Well today is Thursday. We New Yorkers are mourning the loss of Cory Lidle. His private airplane ran into a high rise building in New York City, on Wednesday. He was a pitcher for the New York Yankees, and he had been here in our town of Binghamton as a minor league player with the Binghamton Mets until he signed with the Yankees. So it is doubly sad for our town. My heart-felt sympathy and prayers go out to his family.

On a brighter note...This week's Christian Fiction Blog Alliance book tour for Violette Between,by Alison Strobel is doing great. It is #2 on Technorati Popular Books! Hopefully at #1 by the time you read this!

Here's the rest of Things we learn from movies!


*One man shooting at 20 men has a better chance of killing them than 20 men firing at 1 man.

*If being fired at by Germans, hide in a river - or even a bath. German bullets are unable to penetrate water.

*Laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communication systems of an invading alien civilization.

*Most people keep a scrapbook of newspaper clippings - especially if any of their family or friends have died in a strange boating accident.

*All computer disks will work in all computers, regardless of software.

*Police Departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are assigned a partner who is their total opposite.

*When they are alone, foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.

*If you are a hero, you never face charges for manslaughter or criminal damage despite laying entire cities to waste by your actions.

*You can always find a chainsaw when you need one.

*Any lock can be picked by a credit card or a paper clip in seconds - unless it's the door to a burning building with a child trapped inside.

*You can tell if somebody is British because he will be wearing a bow tie.

*When driving a car, it is normal to look not at the road but rather at the person sitting beside you or in the back seat for the entire journey.

*Taxi drivers don't require exact or even approximate payment - the first bill you pull from your pocket is always correct.

*Having a job of any kind will make a father forget his son's eighth birthday.

*Honest and hard working policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before retirement.

*The more a man and a woman hate each other, the more likely they will fall in love.

It's that time of the week! Time to do a blog tour! This week's tour is Violette Between.

Between Here and the PAST,

THERE LIES A PLACE...

a place of longing for what has been rather than hoping for what could be!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Alison Strobel graduated with a degree in elementary education, and in the summer of 2000 she moved from Chicago to southern California where she taught elementary school for three years. It was in Orange County that she met her husband, Daniel Morrow, and the story developed for her first novel, Worlds Collide.

Violette Between is a poinant story of a true artist. When the love of Violette's life, Saul suddenly died, she died too. Then she meets Christian, who also is morning the loss of a loved one.

As Violette and Christian begin to feel something that they both thought was impossible. Tragedy strikes again. Christian finds Violette on the floor of his waiting room, that she had been painting to look like a New York rooftop restaurant.

As Christian holds a vigil at her bedside, begging her to come back to him, Violette is in a coma, traveling to a place where she meets her beloved Saul. And she finds that she may not want to come back!

What would it be like to choose a place between the past and the present?

Violette Between is a powerful character study of a woman finally relinquishing the past to move on, only to be thrust into the quandry of reliving that life and needing to make a choice.

For Christians, this will definitely make you think about heaven and the consequences of eternal life.

"Delving into the underside of complicated relationships, Alison Strobel takes readers to unexpected places, but doesn't hesitate to deliver redemptiom when needed."
---Melody Carlson, author of Finding Alice

It's Tuesday, and I'm ready for Friday! I don't want to learn anything...I want to laugh! Here, have at it!

News Flash...Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion...that's right...with a 'B'!

Here's some things we've learned from the movies!

*During all police investigations, it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.

*All telephone numbers in America begin with the digits 555.

*Beds have special L-shaped cover sheets which reach up to the armpit level on a woman; but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.

*The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there, and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without difficulty

*Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.

*A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating, but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.

*Kitchens don't have light switches. When entering a kitchen at night, you should open the fridge door and use that light instead.

*If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear.

*Cars that crash will invariably burst into flames.

*Stripping to the waist can make a man invulnerable to bullets.

*If you find yourself caught up in a misunderstanding that could be cleared up quickly with a simple explanation, for goodness sake, keep your mouth shut.

*Any person waking from a nightmare will sit bolt upright and pant.

*A cough is usually the sign of a terminal illness.

*All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts, so you know exactly when they're going to go off.

*When in love, it is customary to burst into song.

*When confronted by an evil international terrorist, sarcasm and wisecracks are your best weapons.

Monday, Monday...sheesh...I'm back where I started! Hope everyone had a great weekend. They're calling for snow here, on Friday! I guess the heat is gone!

Today we are continuing editing lessons from the book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King.

These lessons will be shortened overviews of the chapters and by no means should be a substitute for buying the book. I'm rereading but not posting a lot of good stuff!

Let's continue. We've been working on Dialogue Mechanics.

Here are some dialogue faux pas...

"I hate to admit that," he grimaced.

"Come closer," she smiled.

"So you've changed your mind," he chuckled.

To use verbs like these three for speaker attributions is to brand yourself as an amateur...And to stick your character with an action that is physically impossible. No one outside of hack fiction has ever been able to grimace or smile or chuckle a sentence!

We're all in favor of choosing exactly the right verb for the action, but when you're writing speaker attributions the right verb is nearly always said.

The reason those well-intentioned attempts at variety don't work is that verbs other than said tend to draw attention away from the dialogue.

There are other ways to keep your speaker attributions transparent. Don't open a paragraph of dialogue with the speaker attribution. Instead, start a paragraph with dialogue and place the speaker attribution at the first natural break in the first sentence. ("I disagree," he said. "Plungers have...)

Place the character's name or pronoun first in a speaker attribution ("Dave said"). Reversing the two ("said Dave"), though often done, is less professional. It has a slightly old-fashioned, first-grade-reader flavor ("Run spot, run" said Jane.)

After all, "said he" fell out of favor sometime during the Taft administration...LOL!

CHECKLIST:

First check your dialogue for explanations. It may help to take a highlighter and mark every place where an emotion is mentioned outside of dialogue.

Cut the explanations and see how the dialogue reads without them. Better? Worse? If it's worse, then start rewriting your dialogue.

As long as you have your highlighter out, mark every -ly adverb. How many are there? How many of them are based on an adjective describing an emotion? You can probably do without most of them.

How about your speaker attributions? Any physical impossibilities? Any verbs other than said? Remember though, there are occasional exceptions, even innocuous verbs like replied or answered lack the unobtrusiveness of said.

Can you get rid of some of your speaker attributions entirely? Just drop them and see if it's still clear who is speaking.

Have you started a paragraph with a speaker attribution?

Name before noun ("Renni said") rather than the other way around ("said Renni")?

Have you referred to a character more than one way in the same scene (using different forms of their name)?

Ellipses for gaps, dashes for interruptions, right? (I'm very bad at this one, right Mimi?)

How often have you paragraphed your dialogue? Try paragraphing a little more often and see how it reads.

And now for a little fun!

TAILEND ô¿ô

You are driving in a car at a constant speed. On your left side is a big drop, and on your right there is a fire engine traveling at the same speed as you. In front of you, running side by side, are a pig and horse.

You cannot overtake them.

Behind is a helicopter chasing you at ground level.

What can you do to safely get out of this dangerous situation?

[answer at end]

I was listening to a lady who called a radio pastor.

The pastor was a wise, grandfatherly gentleman who has that calm reassuring voice that can melt all fear.

The lady, who was obviously crying, said, "Pastor, I was born blind, and I've been blind all my life. I don't mind being blind but I have some well meaning friends who tell me that if I had more faith I could be healed."

The pastor asked her, "Tell me, do you carry one of those white canes?"

"Yes I do," she replied.

"Then the next time someone says that hit them over the head with the cane," he said. "Then tell them 'If you had more faith that wouldn't hurt!'"

[Answer: Get off the children's merry-go-round]

I made it...Another week down the tubes! I don't know where the time goes!

I do know that Dark Hour by Ginger Garrett is sitting at #2 on Technorati's Popular Book List. And her first novel, Chosen is sitting at #7...The blog tour is a resounding success...Go CFBAers!!!

Today we are continuing editing lessons from the book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King.

These lessons will be shortened overviews of the chapters and by no means should be a substitute for buying the book. I'm rereading but not posting a lot of good stuff!

Let's continue. Today we'll be working on Dialogue Mechanics.

A quick review of yesterday reveals that if you're like most beginning writers, you write sentences like, "You can't be serious," she said in astonishment.

And you probably write them without thinking! What could be easier than simply to tell your readers how a character feels? If she is astonished, you just say so. It saves time and trouble!

It's also lazy writing. When your dialogue is well written, describing your characters' emotions to your readers is just as patronizing as a playwright running onto the stage and explaining things to the audience!

If your dialogue isn't well written--if it needs the explanation to convey the emotion--then the explanation really won't help.

Perhaps it's a lack of confidence on the writer's part, perhaps it's simple laziness, or perhaps it's a misguided attempt to break up the monotony of using the unadorned said all the time, but all too many fiction writers tend to pepper their dialogue with -ly's.

Which is a good enough reason to cut virtually every one you write.

Ly adverbs almost always catch the writer in the act of explaining dialogue--smuggling emotions into speaker attributions that belong in the dialogue itself. Again, if your dialogue doesn't need the props, putting the props in will make it seem weak even when it isn't.

There are a few exceptions to this principle, and almost all of them are adverbs that actually modify the verb said, such as "he said softly" or "she said clearly."

To be continued...

And now for some more ways to annoy people!


Sing along at the opera.

Mow your lawn with scissors.

At a golf tournament, chant "swing-batabatabata-suhWING-batter!"

Ask the waitress for an extra seat for your "imaginary friend."

Go to a poetry recital and ask why each poem doesn't rhyme.

Ask your co-workers mysterious questions, and then scribble their answers in a notebook. Mutter something about "psychological profiles."

Stare at static on the TV and claim you can see a "magic picture."

Select the same song on the jukebox fifty times.

Never make eye contact.

Never break eye contact.

Construct elaborate "crop circles" in your front lawn.

Construct your own pretend "tricorder," and "scan" people with it, announcing the results.

Make appointments for the 31st of September.

Invite lots of people to other people's parties.

Well, it seems like I've been so busy all week that I've lost track of days. This is Thursday...Yes, I'm sure of that, I just don't know how I got here!

I do know that Dark Hour by Ginger Garrett is sitting at #2 on Technorati's Popular Book List. And her first novel, Chosen is sitting at #7...The blog tour is a resounding success...Go CFBAers!!!

Today we are continuing editing lessons from the book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King.

These lessons will be shortened overviews of the chapters and by no means should be a substitute for buying the book. I'm rereading but not posting a lot of good stuff!

Let's continue. Today we'll start Dialogue Mechanics. I just recently learned that one of the first things an acquisitions editor looks for when they begin reading a fiction submission, is the dialogue!

If you're like most writers, you probably find that writing dialogue takes more thought than writing narration or action. And because it's such hard work, generations of writers have developed mechanical tricks to save them the trouble of writing dialogue that effectively conveys character and emotion...Techniques to prop up shaky dialogue, or to paper over holes and make second-rate dialogue serviceable without a lot of effort.

Once you learn to spot these creaky mechanics, all you have to do is stop using them. And once you stop, you may find that your dialogue...standing on its own...is a lot stronger than you thought it was when you wrote it.

Imagine that your at a play. It's the middle of the first act: you're getting really involved in the drama they're acting out. Suddenly the playwright runs out on the stage and yells, "Do you see what's happening here? So you see how her coldness is behind his infidelity? Have you noticed the way his womanizing has undermined her confidence? Do you get it?"

You get it, of course, and you feel patronized. You're an intelligent theater-goer, and what's happening on the stage is clear enough. You don't need the writer to explain it to you.

This is exactly what happens when you explain your dialogue to your readers.

To be continued...

A joke..oldy but goody!

A fellow finds himself in front of the Pearly Gates. St. Peter explains that its not so easy to get in heaven. There are some criteria before entry is allowed.

For example, was the man religious in life? Attend church? No? St. Peter told him that's bad.

Was he generous? Give money to the poor? Charities? No? St. Peter told him that that too was bad.

Did he do any good deeds? Help his neighbor? Anything? No? St. Peter was becoming concerned.

Exasperated, Peter says, "Look, everybody does something nice sometime. Work with me, I'm trying to help. Now think!"

The man says, "There was this old lady. I came out of a store and found her surrounded by a dozen Hell's Angels. They had taken her purse and were shoving her around, taunting and abusing her.

I got so mad I threw my bags down, fought through the crowd, and got her purse back. I then helped her to her feet. I then went up to the biggest, baddest biker and told him how despicable, cowardly and mean he was and then spat in his face".

"Wow", said Peter, "That's impressive. When did this happen"?

"Oh, about 10 minutes ago", replied the man.

It is time for another Christian Fiction Blog Alliance Tour! This week's feature author is GINGER GARRETT and her novel, Dark Hour!

Guess what? The publicists for Ginger have agreed to a book contest for each CFBA member's blog post on Dark Hour! It is up to the member on how they judge which commenter wins the free book...so, comment and you might become a winner!

About the author:

Ginger Garrett is an acclaimed novelist and expert in ancient women's history.

Her first novel, Chosen, was recognized as one of the best five novels of the year by the Christian publishing industry Ginger enjoys a diverse reader base and creates conversation between cultures.

In addition to her 2006 and 2007 novels about the most evil women in biblical history, she will release Beauty Secrets of the Bible (published by Thomas Nelson) in Summer 2007.

Ginger Garrett's Dark Hour delves into the biblical account of Jezebel's daughter and her attempt to end the line of David.

You can go to Book Reviews and read the first chapter.

Time passes...hello Tuesday! I was asked a question about proportions, and how can I tell if I've gone in the wrong direction! LOL...sometimes I can't tell...that's why I have a critique partner. She sets me straight. You need someone to bounce your work off, and I don't mean by hitting them with it!

Today we are continuing editing lessons from the book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King.

These lessons will be shortened overviews of the chapters and by no means should be a substitute for buying the book. I'm rereading but not posting a lot of good stuff!

Let's continue with proportion. This does not mean that your work is textureless. There is always room for philosophical sidetrails that reveal the narrator's character, subplots that may resonate with the main plot, or forays into odd corners of background that make the fictional world more three-dimentional.

The trick is telling the difference between digressions that harmonize with the story (even in odd and mysterious ways) and those that hang on the story like fungus!

How do you tell...walk away from it for a week or so, and then reread it...or get a critique partner. Once you have trained yourself to see how changes in proportion affect your story, you can begin to use proportion to shape your reader's response to your plot.

Example: If you have some plot development that you want to come as a surprise, spend less space on it before you spring it on your readers. Or you could spend as much or more space on similar plot elements to mask the really important one.

CHECKLIST:

Take a look at your descriptions. Are the details you give the ones your viewpoint characters will notice?

Reread your first fifty pages, paying attention to what you spend your time on. Are the characters you develop most fully important ot the ending? Do you use the locations you develop in detail later in the story? Do any of the characters play a surprising role in the ending? Could readers guess this from the amount of time you spend on them?

Do you have tanents...little supplots or descriptions that don't advance the plot? If so, are all of them effective? If you don't have any, should you add some?

Are you writing about your favorite topic or hobbies? If so, give careful consideration to how much time you spend on them.

Next we will move onto Dialogue Mechanics!

I've got some more stupid things to annoy people...LOL...I've tried a few of them and am still alive!

Cultivate a Norwegian accent. If Norwegian, affect a Southern drawl.

Routinely handcuff yourself to furniture, informing the curious that you don't want to fall off "in case the big one comes".

Deliberately hum songs that will remain lodged in co-workers brains, such as "Feliz Navidad", the Archies "Sugar" or the Mr. Rogers theme song.

While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.

Lie obviously about trivial things such as the time of day.

Leave your Christmas lights up and lit until September.

Change your name to "AaJohn Aaaaasmith" for the great glory of being first in the phone book. Claim it's a Hawaiian name, and demand that people pronounce each "a."

Sit in your front yard pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.

Chew on pens that you've borrowed.

Wear a LOT of cologne.

Listen to 33rpm records at 45rpm speed, and claim the faster speed is necessary because of your "superior mental processing."

Good Monday morning... for those of my blogging buddies that I haven't seen too regularly in the last few weeks...mea culpa! The CFBA is growing by leaps and bounds and that is taking a lot of my time. I'll try to visit more often!

Today we are continuing editing lessons from the book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King.

These lessons will be shortened overviews of the chapters and by no means should be a substitute for buying the book. I'm rereading but not posting a lot of good stuff!

Let's continue with proportion, and the problems that arise from taking seemingly small details and devoting excessive amounts of time to them.

This sort of proportion problem has exactly the same effect on readers as excess description. When you fill in all the details and leave nothing to your readers imagination, you're patronizing them.

This is even more true now than it was a few decades ago, when generous, detailed descriptions were the norm. It's the influence of movies and TV...readers are used to jump-cuts from scene to scene rather than long transitional shots.

Fiction writers, in turn, are much freer to use ellipses, to leave more of the mundane, bridging action up to their readers imagination. Of course there are other things that can throw your proportions off besides simple misjudgment. Sometimes proportion problems arise when a writer is writing about his or her pet interests or hobbies.

And yes, one of the joys of reading comes when a writer takes you through some little back alley of life that you never knew existed. But when we reached the three pages of how to kill and field-dress a beaver, the writer has gone too far...LOL!

So how do you avoid proportion problems. In most cases, it's quite simple: pay attention!

Most larger proportion problems can be avoided if you pay attention to your story. After all, if you spend a great deal of time on a given character or plot element for whatever reason, your readers naturally assume this element plays an important role in the story.

So if the character you spend time on turns out to be insignificant or if you never follow up on the plot element you set up in such detail, readers are going to feel cheated.

Continued tomorrow...

And for fun. Here's ten more ways to annoy people!

At the laundromat, use one dryer for each of your socks.

When Christmas caroling, sing "Jingle Bells, Batman smells" until physically restrained.

Wear a cape that says "Magnificent One."

As much as possible, skip rather than walk.

Stand over someone's shoulder, mumbling, as they read.

Pretend your computer's mouse is a CB radio, and talk to it.

Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin. When nearly done, announce "no, wait, I messed it up," and repeat.

Drive half a block.

Inform others that they exist only in your imagination.

Ask people what gender they are.

Lick the filling out of all the Oreos, and place the cookie parts back.

It is October 1st, time for the FIRST Day Blog Tour! (Join our alliance! Click the button!) The FIRST day of every month we will feature an author and their latest book's FIRST chapter!

Guess what? The publicists for Ginger have agreed to a book contest for each FIRST member's blog post on Dark Hour! It is up to the member on how they judge which commenter wins the free book...so, comment and you might become a winner!

About the author: Ginger Garrett is an acclaimed novelist and expert in ancient women's history....

To read the rest go HERE