SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT by Joyce Hart

I just received this note from client Jane Kirkpatrick:

I got a call last night from the chair of the WILLA Literary Award event and "An Absence so Great" is a finalist for the award! They've already chosen the winner and finalists so that's all it will be...a finalist, but I'm delighted, especially since "A Flickering Light" won last year!

Warmly, Jane

Jane Kirkpatrick, Author and Speaker
www.jkbooks.com

Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral? by Terry Burns

I give up, what is it?

I just got a submission for a steampunk manuscript, the first I have received. Do I handle steampunk? I don't know.

I had kind of a general idea what the genre was but I needed to know more. I googled it and came up with a blog from Lena Nelson Dooley on the subject. Lena is a good friend and a Hartline client (Joyce's) and generally a pretty reliable source of information. She says, "Early templates for what steampunk would become include Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. So far modern film examples have been pretty lacking and not received strong critical responses, but they include Wild, Wild West, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Van Helsing, and some even argue the new Sherlock Holmes film can be included because it uses technology far ahead of its time, explained with older methods."

Okay, I'm quite familiar with all those and enjoyed all of them. So it is books set in the past but uses technology far into the future, or at least far in the future for its time. That's a little closer definition than the rather nebulous one that I was working with. Our agency submission guidelines say that we do not work in the science fiction or fantasy markets so that would rule it out, right?

Not that clear. Is it sci-fi because it is melding technology into the story that did not exist at the time? Or is it just a historical with a twist? We do historicals. I saw Wild, Wild West, was it a sci-fi? Or an imaginative western?

I finally reluctantly turned it down, not because of the sci-fi definition, but because I didn't know where to go with it. Looking through the exhaustive editor databases that I have I just don't see that I am working with any editors that have shown an interest in it. And I don't sell to publishing houses, I sell to editors that I know and have established a working relationship with.

But I'm open to the idea, and will be exploring it further. Maybe someday when the future technology catches up with my historical editor preferences . . .

Would You Read On? by Diana Flegal

It's First Pages day! Let us know if you would read on....

When do people pray? Normally it’s when they want or need something and think God can bring it to them. We pray for other reasons, too, such as worship or thanksgiving, but probably most of our prayers are to ask God for help, protection, or guidance. When things are particularly serious, we give ourselves to a time of extended prayer until something concrete happens.

This book is a guide to lead you through a 100-day period of prayer as you face a crisis or problem of greater than normal difficulty. It’s offered as both an encouragement and a guide to sustained petition. It already has made a remarkable difference to the many who have tried it. We’ve found that it’s most effective when carried out by a group of people committed to praying together because, as most of us have discovered, it’s just hard to keep on praying by ourselves for something every day for any length of time. Even under normal circumstances, too many distractions and interruptions tend to take us away from our prayer times.

The 100-day prayer is simply a way of bringing before God major issues, challenges, concerns, or transitions in our lives. There's really nothing magic about a hundred days, it’s just that my family and I settled on that span of time as a solid period of concentrated prayer and intercession. It could have been ninety or one-hundred-and-twenty days. The intent is only that we bring before God the same issue each day for that period of time. This isn't something overly involved or impossible to sustain—only a few minutes of prayer every day. It's striving more for consistency than length of time in prayer.

Would you read on?

Last weeks entry was from the title Ruth's Redemption by Marlene Banks. It is a book that will be published by Moody's Imprint Lift Every Voice in Feb 2012 to coincide with Black History Month. The author and the publisher are taking into consideration all of your helpful comments.

Spine-Out Titles by Andy Scheer

Three little words. Maybe five. Never more than seven.

No matter how much time you spent crafting your manuscript, the success of your project hinges on whether it has an effective title.

If you haven't done so already, get used to this idea. It will hold true until you work yourself up the ladder to A-list status. At which point your name becomes the drawing card for readers, and the publisher displays it on the cover even more prominently than your book's title. (And then, with your name in such huge type, there's no room for a rambling title.)

You have my permission to endulge for a moment in that A-list fantasy. Okay, just another minute. Now stop fantasizing. Remember, it's the struggle that readers most enjoy. So if you struggle to craft an effective title, keep struggling. In the end, you'll have more readers to enjoy what you struggled to create.

This past weekend I indulged one of my favorite pastimes: browsing through used book stores. Actually, thrift stores with excellent used book departments. (The book section of the Goodwill stores in Colorado Springs actually offers quality fresh coffee.)

Yet even with a pleasant, well-lighted environment, it's still retailing at the most basic. No end caps, no displays of the latest releases—not even separation by genre. (On good days, all the fiction's in one section, the nonfiction in another—mostly—paperbacks on one side, hardcovers on the other.)

And all the books are spine out. So everything rests on those three little words. Maybe five. Never more than seven.

But why bring up thrift stores? Your book will be sold in wonderful Christian book stores like the one in your community … where there are attractive cardboard displays for books by A-list authors and displays of those authors' latest releases … and where everyone else's work is placed on the shelf spine-out.

And long before those three little words speak to a bookstore browser, they must appeal to the publication board, to the acquisitions editor, even to your agent. Before your one-sheet or your elevator speech close the deal, your title needs to pre-sell your book.

In my conference workshops, I often describe some tasks for a title.

First, it needs to attract reader attention. Somehow, it makes you stop scanning and focus on just this one book. If your eyes keep moving to the next book and the next, the insides could just as well remain blank.

Second, the title needs to inform or intrigue the reader. This is where nonfiction writers catch a break. If you're writing to a felt need and have a distinct approach, you simply express that in a handful of words.

For novelists, not so easy. A dozen years ago, Frank Peretti told a group at the CBA convention that instead of titling it “The Visitation,” he'd considered calling that novel something like “A False Christ Comes to a Small Wheat-Farming Town in Eastern Oregon”—so that when he told people the title, they wouldn't ask what the book is about.

Does your title resonate with readers of your genre, perhaps create a word picture or echo a memorable phrase? One nonfiction title that jumped out at me this weekend was a biography of zoologist Dian Fossey (the subject of the film “Gorillas in the Mist”) titled “Woman in the Mist.” On the fiction side, “Hunting a Detroit Tiger” prompted me to consider this early twentieth century “Micky Rawlings Baseball Mystery” by Troy Soos (author of “The Cincinnati Red Stalkings”).

Hate word play in titles? Complain to Diane Mott Davidson, whose titles about caterer and amateur sleuth Goldy Schulz include “Dying for Chocolate,” “The Cereal Murders,” and “The Grilling Season.”

Paul Garrison (a pseudonym for novelist Justin Scott) writes suspense novels with nautical settings. So he chose this title for his story of an assault on New York City by a fleet of Chinese attack submarines: “Red Sky at Morning.”

Stuart M. Kaminsky wrote a series of detective stories set in Hollywood in the 1930s and '40s in which his private eye took on clients including Clark Gable, Judy Garland, and Bela Lugosi. The titles for those three stories: “Tomorrow Is Another Day,” “Murder on the Yellow Brick Road,” and “Never Cross a Vampire.”

No one buys a book or a manuscript based on the title alone. This morning I declined the opportunity to work with a story set in a small-town bowling alley: “7-10 Split.” But while I didn't feel the prose worked, the title encouraged me to hope for the best.

And before I read a single word of a supposedly humorous novel that followed a character through med school, I was predisposed to turn thumbs down based on this title (it felt more like nonfiction or something written in the early nineteenth century): “Reflections on the Charles: A Legend of Doctors' Yearning in Youth.”

And this morning I glanced at a query in which the prospective author didn't provide a title at all … an easy rejection.

Please. Give your book a chance. Think spine out. Choose three words. Maybe five And make them sing.

DEVELOPING EVIL...CHARACTERS by Linda S. Glaz

Later that evening, with the family fed and occupied elsewhere, she went into the bedroom and sat down. The comforter, warm and soft against her legs, offered a place to open up, to become Laura again. But it seemed hiding was more difficult than before, and she rubbed her temples to relieve the anxiety. The first few weeks of a new identity always sapped her energy. She had so much to remember, and the act could be brutal. As she got older and the strain more evident, she worried of irreparable mistakes. Small stress lines had crept in and sent deep creases across her brow. And the weight she’d lost.

For the last few years they’d plotted and planned and worked well together. Nothing stood in the way of their plans, plans so close to coming to fruition. But this year, a few things had gone awry: the wrong child, the wrong town, maybe even the wrong identities. Tonight, she needed more than just a nice warm bubble bath to steer the panic away.

Taut muscles banding her forehead, she sidestepped into the past, and as usual when under pressure, her thoughts rested on Mother. Her breath hitched and jammed in her throat.

Standing up promptly and brushing the horrific memories from her mind, she smoothed the covers on the king-size bed. Why waste energy on things that couldn’t be changed? There was enough in the present to keep her occupied.

She stood perfectly still. Stared. Created a short video in her mind that brought the expected relief.

And the tightness was gone. It always worked. All she ever had to do to relieve the stress was to envision all of them strewn about, lifeless; mothers and daughters scattered here and there. How she hated mothers and their daughters.

A twisted grin started deep inside her until she sensed it creep over her entire face like a mask. “My, my, Hannah Housewife.” She spoke to the silence, letting her smile change her character. “Let’s go bake some nice warm cookies for your hubby and little girl.”


How do you create creepy, evil characters? What do you draw on? Visit my blog for another sample into the dark world of evil characters. http://lindaglaz.blogspot.com/

Make Things Easy for Your Blog Readers by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

Lots of people feel pressured to build their online platform and they jump head first into blogging without really planning for their target audience and the kind of content they will provide their blog readers. Therefore, they aren't sure which plugins would best help them utilize their efforts across multiple social media platforms. That's okay. Many of us learn best by doing--the old fashion trial and error.

However, today I want to discuss some basic blogging tips regardless of what kind of blog you have. These tips will make it easier on your blog readers to share and promote the great content you're putting out there. It's easy and may already be something you're implementing, but if not, I hope this helps.

Insert Social Media Buttons in Every Post
If you're not sure what I'm talking about, it's the small buttons at the end of every post that allows readers to click Gmail and email the post to friends, or click the F button and post on the Facebook wall, and so forth. They need to be present either before each post or after each post. Small, but not overbearing. Here is an image of what I'm talking about on Hartline's blog. You can click on the image to enlarge it.

To insert this feature on Blogger, go to Design. Now go to the section where your blog posts are and click the edit button. See below.

A small window will pop open, titled Configure Blog Posts. All you need to do is check the box next to the Show Share Buttons option. Once you set this configuration, all the social media buttons shown in the image below will automatically appear with each blog post you write and you won't have to worry about it anymore. See the image below.

Wordpress has their own options for social media plugins, but if you have a different blog that you host directly from your website, there are a few options out there that you might want to consider. One that I personally prefer since I've used it and it is easy to install and uninstall, is www.addthis.com. It allows you to add the social media buttons for each blog post and it also provides analytical reports for each click where someone shares your blog posts on Facebook, Twitter, etc. It's another option in addition to Google's analytic tools. I've switched to Google, but not because I didn't like this feature, there were more options I wanted with my blog stats that Google provides.

Have you used these features either on your blog or to share with others on other blogs? Do you find them helpful?

What are words for? by Terry Burns

Most of us use the written word all the time, probably more than we realize. But it seems to me they have four primary uses.

For information - here I’m thinking newspapers, magazines, various types of nonfiction books, warranties and instruction sheets, etc.

For entertainment - books, short stories, some types of blogs

To convey a message or inspiration - articles, devotionals, blogs, again various types of nonfiction books and even inspirational fiction.

To stay in touch with family or friends - letters, postcards, email, social networking

Even in our conversation, chances are we are using our words for one of these four uses, giving information, trying to entertain, trying to convey a message or just networking. Which of them is the most important? I thought about that and it seems to me it depends on what is going on in our life right at that moment.

If we are concerned about something that is going on in the world, these days often related to what the idiots in Washington are doing, then giving or receiving information may be what is on our mind. Digital and electronic means factor in this and the other three  strongly, but right now I’m just concentrating on the written word. If our water heater is on the fritz it may be that warranty or instruction sheet, otherwise that may be the least important set of written words that we have.

If our concern is getting our message across, if we have something to say then conveying that message is what is important. It goes without saying when we have a friend or family member on our mind what our priority will be. In the case of any of these conveying exactly what we want the other party to get is the primary importance.

So written words are important. I had a professor in a college course say something one time that has always stuck with me even though that has been over 40 years ago. He said we all need to think of ourselves as having a box full of index cards (remember I said 40 years ago) and on those cards were written the sum total of our upbringing and family environment, our education, our experiences, our likes and dislikes, everything that makes us what we are. When we get ready to convey a message, written or spoken, we thumb though the cards and we compose a message that says what we want to say.

The problem is, the receiver of the message has a box of cards too, and chances are every card in their box is different from the ones in ours, but they are going to use THEIR box to decode the message, not ours. Possibilities for misunderstanding are rampant. The key is for as much of the message as possible to be written or spoken in areas where the boxes have common ground.

The words themselves can get in the way. This is why most things are written on about a 7^th grade level. It is a level most people can read at and it is a comfortable reading level even for people with much larger vocabularies. It would kill a good story, for example, if the flow were interrupted every page or two because somebody had to stop and look a word up to see what the author was saying. I figure two, maybe three times and that would be the end of that.

The bottom line is that being an effective communicator is important whether we are writing for publication or just standing in line at the grocery store talking to someone. How often have we said something to someone only to have them get indignant on us because they took a meaning from the message that we didn’t even know could be there. I’ve done that a lot. I remember asking a friend of mine how it went after he took the opportunity to speak at a board meeting. His response was “I think I just missed a wonderful opportunity to keep my mouth shut.”

We are never ‘just’ talking or ‘just’ writing. We have to remember we are always communicating, and that is a skill that can and should be learned and developed.