Category: Books

Book Review: Hooked

Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go by Les Edgerton

My review


rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book has a conversational style that keeps you turning pages. I also found it to be thought-provoking about current projects I’m writing. It’s helpful to think about the beginning, but the author also makes a good point that most books about writing don’t include how to look at a project as a whole. I’d recommend this to any would-be writer.

View all my reviews.

All right- it took me a while to finish it. Part of it was that I had to think while I was reading it. I ought to devote more time to reading.

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Lea Schizas with Bubba and Giganto

Lea Schizas joined me for an interview on her blog tour for Bubba and Giganto. I’ve run into Lea a few times as another author with 4RV and also through the Muse Online Conference.

What inspired you to write Bubba and Giganto?

I find kids nowadays have no understanding of the hurt they cause to other children by their bullying. Bullying can be anything from name calling, shunning because of how one looks or dresses, to the actual physical pushing and shoving. There are consequences for their actions. All of these areas I use to get the message to children that bullying is a no win situation.

Past events in my children’s lives was the inspiration to write about. Although my children were brought up knowing making fun of others, or pushing others is not acceptable, they were in situations where they were bullied because they stood up to help other children who were being terrorized. I’m talking about elementary age here. Very frightening that they start so early, and because of this I believe the more books that show consequences, various ways to combat anger and frustrations, can only be a plus in a child’s life.

What themes are woven through the book? How do you insert them, or do your characters decide for you?

My characters show me the way in most of my books. I create, flesh them out, but when the story begins they take a life of their own. The themes I use are:

Friendships and its importance
bullying, its outcomes, and the danger associated with it
the victim’s need to retaliate but in a way that is dangerous to them
and soccer, a sport that can help to learn sportsmanship

You said you like to end chapters like episodes in comic books.

I love to use cliffhanging chapter endings only to entice the child to continue reading. As writers we need to instill a love for reading and writing in our younger generation. Since kids love to read comic books I figured the closest connection – seeing how my books for that age level don’t have pictures – is to use these cliffhanging endings, use humor that kids can relate to, come as close to their ‘lingo’ as possible, and use social themes they can associate with.

What do you hope to give kids or inspire in them with your writing?

The most important thing for me is to instill a love for reading. That’s why I believe with all my heart that writers need to try and touch kids with their words using areas kids can relate to: using humor, their ‘now’ speech, and characters they can step into their shoes and say, “Wow, sounds like me.”

What do your characters teach you, if anything?

They teach me patience. I try to move them at my pace but that never goes as planned. They have their own speed I need to work with.

The reviewer said ‘another surprise ending.” Do you ever get surprised by your endings?

Oh heck, yes, all the time. I write when I get a title. From the title I know who my characters are and what the obstacle will be. As for the ending, that pace I mentioned above, comes from my characters and they lead me to their conclusions.

How do you spend your downtime? (Do you get downtime as a full-time mom and writer?)

Downtime? Shoot, I knew there was something I was missing. I read, watch TV, go to the movies, play board games with my kids, and if there’s time…I sleep.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

I’ve begun another adventure with Bubba and Giganto. This time the boys will combat students’ indifferences when it comes to children who have disabilities.

I hope you check out Lea and her book as well as continuing with the tour.

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Coming Soon

The Art of Science may not quite have a release date yet, but with the finishing touches, it’s getting very close.

Check out the new page to see the cover and the back blurb. Comments are welcome and I hope you’re almost as excited as I am. (I’d love it if you were more excited, but I’ve had time to build it up!)

Now I get to do all the things that come next: Promotion, promotion, promotion!

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Writers on writing…

I should be writing.

That’s the name of the site and the podcast by Mur Lafferty. I listened to this podcast in the car yesterday, and I learned a bit about podcasting through the interview with Scott Sigler. The website has more information – a great resource for budding writers.

Scott Sidler was adamant with his last contract about wanting to give away his novel for free. But, wait, we’re authors for a living, don’t we need to make some money? He talks about the younger generation wanting things online, and he gets our feet wet with podcasting, for free, a chapter a week. His point is that although some will wait for the entire novel at that rate (3 or 4 months), others will go out and buy the book that is already available in the bookstores. He’s increased his audience that way.

Made me think about that novel I have coming out. With a Young Adult audience, it’s very likely that could spread the story to places I can’t travel to or otherwise might not reach.

It’s something I think I will look into and discuss with my publisher.

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Book Wrap-Up

Amazing. At some point you think you’re done, and you find the little things that are left. Almost done. I might even have my copy in a month or so. It doesn’t feel real.

I got the cover and I love it! It’s done well and very colorful. Sometime this week I’ll post it on site with a new page for the book. I know everyone’s been waiting patiently, but it’s finally here!

I must keep reminding myself this is really fast for a book. It’s only been a year coming.

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Demanding Attention

Not always, but often stories ideas originate from places writers can’t describe. We’re just walking along one day when it hits us, that something about that flowerbed looks fishy, and wondering why, and all of a sudden we’ve locked ourselves in our offices and you won’t see us again until we’re done.

Sometimes they sneak up slowly, weaving in and out of our thoughts. Others hit us over the head and don’t go away until we put them down on paper. (or type on screen, as we’re evolving to the computer age.)

Still, I often hear or see(in written form) people asking, “How do you get your ideas?”

Of famous authors, I think it’s because people want to know how to write the best-sellers. It isnt’ the idea, so much, as the delivery.

When people ask it of me, I figure it’s because I’m just a bit off-the-wall with my approach to things. I also guess they’re trying to understand my way of thinking.

It makes me laugh to think back to high school and remember when one of my classmates told me, “You just think wrong!” That might be one of my greatest strengths in my writing career. The wrongness isn’t the issue; it was a difference in the way I approached ideas. I enjoy writing to prompts to twist them to fit my purposes and come up with something completely off where others head with the same idea. I also like things to be unexpected – like in a short story I wrote where the Spider isn’t the monster but the protector.

Ideas are things of beauty, but even the best idea won’t be a best-seller if you can’t deliver it. I like to write the ideas down, put them in a slush pile, and look over them from time to time. Sometimes something sparks later, but often I don’t do much with them because of the new ones demanding my time and attention.

The best answer I can give is ideas come from living. The delivery takes work and often isn’t finished at the end of the first draft. Like everything worth doing, the passion the writer brings for the project is what tempers the idea into the product on bookstore shelves – and it is extremely rare that the author is the only pair of eyes to revise it.(Except, perhaps, for the self-publishing industry.)

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Hooked – Writing Guide

Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go

I got a new book. It’s about openings specifically, but it also encompasses the elements to make a whole novel rather than ‘pieces’ we often associate with writing exercises.

It is true we break everything into pieces. We talk about descriptions, or word choice, or dialogue as if we could separate those from the whole. While it is one way to get better, we find ourselves clipping those things and not seeing the entire project.

This book is a page-turner. It’s easy to read, clear to understand, and thought provoking. The woman who did the introduction mentioned another book by Les Edgerton about voice. I might have to find that one, too. I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m very pleased so far.

I organized my library a bit today, though I still have a long way to go. I could review a writing book every weekend for quite a while without buying any new ones.

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Summer’s Story

The debut novel by Nancy Famolari promises an interesting read. When Summer Langston loses her father, she has few options for her livelihood. She’s been training horses on a farm owned by Ned. She’s determined to keep her only inheritance, a potentially great trotter Meadow, for her own.

On her way, she partners with Davis, a famous race driver. They fall in love, complicating Davis’s original plan to get the horse away from Summer and into Max’s hands. Max is a wealthy owner who has reputation for fixing races and drugging horses and has been paying Davis for help to get Meadow.

Summer claims the right to drive Meadow on race day, dismissing the concerns Davis has about trouble. Meadow and Summer are both injured, though Summer has a much longer and harder recovery. Davis blames himself and leaves the scene for awhile.

She finds a place for herself and Meadow at a stable, but will she end up with Davis? Does continued trouble from Max cause her to lose Meadow? Will someone else sweep her off her feet?

summerstory

Purchase information for Summer’s Story.
ISBN: 978-1-60435-244-3

What inspired you to write this story? Summer’s Story takes place in the fast paced world of harness racing. For fourteen years, my husband and I had a small Standardbred breeding farm in New Jersey. We raised and raced these marvelous horses. Harness racing is very exciting. There are many heart warming stories about an owner or trainer believing in their horse and against the odds getting the horse to win a big race. This is what happens in Summer’s Story. There are also people who take advantage of both horses and people for personal gain, not caring the least about how the horse is affected. I believed these elements would make a good novel. I hope people agree.

Do you have a favorite character? Summer Langston is my favorite character. She’s a very determined lady who cares about her horse, Meadow, and overcomes severe personal and professional obstacles to get her horse to the winner’s circle. In the process, she learns something about herself and how to give and receive love. I like the fact that she’s gutsy and doesn’t give up easily.

What are your future writing plans? I have a second book under contract to Red Rose Publishing. This novel is a murder mystery, Murder in Montbleu. The setting is a small town in Pennsylvania similar to the one I live in. I’ve become very friendly with the characters in this novel and have two other novels that use the same setting, Lake House and Buttermilk Falls Murder. I’m still in the process of editing them, but hope to find a home for them.

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Book to be Illustrated

The Art of Science will be published with illustrations. Looked like we’re done with revisions and the book will be formatted soon. Eight illustrations will be dispersed throughout the book.

I’m excited to see what the illustrations will look like. It takes time to find an illustrator. They will be pen and ink. There are often many options, but this isn’t my area of expertise. It differs from other types of books, in that there are illustrations (different from an adult novel) but that they aren’t showing a story to a child who can’t read yet (picture book). It’s interesting to straddle the line between those two, and it opens my eyes to how much I don’t know about children’s books and their illustrations.

More research, and probably more posts ahead.

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Consumer Product Safety

Consumer Product Safety Act of 2008

Oh, the joys of reading government lingo early in the morning. I found a link to the act after my publisher spread the word about some of the changes called for by this legislation.

Concerns are about testing and how the publishers are held accountable for books that may or may not have lead in them, when the printers are the ones who have control over that aspect.

This reminds me of working in the automotive industry! I worked with quality for over five years, and I learned quite a bit from the stringent regulations.

1. The highest order corporation leans on everyone who supplies them. (In automotive, that meant Ford, GM, Toyota, etc.)

2. Tier 1 suppliers lean on their suppliers. (Names get less recognizable, but Visteon and Delphi are among them.)

3. Down the line, the people who actually make the individual pieces implement all kinds of quality measures to show they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

This is how QS-9000 and TS-16949 became the quality intiatives (at different times) in the industry. We needed a way to show we’d followed everything we needed to, and though it isn’t always the most efficient way, it did make everyone follow a procedure.

Our publishers need to lean on the printers to certify that they’ve tested for lead in the paper, ink, and other materials. They’d need to do this for all books that might come in contact with children, and their batches could be by paper batch or ink batch rather than by book title. Book title, especially in the smaller presses, seems cost prohibitive. If it is distributed over paper (or other material) batches, which you’d think would contain entirely the same amount of lead throughout, would make it possible to follow.

What happens if someone screws up? That’s where you keep the proof. Printer certifies it, and the publisher keeps the documentation. Printer keeps the documentation they have, as well as copies of their batch tests. They’d also need to keep records which batches did which titles.

Definitely something to watch.

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