H in Fiction

The H is Silent

Have you entered my book giveaway contest yet? It's easy and you could win TWO of my favourite books for reading, writing and editing! These are the books that helped me so much, I wanted to share them with you. Click HERE to enter! OR click on the image below:

I guess the ol' silent H routine isn't going to fly for this post :-).

Actually H should be easy for me, it's what I look for when I read fiction.

Humanity.

Regardless of whether the novel is about cats, aliens or trees, for me it has to be about humanity, how we deal with things and what we are capable of.

Humanity can be shown many ways and I have three favourites:

Humour.

Aussies are generally known for their sense of humour which can be a bit off-beat and probably stems from our strong Irish connection. We try to laugh off everything. Especially people who think they've got the upper hand, no one is above a ridicule. Even Chris Vogler refers to our 'tall poppy syndrome' in his book Using Myth to Power Your Story, Aussies don't like seeing someone get 'too big for their boots'.

Of course, not everyone is funny. But sometimes that character can be hilarious because they're not funny. In Good Morning Vietnam, Robin Williams' humour is contrasted with a binary character that thinks he's funny, but has absolutely no sense of humour. I laugh at that character a lot.

And there is a boundary (well for me anyway), somethings are beyond being funny. I really have to prepare myself to read a book that I know will show humanity's unkindness :-(.

Heart.

Even if I'm reading a book for children, I want to see a character with heart. Someone that will stand against the odds, even if failing is inevitable. I don't want it to be easy for them, that's what makes their actions meaningful - because it hurts to try. I heart the people. I want to find the best in them and sometimes that means showing the worst too, so we can see the journey for our character's true potential.

Hope. 

I don't have to have a happy ending to like a story, but there does have to be hope at the end for change. If things simply return to normal I feel like I've made no progress (hey, I was on the journey with the main character while reading, so I get to share in the credit for the outcome don't I?). Even in post-apocolyptic tales, I need to see humanity's hope at the end.

One of my favourite films for showing the potential in every person is Changing Lanes with Ben Afflick and Samuel L Jackson. This film starts with an accident between two seemingly very different people, but through the film we see the darkest things they are capable of and then we see the lengths they are prepared to go to when they try to right their wrongs.

I try to keep humour, heart, hope and humanity in mind when I write, but it can also be a topic to address in the editing process.

So, I HEART Humans, what do you HEART to read in fiction?

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G is for Giveaway and Gravity

G is for Giveaway!
Time for me to push my book giveaway again :-)

You have the chance to win two great books, you get to pick them from a selection of four books that I adore. These are my absolute favourite books for writing, editing and reading. If you haven't already entered then go and do it now! You'll find the contest on my post: 

E is for Enter the Book Giveaway!!!

G is for Gravity.

This is Earth and in our world we have rules. Gravity is a pretty good rule. You can't fight gravity - or can you?

When you do worldbuilding for a narrative taking place anywhere on Earth, you know that you have to adhere to the physical laws of this planet. If you taking the plunge into a fantasy world, then you get to create the world to suit your story (but not to suit your characters, you want the word to cause them much conflict).

Think about the physical laws of that world. What is the same as our world and what is different, this will provide the reader with binaries and parallels for their own experiences.

You may decide that in your world sneezes make you disappear, or sunburn can cook you, so characters can only go out at night. Decide on your rules.... and then break them.

You might not be able to fight gravity (despite the promise of many cosmetic companies), but through the ages man has been determined to defy gravity. If there is a 'rule' for your world, show the way that characters can defy those rules. Or have them attempt to defy the rules and fail, this would provide plenty of conflict.

Once man learned how to fly, our world changed. How will your world change? Conflict and change, those elements keep the narrative moving. In my post: Using Settings Effectively for Fiction I shared a tip I learned from the writing course How To Think Sideways, when you plan your world, you only need to ask two questions about every part of this world:

• Does this create conflict for the story?
• Does this force a primary character to change?

Do you have any challenging laws for your world, or have your read a story with a really interesting physical law that the characters tried to defy? An incredible example of worldbuilding is evident in Frank Herbet's Dune (the most amazing sci-fi book I've ever read).

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F is for Follow, Focus and Fetish.

In a blatant attempt to reach 100 FOLLOWERS, I'm hosting a competition to win books on writing and editing! See my last post for the entry form and details:

E is for Enter the Book Giveaway! (oooh, 99 so far!).

I've got a lot of projects on the go at the moment and I find that the days I stress about which to do first, I end up accomplishing nothing. I need to FOCUS on my tasks (I often say I prefer focus-tasking to multi-tasking) and FINISH what I'm on before being distracted by the other.

My current writing tasks include:

• Editing Dog Show Detective
• Writing Warracknabeal Kids
• Researching for Warracknabeal Kids
• Blogging
• Reading, book on writing and editing and all your blogs!

My project tonight is to do up a better timetable so I can schedule these projects to complete a little on a daily basis.  It does help me to keep my information for each task separate. Each writing/editing project has it's own notebook. This is how I discovered I have a FETISH. I will shop for days to find just the right notebook for each project. Dog Show Detective has pets on the cover, while Warracknabeal Kids has a plain brown cardboard cover. If I spot a notebook I love, then I have to have it. I give notebooks as presents. In short, I LOVE notebooks.

F is also for Funny pranks. My protagonist in Warracknabeal Kids is a 12/13yr. old boy who is a bit of a scallywag. Not having a boy's mind for mischief, I asked my husband for some inspiration. I won't go into too much detail but his idea involved a corpse, a coffin and a chicken.

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E is for Enter the Book Giveaway!!!

The contest has closed! I'll announce the winner on tomorrow's blog

  

   

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D is for Detectives and Dichotomy

D is for Detective Stories.

Detective mysteries are a popular genre. Two of my WIPs are mysteries featuring amateur detectives (Dog Show Detective and Warracknabeal Kids). I thought I'd have a look at some elements of detective fiction.

A crime that consists of a method and motive (to be revealed later in the story). The crime should be significant and is usually murder, but if it is a case of theft it must be something of great value such as: priceless jewellery, incriminating evidence that can be used for blackmail, a child or a valuable show dog (just thought I'd throw that one in there). 

Suspects (and plenty of them) - these characters can provide good subplots through their connection to the victim (and sometimes each other).

In the amateur detective novel the police will begin by separating the non-suspects from the suspects, which often leads to mistaken assumptions. The professionals will fail to solve the crime because they don't posses some special insight that the amateur detective has.

Clues, the reader must have a fair chance to work out the mystery as the detective does. These will sometimes be ambiguous or confusing but the detective will sort the real clues from the red herrings and deduce their significance and meaning and link them to the ultimate killer.

Many mysteries are solved by deductions - instead of working out which suspect is guilty, the detective will eliminate suspects one at a time (often by having them turn up with a knife in their back) and the last one left is your killer.

Dichotomy is a writing device that is popular in fiction (it is the process of grouping themes or characters into binary oppositional groups). In order for opposites to reveal as dichotomies they must belong to one of the two opposing groups and never cross over. These days most writers using a dichotomy will have it strong to begin with but then start to blur the boundaries, showing that themes are rarely 'black and white'. Some popular uses are to show the dichotomy of:

• good and evil
• rich and poor
• human and alien
• life and death

In Warracknabeal Kids I will have a protagonist (12yr. old boy) begin with assumptions of the dichotomy of right and wrong. These will be supported by his father's view that the law decides and by the church's view that the soul decides. As the narrative progresses the boy will see the conflicts of defining right and wrong by actions, outcomes or intentions. The purpose of this is to support my novel's premise: Sometimes it takes a wrong action to make things right.

D is for Dedication - and I wanted to say thank you to my special followers who have gone to visit my daughters' new book review blog. The girls are now racing to finish novels so they can review them for the site and they were absolutely over the moon when they saw they had comments. Thanks again and much love your way :-)

I'll leave you with some links for writing detective fiction:

How to Write the Classic Detective Mystery

Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories

How to Write a Detective Story

Rick Riordan

Mystery Writing is Murder

and one for teachers to use when teaching the detective genre:

Expository Escapade - Detective Handbook

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C is for Competitions, Courses and Children

C is for Competitions and I've found a few new ones!

Juiciliciousss Reviews is offering a surprise book giveaway - a whole parcel of YA books! It's open internationally, so Aussies can enter too :-)

I Heart Monsters is also hosting a huge book giveaway - also open to international entrants!

Princess Bookie is hosting several contests including one just for international readers (not for the US) to win Before I Fall by Lauren Olivier.

C is for Courses.

I've been working steadily on Dog Show Detective edits using How to Revise Your Novel, an online course by Holly Lisle. Recently I posted about Holly's use of the Sentence for Review (My Take on Premise): each scene should have an index card with the sentence. The sentence should be: protagonist with need versus antagonist with need in interesting setting with a twist, or record a moment when everything changes: protagonist is doing this UNTIL....

Since then, I have gone through and followed with one thing I want to keep in that scene and one thing I want to change. By breaking the novel down to scenes, the editing is much more manageable for me (this is my first time editing a novel).

I had a wow moment with the course. I was asked to sit down and re-write the sentence for review in a notebook, the catch was I had to write the sentences for the story in order, without peaking at my cards. I had to do it from memory. Pfft, I couldn't see the point of this. Then I did it. Wow. I found I came up with a tighter more functional order for my story scenes, a few new scenes to tied everything together and forgot a scene that was a flashback, confirming it really isn't needed at all in the story.

C is also for Children and Compromise and Class.

I mentioned in my last blog that my girls wanted to start their own blog. At first they were adamant they needed separate blogs, even though they would both be doing book reviews. The compromise was that Miss 12 picked the title: 'Paper Dolls' and Miss 8 could choose the background (she actually managed to find one with paper dolls).

http://paperdollsbooks.blogspot.com/

And for no particular reason, C is for Cat:

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B is for Birthmarked AND Book Giveaway!

Keeping with the A-Z Blogging Challenge hosted at Tossing it Out. Today is B and I've found a book giveaway competition for you! Steph Su Reads is giving away a copy of the new book Birthmarked by Caragh O'Brien. This comp is open internationally. 

But wait, there's more! In Which a Girl Reads is also hosting an international book giveaway (means us Aussies can enter too!), this is to celebrate gaining a whopping 600 followers! (can you hear the jealousy in my voice?). Check it out:

I'm choosing my favourite books on writing and once I hit the 100 followers (I know that's a long way off 600 - but I'm still thrilled), I'll have a book giveaway too - looks like that won't be long now :-)

B is also for blogging. I currently maintain this site and one on education and teaching English, The Write Words (I also have one for Dog Show Detective aimed at kids). Now my 9yr. old and my 12yr. old daughters have decided they would like a blog too, they would like to blog on book reviews and of course they have no interest in sharing a single blog. Sigh. This is going to be just like the kitten and the rabbit and the puppy - I know who will end up having to do most of the work. 

I am happy they are showing an interest and they were both amazing during NaNoWriMo, each ending up with their own novelette. I told them I would get the book printed and bound for them like a professional book (perfect Christmas present for Grandma!) and now Miss 9 wants to know when it will be in the stores. A little budding writer-wanting-publication in the making!

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