A Bright Spot in a Gray Day

There's nothing like a nice review to brighten up a gray February day. And I found that today over at Bookworm Nation where Kathy gave a sweet review to When Mike Kissed Emma.

My favorite line:

This was a fun romantic read to help get you in the mood for Valentine’s.

That puts a happy end to the week! Bring on the snow!

Reality Ali

The word cloud by Wordle for my latest novel REALITY ALI. Now I just need to do some fine tuning and find a home for it.

Oh, and write a synopsis and a pitch paragraph.

Thoughts on Revisions

I finished a round of revisions today.

Unfortunately that doesn't mean the novel is all polished up and ready to go out. There were some major changes I made based on feedback from early readers - and my own instincts. This round of revisions was to make sure that the changes all integrated properly and that the story made sense.

Now I get to go through (the last few chapters) and add some detail to them. They are bare bones now. They need to be dressed up.

Maybe this is an odd way of doing the revisions, I don't know. It seems to work for me.

So, when you revise is it a thorough all or nothing kind of process, or does it require more than one going over - kind of like painting a room with several coats of paint?

Okay - back to work.

An Interview

Eleni, over at La Femme Readers, has an interview with me up today. Go and read find out all kind of obscure facts about me, like why I don't go to horror movies.

Pesky Descriptions

Describing characters. How do you do it? Do you give the full height, weight, hair color, eye color, and distinguishing marks right off the bat. Or do you let things be a little more fluid with only an occasional descriptor thrown in to ground the reader?

I used to know the hair color and eye color of all my major characters - minor ones too - I may have had a chart. But then I found that all my characters were distinguished by their hair color and hair style.

Barb, with the long blonde hair, spoke to Joan, whose dark hair was in a braid down her back.

Yeah. After awhile that didn't really work for me (though I still have to guard against it.)

Now I find that sometimes I go in the opposite direction - and have no descriptions of my characters. Often I can remedy that with a quick word or phrase (I just try to not let them all be about hair.)

As I was revising today I saw a note one of my critique partners left that a relatively minor character needed some description. And she's right. I have nothing. Just a name and her job. I have two problems (well three - but that one is motivation and stems from it being late). 1) I don't actually know what she looks like and 2) I'm not sure how to integrate a description into the introduction of her. I don't want to say "Jamie, the nurse my mother had hired came into the room. She was a tall woman with buck teeth and sensible shoes".... It seems too forced. I need to make it natural somehow.

I'm guessing that once I take a break from it, I'll come up with a solution - but in the meantime, here's my question: How do you make sure your characters are adequately described - without sounding like a police report?

Please Sir, May I Have Some More?

In Oliver when our hero asked for more porridge he got chased and sold by Mr. Bumble. I can sympathize with Mr. Bumble. Sometimes being asked to provide more is just enough to send a person over the edge.

In my AP English class, many moons ago, our teacher, Mr. Smith, had the tendency to stroke his beard, look at us closely and say "Can you give me more?"

He wanted more in depth discussion of the book. He wanted more details in the essays. He wanted us to dig deeper. To really get to the heart of the matter.

We'd look at him and think "No, this is as much as I've got. I can't give you anymore." And when he kept insisting, we sometimes felt like chasing him away too.

But, of course, he was right. We could dig deeper. And we did.

And now, today, I'm working on revisions and reading through comments from my awesome critique buddies. And what am I seeing on one particular scene?

You guessed it. They want more.

More emotion, more of being in the moment, more of just about darn near everything.

And my first reaction is like that of Mr. Bumble - to give chase - or like our reaction to Mr. Smith - 'there isn't anymore'.

But yet, they're right. I can dig deeper. I can give more. I can make the scene better.

So, another cup of tea. And I'll start that digging.

Happy revisions everyone - and a belated Happy New Year. (It's time to get back in the habit of blogging again.)

Reviews and Character Flaws

Today I had the fun of discovering two reviews/mentions of When Mike Kissed Emma. Both were fairly positive.

The first, Miriam Foster at Red Room, suggested When Mike Kissed Emma as a last minute gift idea. (Which, personally, I think is a brilliant suggestion.)

The other was a review at Between the Lines, which included this smiling-inducing line: "the writing has clarity and sparkle and I can't wait to read other books by this author."

What I found interesting was that in both reviews mentioned Emma's character flaw of judging a little too much by appearances at first. It is definitely a flaw. It's the one that Emma overcomes during the course of the book.

I could have written Emma as a perfect teen - or close to it - but where would the story come from then? And actually a character who has no faults is rather annoying to read about too.

So when writing characters where is the balance between keeping them realistic and likeable, and yet interesting enough to warrant a story? If characters always makes the right decision the story is likely to be over rather quickly. If they make too many of the wrong choices the reader may give up on them.

How many flaws are you willing to put up with in a character as you read?

And how do you find the right balance as you right?