writers

10 Literary Devices

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I was browsing my writing files today. You know the kind, a dump for every website or blog you come across that has information that might be useful someday. I have two: Writing about Writing and a catch all Writing Stuff. Interesting items in both, especially one about writing devices.

Writing devices have names like aporia and pathetic fallacy and if like me, you’re a writer whose last formal English course was in 1st year, the definitions are murky at best or absent at worst from memory. The website below discusses 10 and relates them to Science Fiction, mostly movies, that make the use clear. Annalee Newitz posted it in 2012 and it’s well worth a read.

http://io9.com/5930325/10-literary-devices-and-where-you-can-find-them-in-science-fiction

Beautiful day in Southern Ontario and the weather promises to be seasonal and sunny for the next week!

I’m revising my WIP and still marketing The Child on the Terrace while waiting for my reviewers. If anyone would like an ARC, please let me know.

http://booklaunch.io/10202081974970941/54ccf3fd68a94f561bcb20af

Four Writing Resources

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It’s March 1, St. David’s day, patron saint of Wales. Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant. Here in Kawartha Lakes it’s a bit warmer than it has been. -6C rather than -25C, but we’re going to get a bit more snow. But it’s the first of March with twenty more days until Spring arrives, we hope.March, 2014March, 2013March, 2013March, 2013

Wild Turkeys at Elora, March, 2014Wild Turkeys at Elora, March, 2014(photo Anne Simpson)

And yet Spring still came each year.

I attended a workshop at University of Guelph on Friday, March 20, to hear Barbara Kyle talk about the writing process. She is a generous teacher and at the end of the workshop session gave each of us access to a tutorial series online that she recorded some years ago. It is an excellent review of everything from Style to Getting Published. I’ve been listening to one tutorial a day before beginning the day’s work of revision. Invaluable.

If you haven’t heard her speak or visited her website, I recommend it. Barbara Kyle.

Writing resources can be anything from excellent teachers to books on grammar, from programmes like Scrivener to a friend who’s willing to read revisions. Over the years, I’ve found all of these and more.

1. Writescape

2. Barbara Kyle

3. Writers Digest

4. Scrivener and Scapple at Literature and Latte.

And then there’s marketing. I’m still searching for reviewers and will send copies either e-book or trade paperback on request.

Check out my booklaunch page for information about The Child on the Terrace.

Marketing and Revising: Ways and Means and Help

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Setenil de Las Bodegas, Spain, setting for The Child on the Terrace

I spent most of this week learning about marketing. Earlier, I received a series of e-mails from Nick Stephenson, writer and teacher of marketing about “Your First 10K readers“. He supplied 3 videos on the subject. Well worth the time spent, if only for the insight into how Amazon and other on-line retailers find books, but also for the methods of applying that insight to one’s own books. I haven’t applied his method as yet, mostly because, as I have a publishing contract, choosing such things as category and key words isn’t up to me. However, I shall put together a plan and suggest it to the publisher, Cambridge Books.

Laurence O’Bryan at Books Go Social offers a great service, connecting authors with each other and customers.

I’m revising my next book, working title Saving Fillide. One bit of advice that keeps popping up is to “kill your darlings”. and I did just that, moving the opening of the book to the third chapter. It has made for a more suspenseful opening, but in the process, I lost some back story and one subplot that needs to go back in but in a different place and manner.

Barbara Kyle, at a Turning Leaves, a Writescape retreat, suggested a book by her agent, Al Zuckerman, called Writing the Blockbuster Novel and it is immeasurably helpful in revision. I’m attending a workshop Barbara is giving on Friday, Feb. 20th at the University of Guelph Writers’ Workshop on Crafting the Bestseller; Your first 50 Pages and know I will learn more. She is an excellent teacher.

The Child on the Terrace is now available on major e-book sites. Connect through the link to my book launch page.Winters_Child_RT_jpgSM copy2

Author interview with Max E. Stone

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Author Max E. Stone has just released an exciting thriller, One Minute There, book 3 of his William/Bennett/Johnson New England  series.

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RUN…

Two torturous months came and went

Detective Bennett refuses to give up on finding his daughter

Even as the authorities of New England and beyond, trailing the blood in the girl’s wake, devised a ruthless manhunt to bring her back

Well aware of the young woman’s fragile state, Bennett is determined to locate her first

And terrified to learn that he and the officers aren’t the only ones looking…

FOR YOUR LIFE…

Tucked in a hideaway past America’s borders, courtesy of her only trusted connect as of late, Melissa is sure she’s safe.
That is until the hammering knocks at her door threaten her world, her sanity…

And her life.

THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY OUT…

Max answered a few of my questions about his writing life.

How do you choose your setting?

The setting comes from the places I visit and eventually fall in love with. New England, which happened to be the origin for the Warren-Bennett-Johnson series, was one of those places. If I go to a city or a country and love it, I work it into the story.

What does the setting contribute to the suspense?

Once I select the setting, I look at the places that I have physically explored and then see if I can add my own brand of suspense to them. Sometimes, I will ask others who live in the location about the history of certain landmarks as well. Other times, I do the research on my own and create the suspense.

Do you do site-specific research?

Depending on the story, yes. If I like a certain landmark for my story, I research it more and then talk to others who live there to get an accurate feel of the place.

Detailed planner?

After I figure out what the story is going to be about, I just write whatever comes to mind and then plan out the chapters as I go along.

Do you pull details of setting or characterization from your own life or your imagination?
I try to add both my imagination and real life details to any setting I use, giving the fiction that added bonus of realism. As far as characterization, I definitely use elements of me. That’s how I make my characters into people that my readers can see themselves in or identify with in some way.

Thanks so much, Max, and best of luck with One Minute There.

You can find copies of One Minute There by following the links.

 

Max E. Stone

New book: The Child on the Terrace

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At last, the advance reading copies of The Child on the Terrace are available, in print for now, at Amazon.com and writewordsinc.com. Comments, reviews welcome.
Winters_Child_RT_jpgSM

 

 

 

Anne McPhail, retired pediatrician, shattered by her experience in Bermuda, rents a tiny house in Setenil, Spain, hoping to reconcile what she learned about herself and Thomas after the gunfire in that dark room on the island.

But she sees a child on the terrace of the local cafe who doesn’t seem to belong to her minders and then Ari, the Mossad agent who saved Anne’s life, seeks her out with a plan to rescue the child from kidnappers. Should she trust him? Three days later, she is on the run with Ari and the little girl, with killers Esti and Sergio on their trail. She glimpses a man she thinks is Thomas. Is he, too in Spain?

And why? How far will Anne go to save Naomi?

From Spain to France to Italy, this is Anne’s most dangerous journey.

 

Watch on Thursday for my interview with author Max. E. Stone about his new book, One Minute There.

 

16 ways to market a novel.

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A beautiful Sunday morning here in Southern Ontario, cold but with a robins-egg blue sky and a touch of fresh snow, patterned with long shadows by the rising sun.

The work for this winter is two-fold: marketing The Child on the Terrace and rewriting Saving Fillide. Last week I reviewed a critique of the first twenty pages of Saving Fillide by an editor, Lindsay Guzzardo, of The Editorial Company. Included in her recommendations was advice that I read Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and Dave King, which I had some years ago and Syd Field’s Screenplay, The Foundations of Screenwriting.

Screenwriting? No, I’m not writing a movie or television script, but Field’s book is an excellent source of advice about plotting.

Marketing. Marketing wasn’t a part of the writing career that I gave much thought to in 1998 when I scribbled the beginning of Murderous Roots but since then I’ve spent many hours thinking about it, designing web sites and book launch pages, researching promotional sites and twitter services. The list of people who would be happy to take money for alerting the world of the internet to a new book is endless. A list of sites I’ve looked at and think worthwhile to consider include:

1. Enchanted Book Promotions. This service provides everything from a one day book launch package to a full promotional service with blog tours of many lengths.

2. AskDavid. This tweeting service and book review site is inexpensive, easy to use and delivers.

3. BooksgoSocial Lawrence O’Bryan’s business includes promotion, book reviews, an author page and a very active Facebook page for authors to connect with other authors.

4. 1888PressRelease: Another paid service that I’ve used twice before. Packages vary in add-ons. You can pick which package has the most potential value for your writing business.

5. Booklaunch.io A site that allows you to design a book landing page with all the required elements, including video trailers and links to many online booksellers imbedded in the page. Click to see mine for No Motive for Murder.

Book review sites:

6. The Book Report Book review site on radio.

7. The New Kindle Book Review This site has a book contest as well as reviews.

8. Dealsharingaunt Book reviews, contests and giveaways.

Other Suggestions:

9. Authors you know. Ask for review.

10. Authors you have an introduction to. Can’t hurt to ask politely.

11. Local Media:

Newspapers, radio stations, television stations.

Other ways to market

12. The authors pages at Crime Writers of Canada, The Writers Union of Canada, Canadian Authors Association.

13. Email your friends.

14. Mailchimp: Mailchimp is a service which allows you to set up an email sign-up page, develop a marketing letter and send it off in a marketing campaign.

15. Email librarians in the neighbourhood that a new book is available.

16. Book contests: I’m looking at a number of contests and lists of contests to send The Child on the Terrace to this year.

US Book News

Epic’s  awards for e-books.

Ippys awards for books from independents, self-published, small presses.

Bath Novel Award

Exeter novel prize.

So that’s it so far. But the most important is word of mouth, so don’t forget Facebook, Goodreads, Wattpad, tell your friends, tell your aunt, tell your coworkers, tell the checkout girls at the grocery store. Take those speaking engagements, go to the book clubs. Blog. And sometime in there find time to work on the next book.

 

 

 

 

 

Editors and Writers

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Autocrit, an online editing service which I use because it is useful in many areas of revision, offered a deal before Christmas: for $99US, editorial comment on the first 20 pages of a manuscript by The Editorial Department. Renni Brown, who wrote Self Editing for Fiction Writers, is one of the founders of the company.

The editor assigned to me, Lindsay Guzzaro, is a well-respected editor and author. She identified what worked and what didn’t in the first 20 pages.

Now I have to decide whether I can use her comments to improve not just the first 20 pages, but the remainder of the manuscript. She did recommend I read Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, which I did some years ago and will do again, and Syd Field, The Fundamentals of Screenwriting, not because I am writing a script, but for his teaching about plot and dialogue.

I’m part way through Field’s book, and I must say he is an excellent teacher and I am finding the book relevant to my work.

When I finish reading, I’ll begin the task for 2015, which is a rewrite of the manuscript, bearing in mind advice from Lindsay Guzzaro,  teachers Ruth E. Walker and Gwynn Scheltema of Writescape, as well as teaching from Barbara Kyle at a recent retreat. Too much advice? Perhaps, but I see a way forward now.

Also reading Between Gods, by Alison Pick, an intimate biography of a woman’s search for her Jewish identity.

Finished reading The Best Laid Plans, by Terry Fallis, a hilarious political comedy. A recommended read for political junkies.

 

Five sites for marketing the book

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After three novels and many short stories that failed to make me the wealthy writer, I set out to learn about marketing. Hiring a firm to do PR for the novel is out of the question for me and I suspect most of us, but buying pieces of the marketing is not. Some of what I found is below.

I started by, of course, googling the idea on Firefox to check the Alexa rating of the various offerings. For those who don’t know, lower is better and means more visitors to the site.

AskDavid.com Alexa rank 95,082.A free service for listing your books and promoting them on twitter. . The site starts with 5 free tweets and a further 30 are $10 dollars, and expands the reach of your own twitter account, at least for me.

1888PressRelease  Alexa rank 18,430. I’ve used this one twice at the 50$ level. It performs as advertised. They vet your release and send it out when you want. Many levels of distribution including Free.

Book Buzzr Alexa rank 130,343. I set up my free site on BookBuzzr this weekend. It includes a number of goodies including a flip-book feature for the my page on their site as well as on my website. Check that out at virginiawinters.ca. I haven’t added a subscription as yet but I may when my new book, The Child on the Terrace is released.

Books go Social Alexa Rank 569,998. No Motive for Murder is listed on this site(for a fee). The Facebook group is active and after the first book, new ones can be added for $39. Owner Lawrence O’Bryan tells me there are more than 300,000 followers now. He’d like three reviews and then he will promote on the site. A good site to look for books from indie authors.

Enchanted Book Promotion Alexa rank 910,437. This site sets up blog tours, release parties(on-line), writes press releases, develops full marketing plans: all for different fees. One author I contacted said that he had signed up at the Princess level($100) and the site performed as advertised. He didn’t know if it increased sales or not. Levels start at $29 and go up from there with additional tour stops or services at increasing cost.

If you have any other sites, strategies or comments, I’d love to hear from you.

 

 

Debut Suspense Novel from Stone Patrick

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Stone Patrick’s debut novel, The Fallen Body, takes us to the heartland of Texas, to the fictional small town of Marlinsville, and young lawyer Taylour Dixxon. She focuses her practice on civil law but yearns for the big case. No one tells her to be careful what she wishes for.

One day, she meets Sarah Baines, a woman from New Jersey, befriends her and invites her to dinner. This is Taylour’s last peaceful moment for many weeks. The Texas Rangers burst in and arrest Sarah for the murder of her husband.

Taylour takes the case and before the murder is solved, finds herself saddled with a charming nephew, Spencer, almost loses her home and her life at the hands of the Russian mobster, Roman Danshov, and falls in love with Texas Ranger Philip Davidson. A wild ride, to be sure.

 

I enjoyed this densely-plotted debut novel, with its varied cast of characters.

Taylour, a feisty young woman at the beginning of her career, struggling with aggressive clients, and a Texas Ranger who distracts her from her work, deserves another outing. I hope Patrick has something more planned for her.

Spencer, my favorite 23 year-old going on 17, arrives with a show of adolescent bravado, but grows up during the novel time, and demonstrates his bravery at the conclusion.

Like many debut novels, The Fallen Body would benefit from a professional edit. However, if you enjoy romantic suspense and don’t demand foul language, explicit sex scenes or gratuitous violence, but want a book to keep you turning the pages, try The Fallen Body.

Watch for an interview with Stone Patrick on Wednesday, May 7.

The Fallen Body is available from Smashwords at the following link:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/402747?ref=tayman0522

 

A Community of Writers

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I spent three days at Elmhirst’s Resort on Rice Lake with the group attending Writescape’s Spring Thaw. The purpose of the retreat is to allow time for writing without the distractions of every-day life: no meals to make, laundry to do, groceries to buy, questions to answer. Peace and time. I wrote 3000 words of my next Anne McPhail, Dangerous Journeys adventure! Productive days for me.
But that isn’t why I go as often as I can to Writescape’s retreats. I find a community of writers there, women who are open, supportive, affectionate and non-judgemental. Writing is a solitary occupation, but anyone who has worked without a community as I did as a solo paediatrician in a small town, knows that support from others  is invaluable.
Most of the women, except for one stalwart who flies in from the west, live and write in the communities to the south of mine—Ajax, Whitby, Pickering—but come together at the Writers Community of Durham Region. Time, perhaps for me to join them and grow my personal circle.

Below is a photo of a lovely morning on Rice Lake

Elrmhirst's Resort, Rice Lake