things first affect her before she thinks about how things affect others.

Had Jo stopped to make excuses for every wrong thought or action Laine made then I would have never been able to relate to her. Why? Cause she would do everything just right and even if she didn't I would know why, leaving no room to put myself in her shoes and think about how I would react in the situation.

But then again, who says Laine did anything wrong or thought anything wrong?

This brings me to another one of my favorite techniques:

Putting the reader into my story.

By not making excuses for my characters actions or thoughts then I leave room for the reader to insert their own morals and thoughts in there. No doubt, this leaves me open for ridicule, but it also paves the way to a very powerful book.

Kudos to Jo for a book that is real, a book that reminded me why it's important I let my character be who she or he is, and for letting me see how beautiful using this technique will turn out in the end.

I'm not going to talk about craft in this post because there is absolutely nothing in Jay's writing techniques that resemble how I write. Except I hope to obtain such an honest nuance in my own writing.

I do know how to do this and that is to simply write and write—never once looking up or listening to all those millions of voices telling me how they would do it.

This book touched me in a way no other book ever has. I was that girl and her struggles were mine. However small they may seem to others, by God, I felt them and they were real to me when I lived them and real when I read them in Jay's story.

Halfway through this book, I began crying and it wasn't because I related to Hannah or Clay. (Though I did, I assure you) No, my tears were payment and gratitude from one writer to another. What he did is so against anything that resembles the cookie cutter books that our writing structures are being forced into—and the result was nothing but beautiful.

He has amazed me. It was not with a poetic prose, though he did well there for sure. It wasn't with outstanding descriptions. It was simply because he told his story the way it needed to be told— simple, brutal, and honest. For that, I cannot thank him enough.

By the time I reached his page on inspirations, and read down his list, I was a shaky ball of whimpering nerves. Why? Because I pictured past critique groups I've been in and the damage that would have been done to this book. I pictured the letters he sent out, the rejections he received. I am thankful he followed his dream and I'm thankful this book was able to rest in my hands.

What can I take away from the experience of this book?

He doesn't write like me, but I love his style all the same. It is the work of a true artist.

What does this mean?

I will write my book my way! Stay true to my story. See, it works. People will notice. People will fall in love with it.

Would I have written his book differently? Well, I couldn't even contemplate it. It's not my story to tell.

While critiquing others' works: I will remember to check twice when I make a suggestion. Is it to improve the story and voice of the book I'm working on or is it to make it read like I would write it?

I could be doing more damage than help.

Okay, here we go. Her series is an emotional series. To even try to compare it to a novel that is driven forward by action is wrong. It's not that kind of book. What caught my eye were the emotions. I'm going to talk about book 1 and not the following books. She did use this technique in every book, but really, there is no point in doing that and I don't want to give away spoilers to anyone who hasn't read her books.

So, what's my name for Stephenie's technique?  Addiction.   And this was done by...

Show:
How many ways can you show? Stephenie uses a very sneaky way. A very advanced way in my opinion. To find this technique you must look further than the line by line show, the narrative summary to scene show. You must step back and grasp the total draw of the book.

Description. Through her extensive descriptions of her male character, you cannot help but fall in love with him.

Focus:
We focused on that one male character and we were taken through every emotion the female MC felt for that male character. We rode that ride with her. What we did not do was take tiny trips to the side to get involved with feeling deeply for a second character. We didn't take side trips into other characters' relationships. By the time the female MC fell hopelessly for the male we had been shown why and understood perfectly, feeling ourselves in love with him too.

And I'm not saying she didn't layer like she should have, because that's in there too. What she did do was focus us more intently on what we should have been focusing on, what was important to her overall goal for her book.  We were not taken for a ride with long boring descriptions about how the female MC felt about every darn character in the book.  Which means, Stephenie knew good and well what she was doing and I applaud her for a job very well done.

If one were to go line by line and scene by scene, they might be tempted to call a lot of what Stephenie did as telling. But once you pull back and take in the whole of the book, you see it was a grand show, using a wonderful balance of narrative summary and descriptive showing. She told where she should have in order to show what was best for her book.

Through her slow movement and extensive showing, we were also, as adults, able to remember and relive what first love felt like, and as teens, able to relate. This is endearing and addictive. Love is addictive.

What writer doesn't want their readers to form an addiction to their characters?

How can I use this in my own books?
Remember, remember that descriptions should be used to pull emotions not just to fill up space. Descriptions should be written in the character's current mood, not the prettiest words I can find. It's not all about line by line. As a whole, the book must pull my readers and it's up to me to find what emotion is most important in my book and use this knowledge to the best of my ability, show that emotion in the best possible way.

Deep POV:
The very first thing about this book that caught my eye: Melissa Marr has mastered the ability to write in 3rd Deep. You'd be hard-pressed to find even one thought attribute in this novel! I know what a challenge it is to write in Deep. My last two novels have been written in 1st, but I do write in 3rd also and when I do, I write in 3rd Limited Deep POV. Her POV switches are clean with scene breaks in between and she has a strong voice for each POV character.

How I can use this in my own writing:
The levels of Deep POV are a technique I have used and a technique I've been challenged over time and again by other writers. Finding books that actually teach this method is about impossible. IMO, I think this is because the technique can't be taught and doesn't have certain hard and fast rules. Wicked Lovely gives you a full book with this technique mastered and is a gift ready to be opened for anyone wanting to study this style of writing. I'm tempted to write my next book in 3rd now.

World Building:
Melissa Marr took a new world and built it on top of our familiar everyday lives. How did she do this? She took the unfamiliar and focused our attention there. My first thoughts were this couldn't apply to me as I don't write fantasy, though it made me dream about trying to write in this genre. I was wrong and had I not stopped to think about it more would have missed a chance to improve my own writing.

How I can use this in my own writing:
In my current WIP, I am writing about a world inside of our own: a world where the creation of fiction dominates our everyday lives. I've already come to terms with the unfamiliar parts of my book and have been trying to make sure I make these scenes understandable. But I can do so much more than this, can I not? Why not make it outstanding, not just understood?

Now I've realized I have a way to use this technique in my current WIP, but what about my future stories? Well, why can't I dig and dig until I find one element to make my fiction world stand out from our normal, everyday lives? I can do this. It doesn't have to be fantasy to build a new world for our reader. It just takes imagination and I have plenty of that. True, I might need to do a bit of research, but in the end, my book will be outstanding.

Making the characters familiar to the reader:
This should by no means be taken as making characters that the reader can relate to. This is different. Melissa Marr gives you insides about characters that the other POV characters don't know. She does this with flair. In one section, we learn how a character does one thing while nervous. Several chapters later, a new POV character comes on stage and we witness this act through their eyes. The POV character doesn't know what the other character is feeling, but we do, because we were shown this earlier. We share a secret with the other character and this makes us, as the reader, a part of the story. Nothing pulls a reader like putting them into the story.

How can I use this in my own book?

Maybe the bigger question is why wouldn't I use this in my book?

There you have what I took away from Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. Did it improve my writing? You bet. And it was an incredible story on top of that. Melissa Marr took her time and crafted a wonderful tale. Her talent shows and I'm thankful to have been given the chance to learn from her.

Do you have recommendations of books that use these techniques? The more we study, the better we become.

I used to worry that I'd never be able to love my new characters like I did the ones I was working on. I've since learned this is exactly like adding new kids to your family, or new friends to your life. There's always room for more and you love each one differently, but just as much.

I used to wonder how I'd ever write another book. My first book took me hours and hours to get the sentences just right, the descriptions so perfect. If I wrote another book, then I'd have to find a new way to describe these things. I've since learned different settings and plotlines have different things to look at, different smells, different sounds. And with a different character describing everything, then of course, they focus on what's important to them. Everyday, I find myself collecting and storing those millions of sights, sounds, and smells out there. It's turned out to be no problem.

I used to think that if I didn't spend forever on a sentence then it couldn't be good. I've since learned the best sentences and descriptions are usually the simplest ones.

I've traveled to the darkest corners of my memories and found it wasn't so bad after all.

I'll repeat once again what I've said so many times before. Writing isn't rocket science. It's when you let the world shroud you with those doubts that it gets hard.

Everybody has his or her own way of getting it done, and when you find yours, don't you dare let anybody tell you it's wrong.

Write from the middle, write from the end, start at the beginning, or simply jump all over. Write it all in dialogue before you add in the action and narration, write a perfect first draft, take three years to find the perfect opening. Write it in First, write it in Third, use present tense, or past. Take a page from Burger King and have it your way.

The only thing you can do wrong is give up.

My word of the day is ostentatious:
Pronunciation: -shs
Function: adjective
Date: 1673
: marked by or fond of conspicuous or vainglorious and sometimes pretentious display
synonym see SHOWY

My, but don't I know a few folks I could use this word for. lol

Definition from Merriam-Webster Unabridged Collegiate

This week as we work on our WIPs how many bits of stage action can we turn into good character driven internals?

Examples:

Any character with the normal narrative stage action: He narrowed his eyes.

Shannon character driven: If he narrowed his eyes at me one more time I was going to smack him upside his head.

Logan character driven: Now she was doing that squinty eye thing again.

Asku character driven: Were the narrowed eyes supposed to get her point across better?

Sarah character driven: It's hard to read a person's eyes when they narrow them like that. Likely though, he wasn't pleased with her.

Any character with normal narrative stage action: She stamped her foot.

Shannon character driven: Well, good God, if I hadn't seen her stamp her foot I'd have thought there was an earthquake.

Logan character driven: Not that he was looking for a flash of ankle or anything, but her skirt did jerk. She'd probably stamped her foot.

Asku character driven: Last time she stamped her foot like that, she kicked him afterwards. He'd best move back a pace.

Sarah character driven: Foot stamping was not at all lady like, but what did she care? She did it anyway.

Hmmm…how much more life can we bring to the page??

American vocabulary and some sometimes confused words:

Blond/Blonde— If she is blonde and he is blond then what are they? Blond and blonde are variant spellings according to Webster's. Loftily, some folks will inform you that blonde is to be used when referring to a female and if you don't do this you are plainly of the more stupid variety. Here's a bit of help. Use blond on everything if that's your preference. It's America and it's a free country. How do I do it? I use blond as an adjective and blonde as a noun. She is a blonde. She has blond hair.

Adapt, adopt: When you adapt something, you change it to suit a purpose, such as adapting a novel for a screenplay. When you adopt something, you take it as it is and make it your own.

Adverse, averse: Adverse means unfavorable. Adverse conditions cancelled our flight. Averse means reluctant. The students are averse to accepting the new dress code.

Aid, aide: To aid someone is to help them. The person who does the helping is called an aide.

Allude, refer: To allude to something is to speak of it without specifically mentioning it. To refer to something is to mention it directly.

Allusion, illusion, delusion: An allusion is an indirect reference, the past participle of the Latin alludere. To play with or jest. It's in the same family as allude. Her comments about the nasty incident were an allusion to the man's infidelity. Her comments about the nasty incident alluded to the man's infidelity. An illusion is a false idea or unreal image. Safety in numbers is an illusion. A delusion is a false belief, usually pathological. Suffering from the delusion that he would never cheat, she left him alone with the woman.

Complement, compliment: As a noun, complement means something which completes or perfects something else and as a verb to accompany or complete something else. The necklace was the perfect complement to the outfit. The gravy complemented the mashed potatoes. Compliment as a noun means something said in praise. Her compliment about his eyes pleased him. His compliment about her eyes embarrassed her.

Compose, comprise: Compose means to make up. The five teachers composed (made up) the faculty of the school . Comprise means to include. The school's faculty comprised(included) five teaches.

Nauseous, nauseated: If you are sick to your stomach then you're nauseated. What made you sick is nauseous. The rotten meat was nauseous. The rotten meat made me nauseated.

Got a headache. Will do more later. 

A good pacing for your entire book is so important. You want to make sure you have plenty of plot moving action, but of course, you need reader breathers too. If you use too much of both techniques you've overloaded your reader. Use too much fast paced action, bam, bam, bam, and you've left your readers feeling well sorta beat up, empty. Use too much slow-paced non-action and you've prolly made them nod off.

An easy way to check your pacing in a finished draft is to use highlighters in two separate colors.

With your yellow highlighter, highlight all of your action narrative and dialogue. Don't highlight any dialogue you've used as disguise info inserts. *g*

Next, use a light blue, or heck whatever color you want and highlight your non-action narrative and descriptions. How's your pacing overall?

Have you got it paced like you want it? Does it need a bit more work? Can you cut some of the narration or do you need to add more to the flow? Peaks and valleys, how does your range look?

What is fast paced?

Short sentences and short paragraphs.
Active voice sentences for action scenes.
Dialogue with a snappy quick exchange. (not info dump stuff)
Avoiding jerking back and forth between subplots that aren't pushing the story anywhere.
Action scenes with sharp verbs. (do the ed everywhere you can for your verbs.)

What is slow paced?
Non-action narrative—self reflection for the MC—and descriptions
Passive voice used in sentence construction.
Long sentences and long paragraphs.
Jumping from one subplot to another.

First this morning, please forgive me if I offended anyone on my last craft post. I was on a bit of a rant anyway, but not meaning to come across in any bad way. I should have tagged it as craft/rant.

Today's our first day back at school. The sun's not even out yet and I'm up and on my second cup of coffee! I haven't done that in a long time. I guess I was so exited I couldn't sleep. Truthfully, I forgot to turn my ceiling fan on the night before and woke up at 5a.m. hot, stuffy, and wide awake. I had to get up at six anyway.

My friend and I have been working on a section in her book. While I was reading over it, I felt something wasn't right, but wanted to think about what was wrong for a day or so. We discussed things again yesterday and finally figured out what it was.

Then on my way to the store yesterday, I was reminded of a roller coaster we went on this summer. The coaster was underground and with these eerie, but funny scenes here and there. Then everything went black. You dropped. You didn't see the drop coming, but there it was. And after the dip, you hung a quick right and before your heartbeat could slow, you dipped again. At the bottom of this dip was a gaping hole surrounded by fire. (fake fire, of course)

I thought how very much like what I'd suggested for her book this roller coaster was. We'd went down one dip in the book and began to level off for just a bit, giving us time to catch our breaths, slow our heartbeats. But this was a bit of her roller coaster I felt needed a double dip. No time to slow your heart rate. And since we hadn't seen the first dip coming then we only needed to hang a quick right and dip again. Funny thing is there's a hole of fire at the end of that dip too.

I've read so many books like this. I write my own this way. Not what is called a story arc, with an upward climb then a quick avalanche down the other side, but more like I build my own roller coaster, with dips, and turns along the way. Then I sit back and look over my little bit of entertainment, checking to see if I've provided the best thrills where they need to be.

Pronouns 1 in fiction writing:

I swear to you I have encountered these things in my writing.

Sometime during your writing career, you have heard or you will hear the next bit of advice. Any pronoun you use will reflect back to the last person or object spoken about. I'm gonna leave off on the object for now and talk about the person. This is simply not true in fiction writing. I'm sorry, but it's not. You can open your books you have at home and find this is not true yourself. Writing fiction stories is not and will never be like writing a formal report for work, college, or highschool. The rules change, they're flexed, and there are bigger needs involved. It's a bit more relaxed, actually.

Before I go further I just want to say that if you are riding that literal high horse today, you can slide on down at this moment. If you don't feel like doing this, then please pass us by.

Fiction is not literal. Not good fiction that is. One should stumble a bit; the characters should misunderstand each other a few times. This is what's called real people. (Btw, in the past two paragraphs, I've written one sentence fragment, and one passive sentence. I should be shot. Good thing fiction writing is not so formal.)

Pronouns have all these different uses and names. We have the subjective pronoun, which is the pronoun we use for the subject of the sentence. We then have the objective pronoun, which is used as the object of the sentence or the prepositional phrase. Then one must decide whether what you have is an indirect object or a direct object.

Next, we have possessive pronouns and those relative ones too. And at this moment if you're like me, your eyes just glazed over, a mental block went up, and you're groaning with a panic-stricken air about you…

If we were going to write us a fine, fat report or essay for Professor Gripes-a-Lot, then sure panic is allowed. We're not though, so we should be fine.

In fiction writing, we have this thing called context (aka: common sense). This means the word literal is gone from our vocabulary and what we need worry about is clarity. I know, just plug your ears to the ones still on their literal horse. If they pull out their pitchforks, let me know.

Why the heck should you care about the pronoun use? Well, because we saw Spot run and Dick chased after Spot and Jane fell on top of Dick. Then Spot slobbered all over Jane's toes and Dick thought Spot's slobber on Jane's toes was very funny. But Jane didn't so Jane slapped Dick and Dick fell onto Spot and squashed Spot's tongue. Jane hit Dick again. Dick said, "Stop that, Jane. That is not funny."

And that was in first grade. Now, we have common sense.

Objective pronouns within context:

Here's a place where we would be doing the Jane, Spot, Dick thing: Bill passed the plate to Bob. In this sentence we could use an objective pronoun and no one is going to be confused. Bill passed the plate to him.

If in the context of the story, we have two men talking and eating common sense would tell us to whom the plate was passed. It's doubtful Bill would pass a plate to himself. Ah, but what is that? That is called a reflexive pronoun and would be the correct pronoun to use if Bill passed a plate to himself. It would be incorrect to use the objective pronoun of him if Bill is passing the plate to himself. Therefore, it's apparent the rule of the pronoun taking the place of the last person mentioned is entirely wrong. Life does not work that way. Likewise, I would very much like to know how that action is accomplished. Does he pick up a plate, then hold it out from him, then pass it to his other hand? If he was going to do all this then wouldn't it be easier to just grab the plate?

Subjective pronouns in context:

Animals and the pronouns used for them. Oh, gah. There are things animals can't do. Like grab things, unless it's a monkey. They can't talk. Animals can't gently slide a finger down the girl's arm either. So if your male MC just slid off the back end of his donkey, then " he" can very well be used when he takes hold of your female MC's hand.

John slid off the back end of his donkey. He frowned, looking around him, then took hold of her hand. "Do you think they're in there?"

Context and common sense says the donkey can't do this. All will be clear on who is doing the hand grabbing, frowning, and talking. But for those that aren't clear on this and perhaps think the donkey used his teeth to grab hold of the female MC's hand, well, what a surprise they will have when the female MC doesn't scream out in pain. I'm quite sure they were holding their breaths over it too. Now they can relax. It wasn't the donkey. Come to think on it, did we even mention whether the donkey was a female or male? I also wonder whether anyone was wondering if the subjective use of the pronoun, "they" up there in those sentences was confusing and maybe the people wondering thought perhaps I was referring to the donkey, male MC, and female MC holding their breaths.

Here is a list of subjective pronouns in singular form: he, she, I, you, it. Here is a list of subjective pronouns in the plural form: we, you, they.

Most everyone I'm sure wasn't confused over the 'they'. This is because in context I'd defaulted they to anyone wondering. I had not established the male MC, female MC, or donkey as a group, nor had I referred to them as a "they" anytime before. The group established in that paragraph was anyone wondering. Your very intelligent mind will automatically tell you this.

Possessive pronoun usage and clarity:

Annabelle handed her red dress to Lisa. She slipped the red dress over her head.

These two sentences are pretty clear, but are they? If we go by the old rule of the pronoun picking up the last person mentioned then we know Lisa is the one slipping the dress over her head. Yet, sentence structure plays a big role in smoothness of reading. If in context, we knew Lisa had been standing around waiting for a dress then we could know for sure that's who is slipping the dress over her head. The answer is in the action…

Lisa snatched the dress from Annabelle's hand and slipped it over her head.

Who is doing the action? Lisa. In this sentence, all of the action is in Lisa's court. Lisa is our subject, snatching is our verb, from Annabelle's hand is a prepositional phrase, slipped is a whole new action verb, and over her head is another prepositional phrase. But if the sentence stands on its own, we can't be really sure whose head Lisa is slipping the dress over. To whom does that possessive pronoun belong?

Context:

Shivering, Lisa stood in her bra and panties. Annabelle said it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to grab a dress and make it back in here. It had been more than five already. (Through the context we have figured out Annabelle is nowhere around and we are gallivanting along in Lisa's head. Also, Lisa doesn't have any clothes on and she's cold.)

The doorknob turned and Annabelle strolled into the room. "Here it is! Sorry it took so long. I ran into Phillip in the hallway and he asked about you."

Lisa snatched the dress from Annabelle's hand and slipped it over her head. "I can't believe he dumped that whole bowl on me."

Ok, we had no need to resort to that very flat, Jane, Dick, and Spot routine in those first sentences> Annabelle handed her red dress to Lisa. She slipped the red dress over her head.

Common sense/context says Lisa will put the dress on her own head.

And pronouns have overstayed their welcome my head today. I will come back to this later.

Yesterday one of my elines talked of 2004's book sales. It's very true that book sales are not doing too well. And this includes everyone's. The rest of my day sort of swirled around this.

Book Sales.

I've started a new series and wanted to get book two. So I moseyed on over to Amazon. What happened was, I didn't get the book. The one I wanted isn't released in paperback until the end of September. I clicked on the hardcover, but quickly decided I didn't want to pay that much for such a small book.

So there was point one for me the shopper who is shopping as the reader. It brought me pause. Now, as a writer I am all too aware of the problems of writing a big book. It costs too much to print the dern things. But are publishers hurting themselves over this too? I know I'm not the only one who looks at the word count or page total when I shop for books. When I'm shopping I'm looking for what I'm gonna get for my money. It's that simple.

What I did was preorder the paperback.

And book shopping carried on. I needed something to read and didn't have a clue of what I wanted. Of course, they had a few recommendations at the bottom for me so I clicked on one of those. It turned out I was directed to a book five in a series. The first two reviews seemed pretty good so I dug around in Amazon land until I came up with book one.

I will say the first page does make the sale. For me the first page of this series turned me away. I know what you're thinking, it didn't have a great hook, it was back-story, it was a dream, or the writing was just awful. No. The hook was fine. It started in the middle of a scene, which looked to be moving toward some action, just like the author is supposed to do. No dream. The writing was clean, although she did the, "blah, blah," I thought. I don’t use thought attributes in my own writing, but that's part of my style. Saves on my god-awful word counts too. I don't mind it in other books though. To be truthful, I skip them, so from this reader's point of view, you really don't need them. Well, unless you head hop and then of course you need them.

Moving on now… What did turn me away? The book is in first person and this, I have no problem with. Everybody knows I write my TWD series in Third and Shannon's series is in First and my writing style is different from Third to First. Not a biggie. But somewhere along the first paragraphs, while the MC was wearing a red halter-top in a doorway or wherever she is hidden (working), she thinks to herself, "I am too good for this." The sentence stalled me right then and there. So far, I have learned she's not a hooker, but she is a paranormal witch bounty hunter type thing. I stopped to wonder what she thought she wasn't good enough for. To work at her job, which seemed pretty cool to me. To associate with her side kick, assistant? To wear trashy clothes? Is this a job that seems too small for her and she thinks she's too good at her job to be doing what she's doing now? In general, one would think this character has me hooked. Look at all those questions she popped up into my head. What really happened was I fizzled out right after that sentence. She had an attitude that drives me batty. It was the first person, I am great, though I haven't showed you this, but I will tell you that I think I am. I didn't buy the book.

This might be unfair of me and perhaps I might feel different on another day. But I critted a book once in First that used a similar technique and I'm shy to go back there. It was disappointing. In this book, the writer used a different character to repeat more times than I can count how great the MC was. And I waited the entire book to be shown this only what happened was, it never happened. Now if we want to talk about show versus tell this is a very, very bad tell. This is a tell that needs to be overcome. This is something that will catch your reader's eye and turn them away. This is not so much craft as it is story telling ability. If you are going to tout a product then by jingo's you had better produce.

So, yes, you can bet your bottom dollar that the first page of a book will either make your sale or put you back on the shelf. If you do sell, but can't produce what you said you were going to produce, then that reader isn't going to come back for seconds.

Understood in this is that often repeated stick to the story as you write. Why? Because for the publisher we keep our word count down, for the reader we have an obligation to produce what we said we would produce. If we go off on too many tangents, our book loses its focus and what we said we would provide in the first page never comes about clearly. In the end, our reader will feel let down and frustrated.

So if we are writing about a super accountant and how everyone wants his services, better show how great he is. If we are writing about a man, who works as an accountant, but falls in love with the boss's wife, well, leave out how great he is at the books as chances are we won't be able to show this while he's busy with his bedroom talent. But if we can show it, then fine. But make sure we know where our plotline is and where our tangent is and which one is most important. But don't go crazy with a million tangents. If we can connect our tangent to the main plot line then that is sooo perfect.

Confused yet? Well, sure we are.

There is not a magic formula for writing. Which is why we are told to write what we would like to read.

But the bigger question??? Will it sell?

This turned out a bit long. I've done a LJ cut.

Misplaced modifiers are nasty, sneaky little buggers. Find them, move them. If you're not sure what a misplaced modifier is or not sure if your sentence has one, google misplaced modifier. Help is out there.

An ing is a continuing verb. It is not passive writing. Passive is this: The beach was destroyed by the hurricane that blew through last night.

Active> The hurricane that blew through last night destroyed the beach.

Do add a bit of sophistication to your writing. Watch those sentences that begin with an ing or as and see if you might be able to reform them, make them sharper. Do not start out your sentences with an ing or as unless you are sure your characters can continue to do whatever while doing the rest. It's physically impossible to do this: Entering the room she chose a red t-shirt from her closet, a pair of khaki shorts from her dresser, and slipped both on. Technically you are saying she did all of this while at the same time taking that one step that landed her in the room. This is technical stuff and she can't do it all at one time. An ing is a continuing verb. If you have separate actions then separate them. She entered the room, chose a red t'shirt from her closet, a pair of khaki shorts from her dresser, and slipped them both on. I do know it's tempting to do the ing thing in order to get away from starting another sentence with she, he, or I. Writing takes lots of work and practice.

If you must use an ing or as, place these in the middle of the sentence. It just gives you a bit more sophistication to your writing. This added bit helps an editor who is looking over your manuscript see that you know what you're doing.

More sophistication:

Ly adverbs are a pain. They are so easy to write, so simple to come up with. You can do better.

Consider,

Angrily, she set the pot of beans and basket of bread on the table. (In this sentence I have used a weak verb and an adverb to convey my meaning. I can get this done with one strong verb.)

More vivid, better image:

She slammed the pot of beans and basket of bread on the table.

Check out your italics. Did you really need to go to first/present or could you have stayed in third/past for the internal? Too many jumps from third to first can jar your reader and make them start to think they are reading about a character that has multiple personalities. This same thing goes for those that write in all first. Watch your italics. They are annoying after a while.

How many thought attributes do you have? Dump as many as you can. She thought, he thought, I thought. I wondered, she wondered, he wondered. Considered, contemplated.

Get rid of "there was" "there is". Such as: There was a basket of vegetables sitting on the side of the road.

Instead, consider: A basket of vegetables sat on the side of the road.

If your character has just tossed their head, your first question should be, "How far?"

Have you tried to punch up weak verbs such as had or was with italics? See if you can find a stronger verb to use instead.
Do you have a catching rhythm to your writing? Long sentences, short sentences all equally balanced?

Find the words you are in love with and make sure you've not overwhelmed your reader with them.

Remember, an agent is nice; an editor and book deal is lovely. It will never go further if you can't make those sales and sales are made on the depth of your story telling abilities. Make sure your plot is tight. When you've done all you can and think it's just right, gather up some beta readers and send your MS out to them. Give them instructions on what you're looking for and take in everything they say as a whole. Fix what needs fixed, go back over it yet again with a fine toothed comb. Send that sucker out there and share your story with the world.

You may have written a character bio. You might even know in what state each of your characters was born. But how do you bring this to the page and make them live? Fully developed characters are the foundation to the show/tell theory.

Fluff is never good, but a scene that unfolds a bit of your character and makes them more real is just the ticket. The more you write, the better you will get at finding fluff and recognizing good character development.

If you write in limited third(this is without the head hopping) each POV character will need to have their own agenda in life. They _will_ think this story is about them. When you're in that character's head for a scene or chapter, remember this.

Do you exist to be the wife or husband? Or, to make sure your husband gets that promotion? To make sure you get your son out of jail? To make sure your daughter doesn't marry that loser? Decide what this secondary, or other main character's goals are and give their reasons for these. If they are working toward that goal, then let them work toward it. If you can bring an internal conflict to the table for each of your characters you will give them more life.

I know that we are told each and every day to only write what will push the story forward. I think like all other suggestions this gets construed, confused, and abused. If a scene develops a character more fully, fleshes them out more, then it needs to be there. Above all you want your readers to sympathize and understand your characters. You are the one writing the book. Don't let someone who has read one scene tell you what needs to be there and what doesn't. If you have a crit partner who is right along with you then yes, discuss this. Otherwise, let your heart guide you. The stronger you become as a writer and the further you develop your plot and characters the better a judge you will be.

You should have one main goal for the book. Each of your characters should have their own goals that work toward this main goal. Each character will have their own way of getting there.

Example: Let's say the daughter brings home a loser and says they'll marry. Mom is upset and determined to thwart this marriage. Mom's goal: Do not let marriage take place.

What will Dad's goal be? Does he want the marriage? Does he not really care, but will help Mom out? Does he not want the marriage as badly as Mom doesn't want it? The answer to these questions will determine how strongly you can write and portray him.

If he wants the marriage he will be an added conflict for Mom to overcome. If he really doesn't care, but will help Mom out to make her happy then his mindset will be, throughout the book, centered on Mom's wants. If he doesn't want the marriage anymore than Mom does then his goals and wants will be for himself. There is a difference here. Either he's all about Mom or he's all about himself. When you are in his head it will be about his goal. But add a side goal or life problem in there too (an internal conflict)--like trying to get a promotion, getting over being passed by in a promotion. Don't make it big, but it will give him more life, make him more real. Of course we all know this isn't something that should take over the entire book, we have goals and we know where we are going here. What we are working toward here is giving our character a more real feel.

The same can be given to Mom. (Internal conflicts are the key here. Keep them real, but keep them downsized too. It's all about balance.)

I remember reading once, on one of the writing groups I am a member of, that you should never write with a thesaurus. I thought that odd--raised one of my eyebrows it did.

This was only a couple months ago too. Now, mind ya, I didn't say this advice giver was an idjit, and I didn't say she had no idea what she was talking about. I just thought it was odd advice.

What I did do was keep this in my head and this advice settled and stayed along the back edges of my brain. Now, I know what she meant by such comments.

When writing a first draft or even cleaning up and redrafting, we sometimes get that-- this is not beautiful writing feeling. We want our words to flow, to show what beauty we see. We want the world to know what we can do. We are word masters and we have to show this.

Yes, unfortunately, there is a small issue with such wants. It's all about us as the writer and not about our characters. It's that nasty word called author intrusion. This is an old word, common to any writer. It's one of the hardest mistakes to weed out of your writing. A bigger issue is it's hard on editors and critters to weed out too.

Why is this? Well, if you write and if you critique, edit, you know what it feels like to read. It's a brain challenge in itself. You nitpick at everything and the back of your brain is niggling away about how you would write this. If you are just now learning all those lovely rules of good writing, then you have this urge to strip everything down, yank out all ings and adverbs. The easiest way to do this is to strikethrough those ly's and ings. To tell the writer they are not needed. But when you do pull it out in every sentence what you have is a first grade primer.

Some people prefer a stripped down prose as a reader and writer. This is one of the categories I fall into. But having found that I don't like the dry effect of such prose, I had to find a way to overcome this.

When I find a ly in my work, I don't just cut it out. I look really hard at it. I think long about why I felt I needed that ly. I open my dictionary and look at the definition of that word and eventually I get a better sentence, sharper, more in depth than what I had. This is how I edit out too many ings and ly's. I rewrite the entire sentence, sometimes ending up with two. On the days that I can't rework it, nine times out of ten, I cut the whole sentence. I've never cut a sentence in this fashion that I missed later.

What does any of this have to do with author intrusion? A lot to me, perhaps nothing to you. But when I'm redrafting I always get the urge to grab that thesaurus and use the most unique word I can find. This cannot convey my story if the reader can't get what I want to say.

If my character is in a rush, having a bad morning, then opens the door, and I describe the sun as a beautiful gift from Heaven with the bright warmth pouring upon her it's not going to fit. If my character is in a rush, she is not going to stop to describe everything in sight from the first dew drenched flower to the lone piece of trash flitting down the road.

I tell everyone and often how much I hate writing descriptions. I am a feeling writer. I would rather spend the day describing feelings as a landscape any day. That's just me though.

Because I get things better from example than by having someone preach at me I'm going to post a snippet and let you see what you want with it. I also always do my craft posts in third and I write both in third and first depending on what book I'm writing. I'm going to do this snip in first.


By the time the third snooze went off on my alarm, my head had a constant replay going: that obnoxious beep, beep, beep. I slammed my hand on the top row of buttons; the daily performance of get that heart a pumping stopped.

Every morning I told myself to pick up one of those radio clocks next time I was at the store. Surely, a pleasant melody would be easier on my poor heart.

I cracked an eyelid open then bolted upright. I had to be at the office by 8:00 and right now it was 7:05. That was not the third time the snooze had gone off.

The shower was cold and wouldn't warm up. No time for hair washing, and thank goodness for those little hair clippies. One shoe on, one shoe in flight to my foot I hopped through the house.

A clip of my arm through my purse handle and I flung open the door. The day was bright with the warmth of sunlight dappled like a patchwork quilt across the red top of my car. I tripped over Eddie's dump truck and sent the toy rolling away with a nudge of my foot.

I was about tired of telling him to put his toys up every evening. His daddy had shown up early again last night, too soon to do the normal evening clean up. I was about tired of that too. Pick him up early then drop him off late, as if I had no life but to answer to my ex-husband's whims.

The roses had opened already this morning, and a lady bug crawled along the dew sparkled blush of the petals. The air was crisp and sweet, spring enveloping me in the wonder of the newly born. Birds chirped and flitted along the greens of the lawn, beaks jabbing away in the moist earth. I bet those little winged mothers didn't set their schedules to a no good, two timing, I love you so much, would never hurt you, mate.

After about two minutes I gave up on the every day ritual of purse digging and upended the bag on the spidery cracks of my driveway. Little surprise, my keys weren't there. But, as some sort of thing was looking over me, I did find my cell phone underneath a pile of Kleenex debris. Lovely, now I could call Harold and tell him I'd be late once again. After he got done yelling, I could then call Chris, who of course still had a key, and have him come let me in our once happy home. I hoped I gave Denise a splitting headache with the ringing of the phone.


My question today is: Can you find where I intruded into my character's narrative? Can you fix it? Crit it? Give it more attitude, more voice? Make it sing? Can you describe what's going on better than I did? I'm going to work on this and post my new snippet of it in the next few days. I know already a few places I butted into my character's head. Feel free to see what you can do with this piece. Don't worry it's not one of my books. It's just a scene I wrote for this post.

Do whatever you do your way. 

If you'd like to read more on voice with descriptions then check out Fandoria's LJ.