Backstory

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! Today we're gonna talk about backstory and how to introduce it to your reader. There are many ways to accomplish this, and what we want to avoid is the information dump. Don't know what an information dump is? Well, grab those pens and notebooks and let's get going!

An information dump is when you stop the story you're telling to give paragraph upon paragraph of your character's past. This isn't good practice when writing because, usually, the past isn't filled with a lot of tension and can tend to drag along. While you may get one great scene with tension, the rest is oftentimes unnecessary.

So, how can you show a character's past without dumping information on your reader? There are a few ways:

The Flashback
These can happen in little snips of memories brought on by something that's occurring in your character's life or something they see/hear. Just like in real life, certain things bring up items from the past. Don't allow your protagonist to dwell though. Give a little and move on.

Conversation
When one character is talking to another, they'll sometimes talk about life and their past. Use this to insert snips and quips into the storyline. Don't let the conversation drag out too long, and remember to make the speech sound natural. If you have trouble with dialogue, take a look at these exercises on practicing writing dialogue: Dialogue Exercises. You'll find links to fifteen writing exercises on that page.

Contextual Additions
Things you add in the text as you write can show some of a character's past. Whatever action they're engaged in, shoot a sentence of memory through it and allow that to paint your protagonist's past with vivid colors. This also works to show your character's personality.

Other People
Use some of the other people in the story to tell about your character. Have them talk behind the person's back, make remarks, or even react to the protagonist's presence in the room. If people are smiling and hugging your leading lady/man, then you know the others are happy to see that person. When people laugh, jeer, or avoid the main character, it tells the reader something's up and can lead to further discovery in other ways.

Just remember to KISS your reader (Keep It Simple, Stupid), and stay away from too much backstory in a single place. Avoid the blahs.

I hope this reference comes in handy for you all.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Prize List!

Happy Wednesday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm giving you all a prize list for next week's fun! Strap in and let's GO!

One lucky indie author will win a purchase and review from me.

One reader will win:
The first four books of the Mystic series, in print. Bronya, Lily, and Shelia will ship as soon as the contest ends, and Melody will be sent at the end of August (book releases to the public in September.








One reader will win:

A printed copy of The Bird.










One reader will win:

A printed copy of Chasing Memories, and a printed copy of The Disappearing Girl.

One reader will win:
A digital copy of each of my books that are published at this time AND a digital copy of any others that are due to publish this year - in advance. Winner will receive the books no less than one week before they're published to the market. What's coming? Well, the next two books in the Mystic series for sure, and possibly my urban fiction novel, M. So, this winner will get more than eleven books from me.

Of course, every winner will receive a couple of bookmarks:

So come on back and let's have some fun!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Variation

Happy Tuesday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm back to tips and tricks to keep your writing interesting. As many of you may know, I'm an editor as well as a writer. One of the things I notice people doing a lot of is starting too many sentences in the same paragraph with the same word. Another thing is repeating a word in a sentence. While both of these may seem like minor details, when paid attention to and rectified, it can create a world of difference in your final product. Remember to use your thesaurus!

Example time! Let's set the stage: Darren just had a fight with his girlfriend of six years.

He went through the door into the living room and exited out the back door. He walked over to his car and pulled open the driver's side door. He got in, slamming the door behind him, put the key in the ignition, started the car, and peeled out of the parking lot. He drove a long time before pulling over and getting out; giving the door another hard slam as he got out of the car.

As you can probably see, there are a ton of no-nos in the paragraph above. While there are many ways to re-write it, let's try on the first pass to eliminate starting each sentence with he.

Darren went through the door into the living room and exited out the back door. Walking over to the car, he pulled open the driver's side door, got in, slammed the door, put the key in the ignition, started the car, and peeled out of the parking lot. It was a long time before he pulled over, got out, and gave the door another hard slam.

Now, while we fixed the problem with the word he, you can tell we've created other issues. How about we fix a couple (like that looooong second sentence)?

Darren rushed through the living room and out the back, leaping down the three short steps to the driveway. Stomping to the car, he got in, started it, and peeled out of the lot. It was a long time before he pulled over and got back out; taking his anger out on the door as he shoved it closed behind him.

Remember, you have to name the character at some point before you can use the pronoun he. Try not to bore your readers by giving them a blow-by-blow, either. If you do a good job with actions, they'll be able to grasp that your character is pissed, sad, or happy. By the time we say he's taking his anger out on the door, we've already set the stage and given plenty of action to show how he feels. If you tell, it might look like this:

Darren, madder than a mashed cat, left in his car and drove a long time before pulling over and getting out.

While there are less words, it's not as fun to read. Keep it simple, vary your word usage, and show your reader what they should be picturing in their head.

I hope you'll try writing the world's worst paragraph and fixing it. For this is how one learns a new skill. Practice makes permanent.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Book Review - Depression Cookies

Happy Monday, good people of the blogosphere! It's good to be back; but it was a much needed vacation. I only had one complaint: Zero signal on my devices in the mountains and Google blocked my access to my accounts via wi-fi because it was in a different city. While I appreciate their concern for my account security, there should be some way to fix it while away from home. However, it forced me to unplug for a couple of weeks and spend time with my family, so that's all good. I would usually have scheduled blog posts ahead but we had to rearrange dates quickly over a work issue so I had little prep time. Que serra serra! I wouldn't trade the time I had with The Best Boyfriend in the World for anything.

As a bonus, I got to catch up on some reading while I was away. I only had an hour or so each day because we were a busy troupe of monkeys, but read I did. So, as a lovely return gift for you all, I bring you my review. I'll be counting this as one of my Indie Fever, 2013, Reading Challenge books.

Title: Depression Cookies
Author:  Tia Silverthorne Bach and Angela Beach Silverthorne
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Length: 557 printed pages
Amazon Kindle link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00452VATE

Description from Amazon:
Two distinct voices, two stories interwoven within the walls of family and love.

Abby needs some magic in her life, along with a white knight, respectful children, and an exciting career plan. Instead she is drowning in unfulfilled expectations, disappointments, and unmet needs. What she doesn't expect is to find the true essence of magic in the strength, friendship, power, and energy of the female spirit found in her mother and her mother's zany group of friends. Krista cannot believe it's happening again. Her father waltzes in and announces another move. And what does her mother do? Nothing. Don't they realize she's almost thirteen, and this could mean the end of her life? In the midst of teenage melodrama, she is determined to survive a new school, defeat the annoyances of two scene-stealing sisters, and deal with out-of-touch parents. Yet she quickly realizes the double-edged sword of growing up.

Review:
I bought a copy of this book over on Amazon out of curiosity. I'd heard great things about it and the reviews were fantastic. To give you an idea, this book has fifteen reviews and fourteen of them are five stars. Once I dove in and wrapped my head around the story, I could see why. So, here we go; my review of Depression Cookies.

From a reader's perspective:
Abby and Krista were two of the most honest characters I've ever read. They held nothing back as they spoke with authentic voices, describing what it's like to be a teenager or a mother of many children. I could identify with them both. Fears, issues, and the inner workings of their minds were all right on target. Krista seemed like someone I would befriend in school and Abby sounded a lot like my own mother. I was pulled in from page one and I hated it when I had to put the book down. If I'd had time, I know I would've read straight through. I laughed, I cried, and I got angry as I read. Books that can pull emotion like that out of a reader are worth every moment spent with one's nose buried in the pages. I loved the alternating viewpoints and getting to see what the child remembers as opposed to what the parent remembers in different situations. It shows that, sometimes, you don't see the whole story or all of what's going on behind the scenes.

From an editor's perspective:
I found a number of grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors in this book. It needs some TLC but the emotional pull didn't suffer. Example: Thrown for Throne. Darn homophones.

Rating:
+ 1 Star for creating characters I could really feel for.
+ 1 Star for making me want to read on and on and...
+ 1 Star for a creative writing style that really put things into perspective.
+ 1 Star for ripping my heart out and stuffing it back together repeatedly.
+ .5 Star for helping me understand my own mother a bit more.
- .5 Star for errors.

Overall, 4.5 out of 5 stars. A highly recommended read for women of all ages.

I hope you all enjoyed this review. Next on my list is The Awakening (The Judas Curse) by Angella Graff. I'm already into it.

As you all may remember, my birthday falls in July. I like to give gifts so keep your eyes on the blog for some great giveaways that will be coming soon!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

CreateSpace - Head to Desk

Happy Friday, good people of the blogosphere! Yay! Friday! It's about time, too. This week was a long one, but I wrote many words. I have five works in progress, so expect a rash of publishing coming out of this Indie author later in the year. Perhaps I'll be doing a number of giveaways around Christmas again. My goals are to publish the next two installments of the Mystic series (Melody and Coralie), M, Player, and possibly another book I've written a chapter of. Lofty goals! But that's not the topic of today's post. Today, I'd like to talk about CreateSpace.

As you may know, I'm a graphic designer. Because of this, I use Adobe InDesign to format my books for print. On occasion, I format books with artwork that bleeds off the edge of the pages. As in the examples below:

 The Bird

 Dark Premonitions - Second Sight, Book Three

Chasing Memories - The Tala Prophecies, Book One












If you've read The Indie Author's Guide to: Building a Great Book, you've probably already hit the point where you don't get errors back from CreateSpace's auto-check. And you're probably using MS Word to format your books.

This little golden nugget of teachings is for those of you that want to have elements in your book that bleed and are using ID.

When you place your artwork, be sure the bounding box bleeds on all sides all the way to the edge. Even though it looks right on the screen, and you know it'll print correctly, the auto-check will kick it back and show it as an error. If you ignore the issues and save past them, submitting your book without the all-clear, you'll get a reject.

I've even gone as far as to call CreateSpace about the book I'd submitted, assuring them that the artwork was exactly as I wanted it, and they told me they couldn't push it through to the printing house without causing a major headache for everyone involved.

So, to keep others from experiencing mounds of frustration, and having minions, who only know that if the auto-check says no it can't happen, laugh in your face and tell you there's nothing they can do, I'm sharing my frustration.

I only thank the heavens above that I experienced the drawback with my own book and not that of a client. I'm grateful for the experience, but wish I'd known all that I'm sharing with you now before I hit that wall and was forced to step back and re-group.

I hope this post prevents some headaches for some of you.

If you're designing in MS Word, I'm not sure you can create elements that bleed. Though perhaps it's possible.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Writing a Series

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! I hope you're all looking forward to some lovely time over the weekend and have huge plans for the week of the fourth! I've been knee-deep in the Mystic series this week and hope to roll Melody and Coralie out very soon. Fact checking can certainly keep one on their toes! Speaking of things to beware of when writing a series, that's the topic for today! So grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

As regular readers of my blog know, I'm the author of the Mystic series. It's about six women who come together to prevent the end of the world happening. What they're fighting is birthed from humanity; the surprise of the series will appear in the last book, Markaza.

Some of the things I did to prepare for this series:

• Write character bios.
• Make a timeline.
• Decide on locations, issues, and strengths.
• Keep a chart of things that happen during the series (like visions Markaza has of the future) for quick reference.

If you're writing a series, these items are a must-have. They'll save you from having to go back through your previous work to fact-check. You can't contradict yourself if you plan to build a world and characters your readers will believe.

If you don't go into great detail with your characters' appearances, you'll not only leave a lot to the imagination of the reader, you also won't have to check back very often to make sure you're being consistent. How much is too much?


Good planning is essential. It'll get you everywhere.

I left off the Mystic series last year around December, but Melody is singing to have her story heard, and Coralie is acting like a pain in my ass. They're both scrambling, once again, to get out of my head and onto the page.

I hope this helps. A series isn't something to thumb your nose at. It takes a lot of careful consideration and work to make it interesting.

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Flash Writing Contest

Happy Tuesday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm sharing a pretty cool opportunity for all my readers from the Indie Book of the Day folks. Before I give you the link for the contest, I'm gonna share the links for IBD's website and other social media outlets. Here we go!

You can find Indie Book of the Day on the web here: indiebookoftheday.com

You can follow them on Twitter here: @IBDBookoftheDay

And on Facebook here: Indie Book of the Day

Now, on to the flash writing contest!

You can check out the PDF with instructions and rules here: Get the PDF!

They have five categories for you to choose from and provide a prompt. There's something for everyone. Best part of the contest is: It's 100% free to enter!

I do hope some of you take the time to enjoy this great opportunity. Be sure to follow the rules, guys!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo