Kristal Lee

(Reposted from New Kids on the Writer's Block.)

I've been struggling with my WIP lately. In my head, the story spins endlessly. When I type it out, the story runs in every direction but the one I first imagined.

What I've found is that it's easy to come up with a story. It's much more difficult to get it out of my head and into a tale that other people would want to read. Desperate to figure out what was wrong with my "baby", I broke down the chapters I've penned and poured over the character worksheets. To my surprise, I found that I don't have a much of a plot. I've developed the internal conflicts but the external conflict is too nebulous to be much of a driving force and thus the story fizzles instead of dazzles. Well, crap, I chastise myself. I've invested all this time in this WIP and all I've been doing is walkin' the dog.

Margie Lawson explains walking the dog, as she learned it from Jameson Cole, as the unnecessary busyness of a scene or chapter. I have a whole lot of stuff going on, but nothing that really matters. What happens in those pages does not deepen the characters or move the story forward. It meanders along with no destination. Well, double crap. My story is on vacation and I need to bring it home. Back to the storyboard I trudge.

I think of Jennieke's post The Importance of Plot and Julie's post Plotter, Panster or Planner. I've learned that my plot "planning" needs a lot of work. The things that I need to pay more attention to, the story and character goals and external conflicts, not just the HEA. After all, the story is about how the hero and heroine get to their HEA, not walking the dog along the way.

~kristal lee

Blogging at New Kids on the Writer's Block today. (Reposted)

Backstory is what happened to your characters before the story begins. As writers, we labor over each important detail of their lives. It’s a birthing process and when our babies emerge fully grown we feel the need to share every little detail.

While we may love the backstory, a reader doesn’t. At least not in chunks big enough to choke Rottweiler. Historical information is passive and diverts attention from the present.  That’s not to say that backstory isn’t important. It is. The challenge is in giving enough information without boring the reader.

When wading through the mire of backstory dumps, the reader may give into distractions. Skim ahead. Or….Aaack! Put the book down.

To keep the story moving forward and avoid slowing the pace, bits of the character’s past can be introduced through dialogue. This keeps the reader engaged as the story unfolds. Show character reactions through body language as they disclose those past secrets or learn of them.

Write tight. Avoid unnecessary words and fillers. Keep the backstory active. Include only what the reader must ABSOLUTELY know. Eliminate the interesting tidbits if they aren’t important to the present story.

Margie Lawson, in her Deep Editing online workshop, suggests creating a separate file on the backstory. For your eyes only. Keep it brief, though. Highlight what’s critical for the reader to know in order to understand the story. Put those important details on a fresh page. Then, slip pieces of this information into the first third of the book. Keep it active using dialogue and be careful of relying on history for present motivations. Characters need fresh stimulus and responses to keep the story current.

After all that work on character development, it’s tough to whittle the juicy details to bare bones. So, how do you handle presenting backstory without snoozing and loosing the reader?

~kristal lee

It's Plinky time!

If you could be any character from any book you've ever read, who would you be?
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I would want to become Grace Alexander, the heroine in Sherrilyn Kenyon's Fantasy Lover, because Grace ends up with Julian. The sexy half-god, Spartan warrior, turned love-slave with a heart and eyes only for her.

Fantasy Lover is my all-time favorite paranormal romance book. I read it at least 2-3 times a year and I fall in love all over again.

Julian springs to life from the pages of an ancient manuscript that Grace's witchy friend gives her as a birthday present. From full moon to full moon, Julian is determined to fulfill Grace's every sexual fantasy. Only she isn't cooperating. Grace is a sex therapist determined to set Julian free from his tortured past by pushing him out of the bedroom and into the world again. "Sure, love can heal all wounds, but can it break a two thousand year old curse."

I won this award from Sarah Hoss at http://heart-of-romance.blogspot.com. I want to thank her for the award and I hope she knows how much I appreciate it!

So now I pass it on. These are the ladies and their blogs that I follow and enjoy.

Put the Kettle On
Camryn Rhys
Angels and Demons and Portals. Oh My!
Nancy's Notes from Florida
Terry's Place
New Kids on the Writers Block
Deb Sanders
K.C. Burn
Renee Lynn Scott
Southern Sizzle Romance


This is how the award works.
Accept the award, post it on your blog along with the name of the person who has granted the award and a link to his or her blog. Pass the award on to other blogs that you enjoy and and contact the blogger to notify them of your choice.

~Kristal Lee

Blogging about echo words at New Kids on the Writers Block. (Reposted)

Ever stood in a cave, hands cupped around your mouth, and hollered "Hellllooo"? Did you hear an echo? If you did, your echo was intentional. You called into the emptiness of the cave just to hear your voice bounce back to you.

Echoes don't occur only in caves. They can occur in writing, too.

Sometimes a writer will intentionally use repetitive words and phrases for emphasis, but I'm not talking about those stylistic choices. I'm talking about those unintentional repetitions that annoy the reader. Echo words and phrase.

It's easy for verbs to become echo words in our writing. Take a look at the following examples.


He gave her a sour look. She looked frazzled.. Sarah watched him looking through the items in the box.

He whispered. The trees were whispering in the wind.

He paced the room. He paced like a cage tiger. She walked so fast it was hard to keep pace with her.

Regret washed over him. Overwhelming sadness washed over her.

Rick turned to leave. Abby turned to face her. She turned away. Valerie turned to hide her face...yada, yada, yada).

Of course, not all echo words are verbs. Adjectives rank among them too. Recently, I was reading a yet to be released book for a review. The book was good, but the author overused the word visceral. Now, visceral is an unusual word and isn't common in every day language. Using it once would have been an attention getter...in a good way. It's a powerful, descriptive word. Seeing the word repeated a couple of times in nearly every chapter annoyed the heck out of me. I began wondering if the author understood the meaning of the word, or if she was simply so enamored with her own vocabulary and showing off. It's not a good thing to irk your audience.

We all have echo words that we should be cognizant of in our writing. A couple of divining tools that I use to point out those little hiccups are the "Find" function in Word and Wordle.  The "Find" function is self-explanatory if you are familiar with Word. It works best if you're aware of the echo words that fly from your fingertips onto the page. Wordle is a website that creates word clouds. You copy/paste your WIP into its designated box and it will show you which words are repeated the most by the size of the word. This has been an amazing tool for me to find the echo words that slipped past my brain in revisions. Wordle is a free website. Check it out at www.wordle.net.

Do you find that your WIP is infected with echo words? What are they? And, what methods do you use to extract them?

~ Kristal Lee

I'm excited to have Camryn Rhys, erotic romance author and Golden Claddagh winner blogging about erotic romance and the quest for recognition of this up and coming genre.

A big welcome to Camryn:

When I sat in the Golden Heart/RITA Ceremony at RWA Nationals this year in Orlando, I found myself imagining what it had been like ten years ago, fifteen or twenty years ago, to be nominated for a RITA. Well, it turns out, they didn't even have "RITA"s twenty years ago.

Well, twenty-one years ago, anyway.

In 1989, the top award in Romance Fiction was called "The Gold Medallion", and there were only eight categories (as opposed to today's twelve). The romance genre looked very different in 1989, and I should know, I was reading it, even at my tender age of ---- don't you wish I'd tell you?

You may wonder why, in the midst of such a beautiful and touching ceremony, I was musing about how different the RITAs looked. It's because of a conversation I had with a bunch of Erotic Romance authors at the Passionate Ink party a few days prior. It went something like this:

"Why isn't there a RITA or a Golden Heart for Erotic Romance?"
"I think they voted on that last year, with the epubs stuff."
"Yeah, I heard it's not a real genre."
"I heard that, too. Someone said 'erotic romances are welcome in any category, just like any other heat level of romance.'"
"But erotic romance isn't a heat level."
"You're right. It's a genre."
Being new to the genre, I asked, "What makes it a genre and not a heat level?"
"Think about it. Most 'sensual' romances, you could make non-explicit, and most sweet romances, you could make more explicit, and they'd essentially be the same story. No matter what the heat level. In erotic romance, the explicit language isn't a trapping, it's part of the love story. Their erotic love story *is* the story. If you take it out, there's no more story."

So I sat at the RITA ceremony thinking about the past because I was wondering about the future. I wondered when RWA would choose to validate a quickly growing genre that does herald itself as a genre, and not a heat level.

As an erotic romance author who also writes in other genres, I know when a story idea is an erotic idea and when it's not. It has nothing to do with how much sex is in the book. Putting more sex scenes in doesn't make a book erotic. If you think that, you need to read some erotic romance. I read a fantastic erotic romance novella, once, by Leigh Court, where there is essentially no sex until the last 20 pages (which is almost straight sex, but still... it was a long buildup). And it really was fantastic. Why?

Because the love story of the hero and heroine was an erotic one. Their sexual awakening was part of their  love story, and it was integral to the story (to their story) that the book be structured the way it was. Take away all the sex, and their relationship could never have happened. That's not true of non-erotic romances, even the super steamy ones.

Erotic romance novels have plot structures deeply rooted in the physical relationship between an h/h. A man who has dishonored his wife and vows to seduce her back. A woman who faces marriage to a man she hates decides to seduce the man she's loved for ten years in the hopes that she can have one good sexual experience before she's consigned to a loveless marriage. A man who so loves a woman that he offers to have a threesome with her and her husband, just to be in her bed. A woman who would become a werewolf, but needs to release her sexual energy in order to change for the first time. A man who regrounds his magic by having sex with an enchanted woman.

The sex is not just a trapping to books like these. It is integral to the very structure of the book. Without the sex, the plot completely disintegrates. While non-erotic books might not be quite as emotionally engaging without sex, they should still at least make sense without it. Erotic romance needs sex.

Preferrably lots of sex. Multiple ways. Maybe with multiple partners. And we're not averse to a little bondage, kink, or play. That's what erotic romance is all about. The sexual journey.

So I do hope that someday, RWA will acknowledge that erotic romance is not a heat level, it's a genre. And as a genre, it deserves to be honored as such. I also hope that I can be the first recipient of an Erotic Romance RITA. Let's say 2015. Yeah, that can be my goal.

Of course, in order to win a RITA, I need to get published first.

Better get on that. ;-)
Camryn

Visit Camryn at Camryn Rhys ~ Putting the H-O-T in History  and at New Kids on the Writer's Block.

If you're looking for a seat of your pants, harem scare 'em flick, Zombieland isn't what you're looking for. However, if you want a good laugh and don't care about a mindless wandering plot, then Zombieland is exactly what you need.

Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslyn run from zombies and ditch each other in this ridiculous spoof. If you haven't guessed already, then let me advise you that I didn't pick this movie to watch. Hubby did. 'Nuff said about that.

Being a good sport, I settled back in the recliner. Lights dimmed. Surround sound blaring.  He likes to  recreate the movie theater experience. I cringe as the French door panels rattle.

Lots of non-nonsensical shenanigans filled the TV screen and for the first third of the movie, I kept asking where's the plot. According to IMDb, the plot is "searching for family." Really? Hmmm, I didn't get that.

But, I didn't need too.

Once I gave up on trying to figure out the plot, the story arc, the character motivations, and so on and so forth into infinity, I found myself enjoying the madness. It was funny. At times, ironically stupid. No way in creation was it believable, but it was entertaining. And that's the point, isn't it?

Entertainment.

The reason we watch movies. The reason we read books.

An audience wants to be entertained. Whether its a deliciously decadent Scottish historical romance, a down and dirty western, a flight by night paranormal suspense, or a life and death medical drama our audience wants to be taken away from the realities of their daily lives and escape into another reality. That reality doesn't need to be true to life. It simply needs to be entertaining.
~Kristal Lee

Blogging today at New Kids on the Writer's Block. I'm discussing the rhetorical device, anadiplosis.
(Reposted)

One way a writer defines and distinguishes her voice is through the use of rhetorical devices. Rhetorical devices can make your voice sing. There, I've already used one of the devices. Can you guess what it is?

I'll reveal it in a moment. First, I want to explain what rhetorical devices are.  Rhetorical devices are techniques the author uses to convey emotion, heighten tension, emphasize a point. The goal of rhetorical devices is to connect with the reader. To evoke an emotional response so that they connect to the character, to the story.

There are multitudes of rhetorical devices. During the next few weeks, I'll be discussing my favorites. I do suggest that if you aren't familiar with rhetorical devices to grab a book or two on the subject and take Margie Lawson's Deep Editing workshop.

So, let's look at my opening sentences:

One way a writer defines and distinguishes her voice is through the use of rhetorical devices. Rhetorical devices can make your voice sing.

Notice how I ended the first sentence and began the next with "rhetorical devices." I did this for emphasis. To catch your attention. To make the words buzz in your head so that you would remember them. I hope it worked.

This technique is called anadiplosis (an-uh-dih-PLO-sis), the repetition of the last word or phrase in a sentence to begin the next.

Using anadiplosis can empower your writing. Make it memorable. Make it stand out from the slush pile.

Cherry Adair, NY Times bestseller, uses anadiplosis in her best seller, Black Magic.

"The Archon paid him. Paid him ridiculously well. But he'd be ley hunting if he were doing it for free."

She could've wrote: The Archon paid him to ley hunt, but he would've done it for free.

See how use of anadiplosis made her sentence more powerful, more evocative.

Now you try. Take a paragraph of your current WIP that needs a little ummph and empower it with anadiplosis. Share it in the comments. If you've naturally used anadiplosis in your current WIP, show us too.

Happy Writing!
~kristal lee

Over the last few weeks, I’ve blogged at New Kids on the Writer’s Block as Kaelee Morgan on the topic of writer’s voice. Mostly, because I wanted to understand what it is, if I had one, and how to develop it. I’ve learned that #1, we all have a voice, and #2, we have to learn what it is before we can develop and refine it. Like a songster’s voice, a writer’s voice begins with the raw basics and is refined through practice. How refined that voice becomes depends on the practice. Only perfect practice produces a perfect result.

As writers, we MUST learn the craft of writing in order for our practice to be spot on. Our writer’s voice becomes more defined once we’ve mastered how to use writing tools and we begin to shape and use those instruments according to our natural style.

Writer’s voice is as individualistic as we are. A familiar reader should be able to pick up anything we’ve written and identify it with us. Voice is that distinctive.

Don’t believe me? Pick up a book written round robin with several authors. When reading the book, you get a clear sense of when the author has switched. The sentence structure is slightly different, the word choice, even the tone. There is distinction in voice.

I began pondering this uniqueness, the individuality, and imminent recognizability. Not only in voice, but who I am as an author.

When I decided to pursue a professional writing career, I made the choice to use a pen name, Kaelee Morgan. It wasn’t a hard decision. Looking back, it was easier than it should’ve been. Almost without thought, really.

I told family members and friends that I was using a pseudonym, they all asked why. I glibly answered, because I have a day job in the public arena with a large and politically “hot” agency. Self-protection, self-preservation I deemed it.

I hit the bulls-eye with the self-protection, self-preservation bit. But not because of the crap about the day job.

Looking back at my much younger years, I remember writing, writing, writing, and signing my work as Anonymous. Not because I was embarrassed by what I wrote, but because I was embarrassed to be complimented. I wrote a short story in school that my teacher raved about, to everyone. Before long, my story was the talk of the school. In a good way, but the attention was a tad overwhelming. Overwhelming because there’s a vulnerability in writing out your heart and everyone scrutinizing it.

A pen name provides a layer of protection. Some authors choose pen names out of reasonable necessity. Or perhaps because they write in different genres or for different publishers.

I chose a pen name out of fear. Not fear of rejection, but fear of recognition. Kinda backward thinking, I know. Especially considering that I’m not a shy person, nor do I have a problem with self-confidence. I do, however, like privacy.

While studying voice, I dug through the Hope chest to rediscover short stories, creative writing assignments, poems, and research papers from my past. And there I found my voice. Raw and in need of refinement, but definitely my voice.

Somehow, over time, I lost some of what makes me, me, in writing. Maybe this had something to do with me opting for a pen name, maybe not. Most likely not. But, the lesson learned in studying voice is that I just gotta be me.

Shakespeare wrote “a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.” I suppose that’s true, but would that flower be as endearing to the masses if called a bloody thorn stalk? Somehow, I don’t think so. The essence of the flower is constant, but our perception of it changes.

After meditating on this for quite some time, I decided that come what may, I want to be known as me. I don’t need an alter identity to shield from the public eye of my day job or from family or friends. In reality, I was only hiding from me. So, I’m foregoing the pen name, Kaelee Morgan.

I’ve changed everything over to the real me, Kristal Lee. No layer of protection now. No cushion to hide behind. Nothing but the simple, direct, often quirky, me.

I’d love to hear from those who’ve chosen to use a pen name, or two. Why did you decide to use a pseudonym? If you use more than one name, do you notice a change in your voice, or does it remain consistent?
~Kristal Lee

**Reposted from NKotWB

I was playing on Plinky and came across this prompt: What movie always makes you cry?'

Can you guess what came to my mind? Probably not in a zillion years, but try.
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Okay, here it is….
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Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Yep, that’s right. You didn’t guess that did you?

I always, always cry at the part where the other reindeer are laughing at Rudolph because the black cover comes off his nose and it’s glowing red. It breaks my heart how cruel reindeer can be.  Really, who knew about the mean streak in Santa’s magickal beasts. The ones that pull his sleigh full of toys, delivering  joy to so many girls and boys on Christmas Eve. Go figure!

Now, tell me…what movie always makes you cry and why.
~Kristal Lee