Guest author Genella deGrey: What I did on my summer vacation

Last August, I boldly went where I hadn't gone before:  To Hawaii. In the weeks leading up to my trip, I knew I was up for a feast of the senses, which of course was the most exciting part. The least exciting part was that I knew I was going to be alone. Now don’t get me wrong, I'm not a scaredy-cat, I can drive great distances alone, go to downtown LA by myself, I can even navigate my way through Hollywood at night to go clubbing... I just wanted to have someone to share it all with, ya know? I can’t help it; I judge the monumental experiences of my life by how romantic they were. I totally understand that this could be considered a personality flaw to which I would shrug my shoulders and utter, “Deal with it, if ye be a man.” ;)

Now, the universe doesn’t always give us what we want, but it’s really good at giving us what we need . . . and someday it will become clear to me why I spent four glorious days in my own company. *eye roll*

Anyway, today I’d like to explore a couple of non-romantic reasons to “vacate” - especially geared toward writers - the position we normally stay in for long periods of time.

So, why step away from work/the computer?
Well, one reason could be to encounter views like these:

Now, that’s not to say that you NEED to head to an exotic locale where the landscape alone causes your spine to turn to jelly. Even a trip to a local park can be a refreshing break.

Go ahead, try some alone time. Don’t get me wrong, I love my 7 year-old as if he were my right arm, but sometimes I need my “me” time. And even though it seems I crave romance at every turn, there are times I need to get away from it all (keeping in mind that I live in a city with about eight million other people.)

Even when I was a little kid, I used to climb up onto the back wall, sit and stare at the sky and just ... think. In my high school years I would climb up the fire escape of our condo to the roof and do the same. Was I taking a breather, did I need the quiet time or my own personal space? Whatever the reason, this alone time served to sooth my soul.

These days as an adult, sunset is my favorite time of day. There is something inherently calming to me about a beautiful sky on the verge of night. Here are a few pix I took in Hawaii as evening fell:

Ah, just looking at those shots makes me feel a chill.

A change of routine for writers in and of itself once in a while can turn into an essay of sorts – certainly something you can tuck away to use at another date.  This sort of exercise is essential for those of us who create sometimes entire worlds out of nothing. We need new or different sights, smells and various other uncommon-to-us stimuli so that our writing doesn’t become stale or over-used. Try this: take a blanket, a snack and just chill for an hour or two. You will be surprised at the sundry new perceptions you pick up on. Just be sure to escape with the intention of bringing something new to your awareness. Whether you head to the park or sit in the middle of a shopping mall or even the local coffee shop, take a note book or journal and jot down what you are feeling, seeing, smelling, etc. Then do it with your eyes closed and things will shift a bit, making you more aware – you may even find something you didn’t when your eyes were open. You might be inspired with a new story line or character, but whatever the case, I guarantee you will find a place in one of your WIPs to place bits of this particular sensory exercise.

Venture out, do something different, surround yourself with things and people under normal circumstances unknown to yourself – and don’t forget to take notes. You might find something in the process that will surprise you. You might even find  . . . YOU!

Remember when attempting this exercise – no, you don’t have to check with your doctor – LOL, but where ever you go, whatever you do, even if it’s to gain a sense of clarity, do it with a specific intention in mind. This will put you into the mind-set of achieving that which you wish to accomplish.

Happy reading, happy writing and happy holidays everyone!
:)
G.
Genella deGrey's website 
Her Facebook fan page

Dial D for Dialogue

As a longtime writer, I have always believed that the heart of a story is crisp, right to the point dialogue.

I am all for strong narrative, description, scenery, thoughts, and other elements that make for a great novel. However, what comes out of the mouths of characters can make or break the book.

For instance, if your protagonist just goes on and on while saying little of substance, it can definitely weigh down the novel and cause the plot to drag.
On the other hand, if a character has something worth saying, that can be said in as few words as possible while still moving the story along, then that will hold the attention of the reader and give the writer something to build on.

Beyond that, I enjoy hearing what people have to say in fiction, as opposed to telling us what they are doing and thinking. I believe this breathes life into any plot and make the characters seem real. The latter is especially true when the dialogue comes from the heart or soul of character and is spoken in real language rather than scripted words as is often found in screenplays and teleplays.

Do you prefer more or less dialogue as a writer or reader?

Writer's Crossroads

Three children had fallen into the crater of a volcano and I had no way to help them get out.

To make matters worse, they were my children, or they had been for the last few weeks and four chapters of my WIP, the fourth book in the Caribbean Adventure Series.

I was as stuck as they were, unable to move the adventure forward. I was suffering from the much discussed writer's block. Finally, after staring at the page for many more days, (dare I say weeks?) than I care to mention, I remembered a bit of advice about overcoming a block. That writer suggested that one solution to writer's block was to rewrite the scene, come at it from a different angle.

So, I, very reluctantly, took the kids back the way they came out of the volcano and took a second shot. It worked. This time they found a solution to that issue and moved forward to the next.

What techniques do you use to kick start your writing if it stalls?

Suspense Part Two

In my last post, I talked about “quick” and “slow” suspense. Quick suspense is fast off the page by calling the reader’s attention immediately to a threat, like a ticking bomb. However, quick suspense depends more on universal threats than character specific ones, and will always be weaker than “slow” suspense, which develops when characters the reader cares about are threatened. Below are some ways that, I think, writers can create the slower and superior type of suspense. These are techniques I used in my thriller, Cold in the Light.

1. THE EXPLOITING OF CHARACTERS’ WEAKNESSES:
Characters need to be vulnerable for slow suspense to develop, and they need to be sympathetic. This is why many thriller and horror writers use children as characters, and why women are often victims in such stories. These types of characters are at least perceived as being more vulnerable, and therefore evoke sympathy in the reader. A threat against a character the reader cares about is far more effective than one against a character the reader doesn’t.

2. SACRIFICING CHARACTERS:
Most thrillers and horror novels have some characters whose sole purpose is to get killed to show how dangerous the villain is. While the loss of such characters does help establish the villain persona, they do little to increase slow suspense. What does increase slow suspense is the loss of a character who the reader already cares about. If one such character is lost, the ante is raised for all the characters, and the reader perceives the threats as more serious for everyone. The more genuine the risks appear to the reader, the more slow suspense increases.

3. THE DARK AND STORMY NIGHT EFFECT:
The environment in which characters move is, in many cases, at least as important as the characters and action. In Cold in the Light, for example, much of the action takes place at night and in the woods. The villains are at home in both. The heroes are not. Harsh environments put another strain on the character; they make his or her life harder, and if the reader cares about them, this ups the ante for the reader.

4. CLIFFHANGERS AND GOALS:
Since the days of matinee serials, and before, writers have known the value of a cliffhanger for creating tension and suspense. Page turners are page turners because the page the reader just finished generates a “need to know” feeling for what happens next--on the following page. But cliffhangers work best if they come out of goal directed behavior for the characters.
For heroes, cliffhangers occur when they meet an obstacle on their way to a goal. It seems like they are about to reach safety and, “boom,” something gets in the way. The reader is left wondering what the characters are going to do to get around this new problem.

In contrast, cliffhangers happen with villains when obstacles are removed from their path. Since the reader’s hopes lie with the heroes, when the villain acquires a new weapon, or some knowledge, or some advantage, this rackets up the reader’s suspense. The reader wonders: “What is he/she/it going to do with their new information or new weapon?”

5. THE TELLING DETAIL:
When seen from the point of view of a character, the details they focus on can do much to increase suspense. Imagine a mall. Not unusual at all. But this mall has no people in it. It’s empty, totally empty. Silent. You pass the food court and see food sitting on the tables. Coffee still steams. Food looks half eaten. But no one is around. Then comes a sound, a boom boom, boom boom. You try to place it. It seems familiar. And you realize, it sounds like a giant beating heart. Choosing the right details guides the reader’s perceptions, and their mood. It sets them up to wonder, “what comes next?” And that is the “heart” of suspense.

Procrastination is the thief of time

For the second (or is it third?) year in a row my post falls on Thanksgiving Day. I originally was going to post on things I am thankful for, traditions and holidays in general. However, Liane’s post, Carpe Diem - Again, struck a note with me. Why? Because I recently missed a great opportunity.

My mother is an excellent storyteller. I spent years sitting at her feet listening to her tell old folk stories animatedly. And though the stories were repetitive, I could listen to them over and over again. I had always dreamed of writing and publishing some of those old stories. Indeed I have written a few. But one of my other dreams was to preserve those stories as told by my mother in her dramatic fashion so that my kids could hear them.

For years I procrastinated. I blamed it on the distance. I haven’t lived in the same area as my mother since 1993. I waited to get a video recorder. I waited for when we were without the distraction of a million family members talking all at once. I waited…

Well my mother is now eighty-one years old and has survived a stroke and a heart attack. I decided it was time to get those stories. So for two weeks when she visited me, I got my video and audio recorder and I tried to get her to tell those old favorite stories with all the gusto that she used to when I was little. But there was a problem: my mother can no longer remember the stories. I had to prompt her and remind her of the stories. I knew there were many more than the few I remembered, but my mother was unable to recall them. I had waited much too long.

I can think of a few cliché’s to sum it up. Chief among them is “procrastination is the thief of time.” I am thankful that I got a few stories out of her, but disappointed that many of the stories are lost forever since the culture of oral storytelling is quickly disappearing.

So I’ll join Liane in saying, “Carpe Diem.”

And well, since it is Thanksgiving, enjoy family, friends, feasts, and turkey. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Carpe diem - again

Raymond on the peak of 

El Tucuche, Nov. 2010   

My first piano teacher was a short, rotund, elderly nun. Sister Lucy was so ravaged with what I now believe to be osteoporosis that her upper back was U-shaped and her chin rested on her chest. She could barely manage to show me the proper placement of fingers on keys, but her keystrokes as she demonstrated the movements were strong and sure. She had clear grey eyes magnified by her glasses and was a gentle soul. I think she came from Ireland like the other foreign nuns at St. Joseph's Convent and it was under her tutelage, in one of the tiny music rooms that barely managed to fit a piano, two stools and a metronome, that I discovered the joy of playing something that at least approximated music. I distinguished myself under her guidance - far more so than under her successor, a chain-smoking, gentlemanly English lady who terrified me.

I graduated from high school and went out into the not-so-wide world of work in the same town where I had gone to school, and every once in awhile I'd remember sweet Sister Lucy and resolve to go and visit her. I never got around to it, and when I heard that she had died, along with remorse at my procrastination, I began to understand that for most young people, the reality and inevitability of death is not a concept that can readily be grasped. I realized then that putting off a visit to an elderly person means that when you're ready to make the effort, the person might be gone - forever.

Which brings me to November 2010 and an e-mail I received from an elderly gentleman here in Trinidad. I had written a blog post about hiking my favourite mountain, El Tucuche. He told me he had discovered the post and enjoyed it tremendously because that was also his favourite hike and he had scaled the peak more than 100 times in his ninety years. In fact, he had celebrated his ninetieth birthday just weeks before by climbing El Tucuche once again, a feat that attracted quite a bit of media coverage.

When I finally wrapped my head around what my new friend, Raymond, had achieved, I told him he had become my inspiration: I could think of nothing I'd love more than to be able to repeat his feat if I lived to his age. We began corresponding, found each other on Facebook, and he invited me to join him on his next hike in early 2011. This one would be to Paria Waterfall, a lovely trek along the north coast and into the forest that I had undertaken several times in my earlier hiking years. I decided to work on improving my fitness so that when Raymond and his group next hiked El Tucuche I'd be ready.

The hike to Paria was postponed four times. We had an unseasonably rainy dry season and the weather simply refused to cooperate with our plans. When the hike finally came off I didn't go; Raymond had probably tired of having to call and tell me about postponements and didn't want to disappoint me again. The next time we communicated was in July when my niece graduated and he left a gracious comment on her photo on my Facebook page. By this time the true rainy season was in full pour and hiking was out of the question. The months flew by imperceptibly.

Three weeks ago Raymond contacted me on Facebook and told me he had suffered a heart attack three months before, but was on the mend and spending several days a week in his store. I was assailed by a sense of urgency; I told my friend I'd visit him at his store that week. He said he was looking forward to finally meeting me face to face. I asked if he would be at the store on Thursday or Friday. When two days passed and I did not hear from him I felt a deep foreboding. That Friday night I left a message on his page: "Well, maybe another week. Thinking of you and hoping you're okay, Raymond." The next time I visited his Facebook page I learned he had died on November 10, three days after his ninety-first birthday.

It felt like Sister Lucy all over again. I will never be able to hike and not think of Raymond pounding those trails in his nineties. He is indeed my inspiration to seize the day and to understand that living fully has no correlation with the number of birthdays accumulated.

Write that book. Sail that ocean. Climb those mountains; Raymond climbed them at 90.

In memory of Raymond "Don Ramos" Banfield, hiker, former Spanish teacher and vice-principal of Presentation College, mentor of many, practitioner of healthy living. I will climb El Tucuche again, and I know he'll be walking right there beside me.

World Fantasy Con: Can You Mix Science into Fantasy"

I went to World Fantasy Convention (WFC) 2011 in San Diego at the end of October, and the second panel I attended was on mixing science into fantasy.

The panelists were Greg Benford, Yves Meynard, Brent Weeks, L.E. Modisett, Darryl Murphy, and Edward Willett.

I did not stay for the whole panel because I wanted to get a good seat at the animal show. (Yes! The San Diego Zoo brought exotic animals to WFC, and for an hour talked about their adaptations. Very cool.) But even in what I attended, I learned several interesting things I'd like to share with you.

Edward Willett says that he likes to write fantasy in which the magic does not break physical laws of nature. However, after his steampunk fantasy was published, he received criticism that by having coal- and gas-based inventions that could be built and work in real life, he had taken all the magic out of the story.

Most or all of the panelists agreed that magic in fantasy should have rules (at least in the author's mind; it's okay if the characters themselves do not understand the rules) and that the rules should make sense. One panelist pointed out that if magic is not given rules, explicit or implied, then tension and drama are reduced because anything can happen (similar to the tension-draning effects of deus ex machina solutions in literature in general). That is such a great observation that I will repeat it again:

If magic is not given rules, explicit or implied, then tension and drama are reduced because anything can happen.

The panelists agreed, though, that some authors and readers particularly like figuring out rule-based magic, while for other readers, the wonder of the magical world is what they read for. Harry Potter's world may not make sense, but who wouldn't want to attend Hogwart's Academy?

Willett said that George R.R. Martin says that magic stands in for all the things in our real universe that we can't control. I searched today for the quote and didn't find it. However, I did find a recent interview with GRRM in which he says that for magic to work in fiction, it has to be mysterious. He does not believe in creating elaborate rules. (Full interview here.)

Modisett thinks also that magic especially appeals to people who wish things were other than they are. (Shauna's note: Perhaps this partly explain fantasy's appeal to children, who are loaded with so many unwanted rules and restrictions physically and socially.)

Personally, I prefer rule-based magic. It usually takes me out of a story if, for example, Michelle Pfeifer transforms into a twelve-pound hawk with nothing left over, breaking the law of the conservation of mass-energy. But if a story is good, I am willing to suspend belief. I loved Ladyhawke despite the unbelievable magic and many anachronisms.

What about you? Which type of fantastical story do you prefer? And why?

******
Los Angeles Appearance

I will be at the Los Angeles Science Fiction Convention (LOScon) this Friday, November 25. I speak on the panel "10 Beginning Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them" from noon to 2 pm; I sign copies of Like Mayflies in a Stream from 3:00 pm to whenever the next scheduled author shows up; and I will be on the panel "Short, Short Stories" (about ultraflash fiction) from 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm. I hope to see you there.

Until next time (December 6)!

—Shauna Roberts