To Write Fiction, Read Fiction..?

“To write fiction, read fiction to understand how it is written.”

This advice, often given baldly to new writers as if it were the secret to the universe, fails at its first step. Fiction is designed to elicit a reader’s reaction, not to fall into its constituent parts as soon as it is embraced. There needs to be some sort of guide. It’s one thing knowing that such ethereal elements as Tone and Atmosphere exist, but can either be easily recognised? If so, is it obvious how and why they were applied?

In Reading a Writer’s Mind: Exploring Short Fiction – First Thought To Finished Story it is this in-depth examination of ten short stories that causes to stand out among the plethora of available writers’ guides. It doesn’t deal in generalities, but in specifics.

Each story, taken from a major genre, is introduced via the trigger/s for its existence, and then the story as it was originally printed. A detailed commentary follows discussing the decisions made during the creative process. Readers tell me they find it beneficial to re-read the story in the light of the commentary. “…once explained, it’s simple!” Well, not too simple, as they tend to discover when following the exercises intended to put the discussed techniques into practice.

Read an excerpt from a commentary

It is true, though, that once guided the beginner can start to see the individual elements which make up other fiction. It’s a case of turning the reader’s eye into a writer’s eye, and that’s what the book sets out to do.

The book is available in both paperback and ebook, and the sections covered include:
•    Lyrical narrative v terse dialogue (Mainstream)
•    Characterisation through deed and thought (Horror)
•    A calendar structure using the Tell technique (Women's Fiction)
•    The importance of pacing (Twist in the Tale)
•    The use of alliteration, rhythm and subliminal detailing (Romance)
•    Using the Show technique to elicit a reader response (Drama)
•    Building fiction with an unsympathetic narrator (Crime)
•    Working with parallel storylines via past and present tense (SF)
•    Conjuring the weird from the everyday (Fantasy)
•    Writing for performance and sound effects (Historical)
•    Editing: ten common problems explored. 

Amazon UK ¦ Amazon USA ¦ Barnes and Noble USA
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Signed copies from Fantastic Books Publishing

Linda Acaster is the author of five novels, over 70 short stories, and a mass of articles covering the techniques used in writing fiction. Connect to her:

http://www.lindaacaster.com/   

https://www.facebook.com/lindaacasterUK

https://twitter.com/LindaAcaster

Guest blog: Ros Gemmell - 'The Jigsaw Puzzle' (A Tween Mystery Fantasy)

Twelve-year-old asthmatic Daniel stays with his bossy cousin, Amy, her mum, and two cats in the Scottish countryside during the Christmas holidays while his parents take a trip to sort out their problems. When Amy and Daniel make up an old jigsaw puzzle, the cottage and garden gradually change to resemble the Victorian cottage pictured on the box lid. In between searching for the missing Title Deeds of the cottage to save it from land developers, they complete the jigsaw and find a strange rhyming puzzle hidden within the box. What does it mean? Daniel and Amy soon find out when they become trapped in the past.

Will they solve the cryptic written puzzle and find their way back to the present before it’s too late to save themselves, the destruction of the woods, and their cottage?

The Jigsaw Puzzle (excerpt)

“I know what we’ll do.” Amy suddenly ran into her room, startling him out of his thoughts. “I found an old jigsaw in the attic one day and I haven’t tried it yet. Let’s take it downstairs and we could start it now.” 

Hardly pausing to see if Daniel agreed, Amy led the way down to the living room as though expecting him to follow. So, he did. He didn’t really care what they did today. Anything would do to stop him picturing his mother and father driving away without him.

He didn’t even want to think about them flying across the Atlantic to America with the kinds of trouble these days, or accidents. No, don’t think of that. At least Amy kept him amused in her bossy way, taking charge. He used to like jigsaws and hadn’t done one for years. In fact, he loved any kind of puzzle, especially anything in code. It was a change from playing computer games, though his friend back at school, Paul, would never believe Daniel put together a jigsaw.

Once seated at the big table in the corner, they opened the jigsaw box, standing the picture lid against the fruit bowl so they could see it clearly. Hundreds of small pieces lay in the box. Daniel picked one up, surprised to find the pieces made of thin wood instead of cardboard. It appeared very old and cut a bit differently from more modern jigsaws.

Some of the curved edges had no cut-out bit to attach to another piece. He reckoned they probably shaped against another curve to join up. Other pieces looked more like the kind he knew with notches or spaces to connect to each other.

Daniel stared at the picture on the lid. “Huh, a house and garden. Why can’t it be something interesting like wild cats or birds?”

Amy shrugged, not bothering to answer. She might be bossy, Daniel thought, but at least she didn’t chatter all the time like the girls at school.

Then he stared at the picture more closely, noticing something strange about it. The house did look a bit familiar. But the old-fashioned crisscross windows had tiny panes of glass which he’d never seen before. A strange doorknocker shaped like an old face hung on the door, and the garden bloomed with lots of colourful flowers and plants. A stone sundial stood at the bottom of the garden, casting a shadow across its surface. Daniel’s stomach flipped. The house in his dream!

BIO

A freelance writer for many years, Rosemary Gemmell’s short stories and articles are published in UK magazines, in the US, and Online and she has won a few short story prizes over the years. Her first historical novel, Dangerous Deceit, was published by Champagne Books in Canada in May 2011 (as Romy), and Victorian novella, Mischief at Mulberry Manor, was published on kindle in December 2012.

First tween novel, Summer of the Eagles, was published by MuseItUp Publishing in Canada in March 2012 (as Ros) and The Jigsaw Puzzle is now released in April 2013. She describes herself as a butterfly writer, as she writes in so many different genres and different styles. Rosemary is a member of the Society of Authors, the Scottish Association of Writers and the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

Available from MuseItUp: http://tinyurl.com/d2so3x9

and Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Jigsaw-Puzzle-ebook/dp/B00CB4RGLO/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_img_4_1YKB

Website: www.rosemarygemmell.com

Blogs: (children’s) http://rosgemmell.blogspot.com and (main): http://ros-readingandwriting.blogspot.com

Guest blog: Alexa Bourne - 'Carry Me Home'

Thank you to our lovely hostess for giving my new cover and me some time on the blog! Today marks the official, public beginning for an exciting time in Decadent Publishing’s history, and I’m so excited to be a part of it. We are unveiling a brand new series of books for you. The new Tease series is smart, sassy and short, and includes historical, paranormal and contemporary romances. All the stories are meant to be short reads for those times when a reader might want a quick, satisfying pick me up. You are promised a solid story with a happy ending, but the rest is up to the author.

I’m one of those authors and this is the cover to my first Tease, Carry Me Home. This story is a heart-warming story about a married couple, Jamie and Mary MacDougall, in the Highlands of Scotland. A horrible tragedy drove them apart and now Mary thinks she wants a divorce, but Jamie knows they’re meant to be together and he’s not willing to give up on them without a fight. This cover fits Mary and Jamie perfectly and I absolutely love it. Isn’t it gorgeous?

My book will be released June 5^th, but you have plenty of Tease stories before then. To find out more, visit http://www.decadenttease.com/tease-affairs/ today! There you will be able to see more of the gorgeous Tease covers, be introduced to the people “behind the scenes” (including the 1st Tease authors), and find out more about the new series. AND you can be in the running for some GREAT prizes. So come join the party!

Carry Me Home Book Blurb:

After six months in the city, Mary MacDougall returns to the Scottish Highlands to finalize her divorce. Because of a past tragedy, she doubts her husband Jamie can possibly love her with the same unbridled passion as before and insists ending the marriage is best for both of them. But Jamie has other ideas….

Jamie MacDougall has no intention of letting his bonnie lass go. At least not without a fight. Aye, they’ve suffered heartache, and she may be ready to call it quits, but he refuses to throw away the partnership they’ve built since they were children. Instead, he’ll remind her they were meant to be together, forever.

Can this marriage survive pride and grief to allow love to carry them home?

Website: www.alexabourne.com

Blog: http://alexabourne.blogspot.com

Twitter: @AlexaBourne

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorAlexaBourne

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5818611.Alexa_Bourne

Free Today! Book 1 The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo

Do you enjoy stories steeped in factual history and culture?

Do you love engaging romances about handsome Native American men?How about Shape-shifting shaman able to walk between the spirit world and world of the living?

>>Free Today<<
The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo  (Book 1 Ashewheteasu) 

Download Free Today! 

 

And...the saga continues in my newest release
The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo  (Book 2 Eluwilussit)

>>Watch the trailer on Youtube<<
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy4d8SF5OUA&feature=youtu.be
>>Inspired by Native American mythology and a very real urban legend<<
http://usat.ly/UBMePb
>>Read a full 1st chapter of Book 1 here<<
http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/
>>And visit my main blog for the full details<<
http://calliopeswritingtablet.com/

>>All of my Books have peeks inside on Amazon<<
http://www.amazon.com/Rose-Anderson/e/B004XDGWL6

Rose Anderson
Love Waits in Unexpected Places

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/FollowTheMuse

Lindsay Townsend - 'Voices in the Dark'. Romantic Suspense

To celebrate the re-issue of my romantic suspense, 'Voices in the Dark,' here is a romantic excerpt where the hero Roberto and heroine Julia go to Venice.

Excerpt.

Venice. Neither Julia nor Roberto had ever been to the floating city. Free of memories and ghosts, deserted by tourists in a day of freezing fog, Venice was theirs.
      Leaning out on the Rialto bridge, Julia spoke their united thought. 'Glad we came.' Time, their constant harrier, glided like the mist gilded streams under their feet as they regarded each other.
      They kissed on the bridge, the silver fog rising from the water hiding them and the city in a secret embrace.
     'I wish we could stay,' said Roberto, when they surfaced a little from the kiss. Julia turned a dreamy open face sidelong and ran her eyes over him. She wanted this rippling quiet, this day of misted sun glinting on the tops of suspended marble palaces, to go on for ever. No more struggle for success no more troubles. No more Scarpia.
     'I can't get used to you without that plaster cast,' she murmured, obliterating the world as she pressed her cheek against his chest. 'I like the suit.' Dark grey, classically cut, worn with eye-grabbing panache, the suit had been a revelation. She already had designs for borrowing the waistcoat. She hugged him tight. ‘You look great.'
     'And you are truly gorgeous.' Roberto stroked a hand down her back. 'Why do you hide those legs?'
     His hand, and even more his eyes were doing things to her.
     'Shall we?' he said.
     'Yes.'

      They took a gondola. Paying the gondolier not to sing, they settled against the heart-shaped backrest, Roberto giving Julia his cushion. Whilst he chatted to the gondolier about the latest football scores, Julia trailed her fingers through mist to cold, silken, softly grey-green waters. Both were too aware of each other to need more than the lightest touch of their bodies, side by side as they floated on the cradle of Venice's canals.
     Venice in a shimmering winter mist was as one of its more extravagant glass creations, cloudy and baroque at the base, its marble statues and wrought-iron house-grills looming through the mist like porcelain flowers stuck on Venetian chandeliers. Then halfway up the narrow buildings - just over the top of Roberto's brown spiky curls, Julia calculated - the mist thinned and sunshine dusted each white campanile.
     ‘We're here,' Roberto said softly. The gondola swayed against a painted landing post; a doorstep floated inches above the water. This was his surprise to her: a home, not a hotel, their own private place. He had booked it, along with a few extras, at Florence airport before they made their flight.
     He opened the front door. The gondolier, paid and tipped, was gossiping into his portable phone about having met Roberto Padovano. ' . . . and you know he's really normal . . . great bloke . . . asked about the big match, you know, Roma versus Inter-Milan . . .'
     Someone in the Romanesque palace opposite shook their shoes out of the balcony window. Hidden by a curve of buildings, muted by fog, two waterbuses honked as they passed on the Grand Canal.
     Julia rose circumspectly to her feet. The last thing she wanted to do was spoil the moment, shatter the delicious tension by an ungainly lurch off the boat. In jeans and trainers she would not have thought twice, but high heels and a fitted coat were a different matter.
     Roberto did not offer his hand but merely plucked her from the gondola, swinging her lightly off her feet into his arms. They entered the Venetian house that way, Roberto crossing the threshold carrying Julia. Closing the door on the grinning gondolier, he continued an unhurried advance to the bedroom.
     'Didn't I see a piano as we whisked through the living-room?' asked Julia. 'And a log fire and a Christmas hamper?'
     'You did,' answered Roberto, unbuttoning her coat, ‘This was once a composer's house. Now it's a luxury holiday home.' Slowly, he unfastened her shoes.
     Julia closed her eyes as his strong fingers brushed her ankles. ‘Which composer?' she asked softly, as her high heels went skating across the mosaic floor to the big sunlit window.
     'A German. He wrote many beautiful hymns - but then German is a spiritual language.' Spirit was not what Roberto was feeling at that moment. He swept her out of her coat onto the gold satin sheets.
     Julia helped him to shrug off his jacket and loosen his tie. 'What kind of language is English?' she asked, her nimble fingers undoing his waistcoat as his hands deftly slid into her dress, dispatching the fastenings. Her fingers brushed warm flesh as his thumbs circled the engorged nipples of her breasts.
     'Definitely pastoral.' Roberto's hands slipped gently between her thighs. 'Country matters.' As she gasped he kissed her.
     Off came the rest of the clothes, in silent, feverish haste. The pleasure of seeing each other naked was to be fully enjoyed in a later, less urgent moment; now it was contact, the mutual desire for possession. They burned in each other's arms.
     ‘What about French?' Julia murmured several long moments later, fingers teasing an intimate caress. He was so firm, so good to touch; she wanted all of him.    
     'Intellectual.' Her hand guided. Her body enfolded. It was better than anything he had known before. Sweating, rigid in delight, Roberto forced himself to be slow.
     Julia felt him moving deep inside her. The virtues of Spanish and Italian must keep. She kissed his throat. His arms tightened around her. The spikes of pleasure intensified as his hips ground against hers. She writhed beneath him. As he came he shouted her name. As she came she kissed him on the mouth.
     For both, it had been worth the wait.


Smashwords and Kindle 2011
$0.99  

NOW JUST 99 CENTS/99P AT SMASHWORDS, AMAZON AND NOOK

Buy the ebook:

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Reviews from the original UK print edition:Birmingham Sunday Mercury:
Lindsay Townsend's mixture of arias and skullduggery turns into a highly readable thriller.

Yorkshire Post:
Confident debut.

Grimsby Evening Telegraph:
She obviously has a passion for writing. This is a book you will not be able to put down.

The Glorious Twelfth by Alan Calder

The Glorious Twelfth is my second novel, set mainly in my native Caithness with forays into France, Italy, Egypt and Poland. The genre is mystery/suspense with a thread of romance running through the story.

Genesis of the Glorious Twelfth

In The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown speculates that the Holy Grail lies buried in the filled in crypt of Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh. This mysterious church was built by the Sinclairs in the first half of the fifteenth century, by which time the clan was well established in Caithness where it still holds the Earldom. Caithness, then remote and inaccessible, would have provided a much better hiding place for the Grail than Rosslyn, especially after the Sinclairs began to build a series of heavily fortified castles round the Caithness coast. In Caithness, the Sinclairs also built several mausoleums where many generations of their upper echelons were laid to rest. One of these, an enchanting building with an ogive shaped roof, is built over the remains of an ancient chapel to St Martin and surrounded by a graveyard which once contained a class II Pictish stone, conferring great antiquity on the site.                                             

 

The Glorious Twelfth- Blurb

The Glorious Twelfth opens as archaeologist Ben Harris finds a Celtic stone and evidence of a medieval shipwreck on the Noster estate of Sir Ranald Sinclair. Careless talk by Ben at a conference in Paris sparks off a robbery at  Sir Ranald’s mausoleum, uncovering a treasure that has been hidden for centuries. The robbery follows the opening day of the grouse season, hence the title of the book. The chief villain, grail fanatic Russian Boris Zadarnov, also abducts Sir Ranald’s wayward daughter, Fran, who is already in love with Ben. American oilman Al Regan, a neighbour of Sir Ranald, leads a rescue party to Paris where Fran is freed and most of the treasure recovered, but the thieves escape with a ruby encrusted chalice.

     For a series of misdemeanours, including failing to spot that the Celtic stone was a fake, Ben is sacked from his university job. He finds consolation in the arms of Fran and moves north to continue treasure hunting, making the discovery of his life near one of the ancient Sinclair castles. Has he found the greatest archaeological prize in Christendom, the Holy Grail? Will he be able to protect it from the malevolent attention of Alexei, younger brother of the deceased Boris?

 The Glorious Twelfth- Opening Excerpt

Ben Harris was examining pottery fragments in the dig tent, already warming up under an August morning sun, when he heard the shout. It was from Angela in the trench on top of the hillock which the locals had always called, The Hill of Peace.

     “Ben, I’ve got something!”

It wasn’t normal to call the field archaeologist for routine finds such as pieces of pottery, so he picked up his trowel and brush and rushed up the path to the dig. In his haste he forgot to put on the wide brimmed kudu skin hat, which normally restrained his longish mop of fair hair and gave him protection from the sun. He was excited by the call, not least because this was his first dig as the boss and the site had certainly looked of interest on the geophysics survey, carried out at Easter by a colleague.

      Angela was on her knees in the metre deep trench, bounded by the foundations of a simple rectangular building, gradually revealed over the previous two weeks. She was carefully prising the compressed soil from a flat stone surface, in the middle of the floor of the building.

     “It’s incised; look there’s a curved line. I don’t think it’s a plough mark.”

     “Not a metre down. I’ll start recording and fetch the laptop just in case.” If it was an important find, he wanted to record the moment as it happened and not have to stage a reconstruction.

     “There’s more, it’s a fish, I’ve got the tail,” she shouted, as he returned with the laptop.

     “Wow, we have got something here.” Looking over her shoulder, Ben could see the fan of the salmon’s tail materialise from the dust. It was about half life-size and pleased him infinitely more than any of the real wild ones he’d caught with rod and line. “Let me check the geophysics.” His mind was racing at the prospect of an undiscovered Pictish stone. 

     “Is it that big anomaly we saw?” Angela asked.

     “Spot on. That’s it.” He perched the laptop on the edge of the trench, allowing her to see the dark shadow on the trace.

     “So, there’s a lot more of it to uncover.”

     As they bent down over the stone again, a shadow covered Ben. He looked up to see the tall slender figure of Fran, daughter of Sir Ranald Sinclair, the proprietor and dig sponsor, on the other side of the trench, blocking out the sun.  She was standing with her arms folded below her breasts, tapping a sandal-covered foot on the edge of the trench, causing a mini-collapse of soil.

     From Ben’s low position in the trench, his first sight was the silhouette of her long legs showing through the thin fabric of her dress. Scanning up further, the sun was neatly eclipsed by her head and sparkled through the outer frizz of her lustrous deep copper coloured hair. It gave her a goddess-like halo, accentuated by the refraction of light through the prisms of her long dangling ear-rings. Her challenging presence made him think of Boudicca, the early Iceni  Queen who took on the Romans.

      Ben narrowed his focus on her face. He got a fleeting impression of self-satisfaction as her eyes left the stone and met his briefly, with the faintest of smiles. She turned sharply on her heel and disappeared into the light without uttering a word. Her departure left him looking into the sun, temporarily blinded, but with the optical memory of her shape still imprinted behind his eyes. Ben shook his head to restore his sight and push her image to the back of his mind. The other students and volunteers on the dig began to assemble round the periphery of the trench, attracted by the allure of the square foot or so of exposed stone.

     “What was that all about?” asked Angela.

     “She seems very interested in the stone,” said Ben.

     “I think she fancies the archaeologist,” said Angela with a hint of menace.

      Ben did not rise to Angela’s bait. He suspected a personal sub-text on her part. She was being very nice to him and always seemed to be hovering within easy reach.

     “I could lift it out for you with the JCB,” said Jay Fuller, an American based on the main platform of the Caithness Shelf oilfield, a few miles offshore. Jay volunteered on his rest days,  a break from the tedium of the production schedule. The other students sniggered at his unprofessional enthusiasm.

     “All in good time, Jay; but you’re right; we will need the JCB for this one.”  Ben gave Fuller a break. He didn’t want to exploit his minor gaffe. He also realised that he would have to rethink the digging plan in the light of the discovery.

     “Is it tea time?” asked the beaming Angela.

     “Okay, let’s take an early tea break and think about what we need to do next.”

     Over the tea break they discussed a new plan to focus on trench three. Ben  would join Angela on the stone and the others would work on fully digging out the rest of the trench. He also called Sir Ranald Sinclair, owner of the Noster Estate to tell him about the find and it was agreed that the proprietor would visit the dig at five p.m.

 

Links

https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=531&category_id=69&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1&vmcchk=1&Itemid=1

 www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BG04SS8

www.amazon.com/dp/B00BG04SS8

 Best wishes to all

Alan Calder

 

Free Reads!

Yes, this blogpost is about stories that are Free and where to find them. I've started it off with my romantic suspense, Night of the Storm. This full length novel is now Free at Smashwords, Diesel, Sony and Apple.

Please share your own Free Reads and where to find them in the comments section of this blog.

Please come and have a look and a browse, too - lots of excellent stories here!

Happy Reading!

Lindsay Townsend