Tag Archive for: writing

The Best Job in the World

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by Sparkle Abbey

We are about to see the release of our 7th book, Downton Tabby, and we’d just like to say it’s been an incredible journey.

We sold the series in 2010 and the first book, Desperate Housedogs, came out in 2011.

From our very first Malice Domestic and Bouchercon conferences, where we had tons of excitement and enthusiasm, but little to no publishing experience (and come to think of it no books yet), the mystery community has been crazy welcoming and supportive.

We’ve met so many wonderful writers and readers of the genre via various conferences and events. These are brilliant, savvy, fun people, many of whom we are privileged to now call friends.

It’s an amazing experience to walk into a bookstore, whether a Barnes and Noble, BAM or a small indie bookstore, and see our books on the shelf. It’s a thrill that we hope never gets old.

And then there are readers. Wow. It’s impossible to explain how much it means get an email or a letter from a reader who has read one of our books and was moved to write to us. To know that something we wrote provided an escape for someone who was going through a tough time, made someone laugh out loud, or was simply an opportunity relax after a long day at work. So. Cool.

In addition to all that there’s the writing itself. We get to think up twisted plots, give birth to quirky characters, and put them in impossible situations. Of course, then we have to figure out a way to help them solve all the problems we’ve created for them. That’s when the fun begins!

Being a writer is just plain the best job in the world and we feel so lucky to get to do it.

Our newest book, Downton Tabby, comes out in a few days and is currently available for pre-order. To celebrate we’re giving away an adorable Paul Cardew teapot and a canister of Downton Abbey tea. All you have to do to enter the contest is pre-order the book and then send us an email letting us know you have.

We love to connect with readers and other writers!
You can find us online in the following places:

Website: www.sparkleabbey.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/sparkleabbey
Twitter: @sparkleabbey
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/sparkleabbey/

Ask the Conductor

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By Bethany Maines
Recently, I spent an hour at our historical documents
library chasing down the names of the trolley stops between Tacoma and Spanaway
Lake in the year 1914. Why, I hear you ask? What possible strange writer thing
could I be up to? Is there a new novel in the works featuring a motorman’s
adventures trying to the clear the name of a fellow conductor whose trolley
appeared to take a turn too fast and go over an embankment fiery ball of flames
in turn of the century Tacoma Washington? No, although now that you mention it,
I would totally read that novel.

In fact this research mission was related to my day job –
graphic design. While it’s rare for a design job to take me to the library, I
strongly feel that both hats that I wear revolve around the same theme – I tell
stories. Sometimes it’s in words and the stories are of my own in invention and
sometimes it’s for a client who wants to showcase their unique narrative either
in print or in the case of the trolley client on the side of their building.
Yes, they take different skills, but at the end of the day, I feel like there’s
a lot of overlap. Each project must have a beginning that sets the stage and
leads the viewer/reader into main message and then conclude in a satisfactory
manner. I think my ability to spot a narrative aids me in both lines of work.
And of course, the benefit to being paid to research strange topics, is that
who knows when a novel will require the use of my new found trolley knowledge.
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Tales from the City of
Destiny and An Unseen Current.
 You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Dialogue–To Say and Convey

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I feel fortunate this year to
have had several opportunities to teach (and learn) about dialogue. I come from
a theatre background, so I’ve always felt comfortable writing what characters
say. It wasn’t until I studied the mechanics of what makes dialogue readable,
that I realized there are a few techniques that can really improve not only the
speech, but also the way it enhances the story.

The www.oxforddictionaries.com defines
“dialogue” as “conversation between two or more people as a feature of a book,
play, or movie.” While fictional dialogue resembles conversation, it is not an
exact transcription. Readers would soon tire of actual exchanges. Consider the
number of times people say throw away words or syllables like “you know” or “uh.”
Watch close captioned programing and see how difficult it is to capture exactly
all the spoken phrases and word spellings. It’s tortuous.

To really be beneficial in
developing a story, the dialogue must be an integral part of the plot, the
pacing, and the entire purpose of the work. It’s crucial that dialogue identify
the speaker and reveal the character by speech pattern and attribution (either “tags,”
such as he said or she said, or “beats,” which are character actions placed
close to the spoken words). In addition, dialogue needs to blend into the
story becoming invisible to the reader so it advances the story without
distracting or interfering with its progress.

At
this year’s Murder in the Magic City, an annual mystery conference held in
Birmingham, Alabama, Guest of Honor Craig Johnson (author of the Longmire series) mentioned that George
Guidall, who reads the audio versions of the books, told him: “You don’t
clutter your writing with attribution and that makes it easier to read.” This
comment resonated very strongly with me, bringing home two important points:
(1) it’s important to read your story aloud, particularly the dialogue, to see
if it flows naturally and feels comfortable being spoken, and (2) any dialogue that
doesn’t keep the story moving has to go.


Here’s
a checklist of recommendations for writing dialogue that I developed from my
studies:

For
clarity, each time a speaker changes, give the new speaker a new paragraph.

Be
careful about using a character action as a tag.

Examples
of bad tags: “No,” he coughed. / “No,” she hissed.
You
can’t cough a word, nor can you hiss a word that does not contain an “s.”
Improvement:
The racking cough almost kept him from speaking. Finally, he was able to say,
“No.”
Appropriate
use of “hiss”: “”Yes,” she hissed.

Use
adverbs sparingly. A character might say something softly instead of whispering;
but if you describe him as speaking adamantly or sarcastically, think about
substituting a beat (He slammed his fist on the table/She smirked) for the tag
(he said adamantly/she said sarcastically). Remember show, don’t tell.

Vary
tags and beats. If it’s clear who’s speaking, you may not need either.

Punctuate
dialogue with commas and periods. Use exclamation marks sparingly. Generally,
people don’t speak in semi-colons.

Match dialogue with your character and
make sure it reflects your character’s voice.

Limit and be consistent in use of
dialect and phonetically spelled speech. Let it enhance character development,
not confuse the reader.

Don’t use character names in dialogue
unless they are needed for clarity or emphasis. Remember how you knew you were
in trouble as a child when you heard your parent call you by your full name?

Know when silence or the unspoken
speaks volumes.

Following are some books and online
resources I’ve found helpful:

1.                 
Dynamic Dialogue: Letting
Your Story Speak by William Bernhardt (Red Sneaker Writers
Book Series 4) (Babylon
Books, February 3, 2014).

2.                 
Dialogue by Marcy Kennedy (Busy
Writer’s Guides Book 3) (Tongue Untied Communications, February 26, 2014).

3.                 
Dialogue – The Ultimate Writers’ Guide by
Robyn Opie Parnell (R&R Books Film Music, July 23, 2014).

4.                 
Dialogue Tips & Traps: A
Guide for Fiction Writers by Brent Spencer (Writers
Workshop Press, June 25, 2012).

5.                 
Hallie Ephron’s article at: http://www.netplaces.com/writing-your-first-novel/writing-dialogue/writing-believable-dialogue.htm

6.                 
Marcy Kennedy’s dialogue blog messages at: http://marcykennedy.com/

 A legislative attorney and former law
librarian, Paula Gail Benson’s short stories have been published in Kings
River Life, the Bethlehem Writers Roundtable, Mystery Times Ten 2013 (Buddhapuss Ink),
A Tall Ship, a Star, and Plunder
(Dark Oak Press and Media, 2014), and A
Shaker of Margaritas: That Mysterious Woman (Mozark Press 2014). Her most
recent short story, “The Train’s on the Tracks,” is in Fish or Cut Bait: the third Guppy Anthology (Wildside Press 2015).

My Husband is Living With a New Woman

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My Husband is Living With A New Woman by Debra H. Goldstein

My husband thinks he’s living with a new woman.  He isn’t sure who I am. Suddenly, I’m doing things and talking about subjects that are absolutely foreign to what he associates with me.

The fact is that we’ve been married long enough that he thinks he can predict what I like or dislike. Ask him and he’ll tell you that I love him, our children, books, eating out and theater (although he’s not sure what order, at any given time, those things fall in) and that sporting events, exercise, and cooking top my “forget it” list. Lately though, he thinks his wife has been replaced by a “foodie.”

Not only does he keep finding the television tuned to the Food Network, but he’s noticed that I keep coming home with cookbooks and new food gadgets. Even weirder, I’ve been turning down the option of going out to dinner to try a number of new recipes out on him. Of course, not all of them have been successful. For example, I made chicken soup from scratch for our Passover Seder, but I didn’t realize that the wide noodles I added a few minutes before the service would soak up all the soup during our short service. You can imagine my face when I peered into the pot to ladle out portions and could actually see my soup evaporating. The good thing, as we all agreed, was that the matzah balls, noodles, and chicken ended up being very well seasoned.

At least those things sans soup were edible. Recently, I made a fish dish that not only looked beautiful in the picture in the cookbook, but also on our plates. The only problem was that I got distracted when I was measuring some of the ingredients. Take it from me, 2 tablespoons of black pepper make a dish a lot spicier than ¼ of a teaspoon. Thank goodness we had plenty of water with that meal.

Last night, I dragged my husband to a new type of dinner experience – Dinner Lab. Young chefs come into town and serve a meal in a pop-up restaurant. Although the diner knows the chef and menu in advance, the location isn’t revealed until the day before dinner. The dinner itself is more like a tasting menu in that each course provides a different eating sensation. I liked the warehouse used, thought the menu novel, and enjoyed each course. My husband had the same reaction he had when he saw The Blue Men Group – “that was different.”

The reality is I haven’t changed. I still prefer to eat out. What has changed is that my newest work in progress (about 51,000 words so far) is a cozy with recipes. Writing accurately and interestingly requires research. Whether it is the voice, setting, or characterization, accuracy counts. So, I’ve become addicted to food shows, cookbooks, and cooking (okay, make that attempted cooking) for the sake of my craft. Can you possibly think of a more fun way to get the story right – even if it means my husband is living with a new woman?

Mystery Novel Seeks New Home

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by Bethany Maines

As the release date for my newest mystery (An UnseenCurrent) approaches (April 28th – ahhhhhhh!!!) I find myself once
again pondering the cruel irony of nature that crafts writers to be introspective
sorts and then pits them against a task to which they are monumentally
unsuited.  That is to say: marketing. The
woman hours spent lovingly crafting characters, settings, and events leaves the
writer more than a little in love with their own book. To then have it
heartlessly thrust into the public where some reviewer will crassly thumb
through it and declare it to be passable is like being gently stabbed with
needles by someone who doesn’t really care about your problems.  We all want to be bestselling authors.  I mean, who doesn’t want to be RichardCastle? (I really am ruggedly handsome!) 
But in all honesty, I think most writers would rather have their books
treasured and loved than consumed like soda and disposed of.
I remember the first time I saw one of my aunt’s books at
Half-Price Books. My aunt, Linda Nichols, writes beautiful Christian fiction
with snappy plots and characters you want to hug. I had not yet, published any
books and I personally thought that seeing her books on the shelf of a used
bookstore was cool.  But Linda did not
think it was cool – there was wincing and the sad look of “ohh, I wish I didn’t
know that.”  Someone sold her book down
the river – the heathens, the Philistines! The bastards with not enough shelf
space!  After I had been published I
realized her pain.  How could someone not
love my book?! Why would anyone give my book away?  My books are awesome.  All right, yes, I recognize the shelf space
issue is a real thing – even libraries don’t have ALL the books.  But as each baby book flies out into the
world, forgive me if I hope that it will find at least one home where it will
be treasured.
And on that note – who wants a free digital copy of An
Unseen Current?  It’s looking for an
awesome home (and someone who will leave a review).  Leave a comment here or on Facebook to be
entered to win.  I’ll draw names on Friday morning.
AN UNSEEN CURRENT
When Seattle native Tish Yearly finds herself fired and evicted  all in one afternoon, she knows she’s in deep water. Unemployed and desperate, the 26 year old ex-actress heads for the one place she knows she’ll be welcome – the house of her cantankerous ex-CIA agent grandfather, Tobias Yearly, in the San Juan Islands. And when she discovers the strangled corpse of Tobias’s best friend, she knows she’s in over her head. Tish is thrown head-long into a mystery that pits her against a handsome but straight-laced Sheriff’s Deputy, a group of eccentric and clannish local residents, and a killer who knows the island far better than she does. Now Tish must swim against the current, depending on her nearly forgotten acting skills and her grandfather’s spy craft, to con a killer and keep them alive.
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Tales from the City of
Destiny and the forthcoming An Unseen
Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Hashtag This

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by Bethany Maines

There’s a hashtag on Twitter for people who are writing –
#amwriting. An innocuous hashtag for tracking other writers, but sometimes… it
can be just a little bit smug. And given the nature of writers I was wondering
if we could have a more honest hashtag? #amsurfingtheweb #amwatchingcatvideos
#amdoinganythingbutwriting

Right now I’m doing anything but working on the outline of
Carrie Mae Book 4.  Because, no, I don’t
know how they ended up in a brawl to the death among the Amsterdam tulips.  Can’t I just wave my magic writer wand, do a
little jazz hands, and write by the seat of my pants? #pantsingit  The problem with pantsing it, is that I am no
Louis L’Amour.  Mr. L’Amour apparently
did not believe in rewrites or edits; he believed that rewrites killed the
freshness of the story.  Or he believed
that we would buy whatever he wrote. #hewasright  When I attempt to pants it, my stories go
sideways and I end up writing entire chapters that sound like vacation
brochures. #needavacation No story was ever moved forward by a character
actually stopping to smell the roses, or in my case, tulips.  Unless, of course, he got wacked on the head
while bending to smell one. #deathbytulip #nameformynextnovel #dontstealit
#mine

So here I am, forced into the drudgery of outlining.  Coming up with the answers before I even know
what all the questions are. Or in my case, procrastinating for all I’m worth.
#procrastination! I could say that I’m mulling it over or letting it marinate,
but let’s face it, at no point in my life have I ever mulled something over
while doing the dishes.  The only thing I
think while doing the dishes is that dishes suck and we all need to stop eating
so there will be less dishes.  #seriously
It’s productivity through hatred of the other available task.
#atleastsomethinggotdone Eventually, I’ll have to return to the outline –
figure out the who, why, where and how.  Eventually,
I will have to do the research and plug the plot holes.  Eventually, I will actually have to write.  #amwriting  
Sigh.  Can’t I be #amvacuuming instead?  
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Tales from the City of
Destiny and the forthcoming An Unseen
Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Spring Has Come – Time for a New Resolution by Debra H. Goldstein

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SRING HAS COME – TIME FOR A NEW RESOLUTION by Debra H. Goldstein

The snow is melting!  The snow is melting! Spring is here!  There’s actually a jonquil popping its head up in my yard (sorry guys, we’ve had some 60-70 degree days).  As a writer, I am reborn when the sun comes out.

With rebirth comes a new sense of responsibility.  It is one that I have been sorely lacking since I stepped down from the bench.  It is the willingness to commit my time and energies where my mouth has claimed to be.  Sure, I’ve produced one sold book (Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery coming from Five Star Publications in 2016) and ten published short stories in the past sixteen months, but I’ve done that writing in spurts.  I’ve repeatedly said, I can’t discipline myself enough to write daily but I write up a storm when the mood moves me.  In the meantime, I’ve organized and executed a wedding for 326 people, gotten into a regular mah jongg game, been active on many civic boards, taken on numerous isolated projects, traveled for pleasure and writing, and been hit by the biggest continuing wallop when I lost my mother in November.

People tell me they’re amazed at what I’ve accomplished and I smile and accept their nice words, but deep down, I know I am a fraud.  Secretly, I watch with envy and astonishment the accomplishments of three somewhat early in their career authors whose work I enjoy and who I greatly admire as people – Edith Maxwell, Leslie Budewitz, and Terry Shames.  Each has produced multiple books and in Edith and Leslie’s cases, multiple series, in the same time period.  They also do a million things outside of their writing.  What’s the difference?

Don’t even go there with the obvious answer – their talent, writing skills, and wonderful characterizations.  Leaving those givens aside for a moment, it is their discipline.  Each sets a daily or weekly word goal and they reach it.  They set further goals for revisions.  Their results speak for themselves – well written, well-edited books they can be proud to put their names on and which fans, including me, can’t wait to read.

Many of us can string words together, but without self-discipline we are condemned to be writers of excuses instead of multiple works.  Spring is here and with the rebirth of the year, we all have an opportunity to start anew.

The Story Starts Here

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by Bethany Maines
One of the most common question a writer gets asked is
“Where do your ideas come from?”
Once my brother made me lay on his floor so he could tape
outlines of me all over his bedroom carpet as though his room had been the site
of a mass murder; we found it was surprisingly difficult to get just the right
pose so that all the limbs were showing and you didn’t just have weird potato
shaped outlines. (Yes, I know that was an odd transition, but I’ll circle back
I promise.) When was 12, I told my Dad I had a stove box to make a Halloween
costume out of he got out the black and white spray paint and turned my best
friend and I into Two Fools in Pair-o-Dice; our heads came out the one dots – naturally.
My mom’s friend once had eye surgery and had a rather large bandage, so my mom painted
on an eye over the bandage and added a great set of false lashes. Why did we do
these things? Honestly, the question never occurred to us. Had you asked at the
time we probably would have said, “Why not?” My family has a culture
of creativity and odd projects from passing thoughts are the norm not the
exception. And as is often the case with cultures, I didn’t think to question
it until someone from a different culture asked, “So why don’t you put
mayo on fries?”  Or in the case of my
writing, “How do you come up with your ideas?”
The people asking don’t mean anything by the question, they
are genuinely interested. The problem is that at any given time I’m vacillating between two of my personalities, Helpful Instructor Bethany and Diva Artiste
Bethany. Helpful Instructor is usually nice, but Diva Artiste is kind of…
well, I won’t use the B-word as we are in a family friendly forum, but you get
the idea, and sometimes it’s a struggle to rein Diva Wench back in. Helpful Instructor
realizes that the questioner was not raised in a culture of creativity and they
are asking for help understanding the creative process. Diva Artiste
imperiously demands how anyone cannot have ideas. Ideas are literally littered
on the sidewalk, in the newspaper, on the radio, sleeting through the universe
like a tiny meteorite looking for a receptive brain (Terry Pratchett, you are
missed) and all you really have to do to have an idea is make your brain
receptive. It’s easy to do – read blogs by creative people (thanks), buy creative people presents (ok, maybe not really on that one, but I like books, you know, just in case), try new things. But the number one tip that Helpful
Instructor or Diva Artiste both agree on, is to ask “What if?”
Any topic can work. Earlier this week there was a news story
about a man who ran from the police and got stuck in mud.  What if you had been that man – up to your
knees in river mud, unable to move, sinking slowly? What would you do?

What if I… What if you… What if they… The story starts
there and you can decide the ending – just answer the question.
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Tales from the City of
Destiny and the forthcoming An Unseen
Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Genre Bending

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By Bethany Maines

I read Marjorie Brody’s post yesterday “Passion Knows NoGenre” with interest. Marjorie was discussing that she hates being tied to one
particular genre, but that the general industry wisdom is to do exactly that –
stick to one thing! I love Marjorie’s rebellious flare, but the topic also tied
into something I’ve been pondering for awhile: pen names and branding.
As a graphic designer with over a decade of industry
experience I have referred to myself periodically as a “branding expert”.
Branding is about capturing the concrete and implied qualities of a company or
person in their visual, advertising, and on-line representations. Branding
seems trivial to some, but as human beings we do it ALL the time. Only most
sociologists call it “stereotyping”. Humans seem to prefer to have a short
little label to stick on people. We don’t really like being forced to confront
the broad spectrum of human reality – it takes too long and we’ve got better
things to do with our time. What I do as a graphic designer is try to lodge the
preferred stereotype in a consumers mind before they apply their (usually not
as complementary) own.
  
Which is why I don’t usually tell my graphic design clients
that I’m a writer.  It confuses my
brand.  I can see the thought
bubble form: If she writes, then she can’t really be a graphic designer;
everyone knows you can’t have TWO talents.  Fortunately, the writer brand is equivalent with “poor” so
when I tell writer friends that I also do graphic design they just nod.  But industry wisdom has the same “does
not compute” problem with genre. 
“But she writes Mystery, she can’t also write (fill in the blank).” 
And up until now the only way to write something different was
to use a pen name. But with the online world being what it is and with lawyers being blabbermouths, keeping a pen name identity a secret is hard to do.  The other problem is that as writers
have become more and more responsible for their own publicity they realize that
it’s hard enough getting recognition for one name, let alone building buzz for
an entirely new, second name.
Which is why I find the development of the new style of pen
name so interesting.  “Wrting as”
has become the marketers new favorite phrase. Such as: Laura Spinella writing as L.J. Wilson pens Ruby
Ink! (I’m half way through my advance copy and it’s a fantastic, saucy romp of
a book – pick it up on March 31!) 
“Writing as” is now code for “I’m not writing in the same genre, so be
prepared for something different.” 
And I couldn’t be happier about it. At last writers have found a way to break out of the genre
trap! Perhaps in a few years Pen Names will be the new industry wisdom. We’ll just have to see which pen name
Marjorie chooses.  

The Bobbsey Twins and Agatha Christie by Debra H. Goldstein

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The Bobbsey Twins and Agatha Christie by Debra H. Goldstein

When I was a child, I was given a copy of The Bobbsey Twins of Lakeport by Laura Lee Hope.  It’s book jacket claimed “Ghosts! Everyone agrees that the old Marden House is as haunted as a chimney on Halloween, but when there’s a mystery to be solved, the Bobbsey Twins, Bert and Nan, Freddie and Flossie, don’t intend to let a little thing like ghosts stop them.”  I became a diehard mystery reader from that moment forward.

Mysteries let me escape from school, chores, piano practice, and my pesky younger sister.  Reading the entire Bobbsey Twin series let me be part of solving a mystery at the circus, the beach, the mountains, and by the end, even Japan.  I explored more places and felt like the series’ characters became my friends as I read my way through Cherry Ames, Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and Trixie Belden.  Then, I found Agatha Christie!  Not only were the characters of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot addictive, but their reasoning abilities challenged me to read carefully so that I could beat them to figuring out whodunit.

To this day, I relish the plot line in Christie’s The Pale Horse because it stumped me.  When I finished the book, I realized that Agatha Christie had hid the clues in the plot’s twists and turns, but I had been so engrossed in the story that I forgot to focus on putting them together.  It was at that moment I realized the complex analysis and delicacy of writing that makes a good mystery just plain fun to read.

Throughout the years, mystery writers have entertained and challenged me. They’ve kept me from being bored on long flights, distracted me when unpleasant things are happening, and interfered with my sleep because I was too intrigued in a book to put it down.  It is the latter type of books that remind me of the technical skills of word choice, plot, and characterization necessary to write an enjoyable mystery. These type of books are, as Flossie of The Bobbsey Twins would say, “bee-yoo-ti-ful!.”