The British Are Coming, Y'all!

Writing for Success Panel

The theme of the 23 June meeting for the Business and Professional Women of Raleigh was "Writing for Success." The meeting featured a panel of women published in diverse fields. (L to R in picture) Lea Strickland, Laura Poole, Slee Arnold, and I discussed the means by which professional women improve their writing skills, writing pitfalls and common mistakes that detract from professionalism, and online promotional media such as blogging.

I was the only novelist on the panel. Strickland writes business and marketing material, Poole is an editor and writing coach, and Arnold is a magazine publisher. It was tempting to focus on our differences. But it was the similarities in our responses and approaches that really stood out.

For example, Strickland spoke about how prolific she is as a writer, and how she doesn't wait for someone else to declare her an expert on an interesting topic before she starts writing about it. She researches the topic extensively, then dives into the writing, showing that she has the knowledge. That echoes my experience with history and the Southern theater of the war. I don't have a degree in history, but I have a passion for it, and I've researched it for years.

Succeeding in writing, like succeeding in any other discipline, involves seizing the initiative, not waiting for permission. You must continually explore the borders of your field and look for new ways to imagine, rather than enjoying your comfort zone.

Many thanks to Mary Ellen Randall for keeping me in mind for this panel.

Next up: another fun Fourth of July at Colonial Williamsburg, and the start of a busy July!

 

Camp Follower is a Daphne Finalist

I'm headed out the door to make a presentation on the Hero's Journey for the Lowcountry RWA in South Carolina. But here's my thrilling news. My third book, Camp Follower, has been selected as a finalist in the Romance Writers of America Kiss of Death chapter's Daphne du Maurier Historical Mystery/Suspense contest. The awards are presented 16 July in D.C. Since I'm scheduled to present at the Harriette Austin Writers Conference 17-18 July in Athens, GA, I'm exploring how I might possibly try to attend the awards ceremony, too.

Rick Riordan in Raleigh

My sons and I enjoy reading the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series by author Rick Riordan, so weeks ago, we marked his visit to Quail Ridge Books on our calendars for 16 May. I figured we'd better arrive a little early, since I knew Riordan had a following of demigods eager to help him celebrate the release of The Last Olympian, fifth book of his YA series. We arrived half an hour early and found the parking lot packed, dozens of ecstatic kids dancing for the bookstore. Looked to me as though Riordan's following rivaled that of Stephenie Meyer for sheer numbers. After making one futile pass through the lot in search of a place to park, I drove down the street and parked in the lot of a legal firm. First time I'd ever seen the Quail Ridge Books lot full.

More surprises awaited us inside the bookstore. Over five hundred warm bodies shuffled in chaotic lines, overwhelming the air-conditioning system and the cashiers, all to obtain tickets. Yes, tickets. Turns out I could have purchased a book and obtained a ticket for the booksigning line in advance. How far in advance? January.

At 7 p.m., Riordan took the mike and talked about how years ago, a bedtime story to his son got him started writing the series. Once upon a time, there was a dyslexic, ADHD twelve-year-old named Percy Jackson — oh, wait, he wasn't a normal boy. He was the son of the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon, and as it turns out, the Greek gods and goddesses had a number of liaisons with mortals and produced a bunch of half-bloods like Percy, so every summer they meet at Camp Half-Blood on Long Island (that's right, New York) to train as warriors. A movie based on the first book, The Lightning Thief, is in production. A few days farther north, Riordan had met the actor who plays Percy. Riordan was also jazzed about the next series he was writing, this one about Egyptian gods and goddesses. Those gods have the heads of animals, so maybe half-blood summer camp for that series will be located in a barnyard.

Riordan conducted Q&A for about ten minutes. I was impressed that he tied up the loose ends of his series so well in the final book, unlike many authors, and I asked how much of his five books he plotted in advance. Turns out that he plots like I do. He knows the beginning, the end, and several points in between. Then he starts writing, and his characters take over. Spontaneity adds sheer magic. That means he probably does a bunch of revisions, like I do.

We were at the end of the booksigning line, so that gave us the opportunity to step outside, where it was much cooler. About two hours later, we finally got our books signed by Riordan. Poor fellow, he looked like he'd forgotten his own name by then and needed another double espresso. His autograph was mostly "R (blob) R (blob)." I cannot imagine what my hand would feel like after signing approximately four hundred books. And after all the fans went home, Riordan would still be sitting there signing stock for the bookstore. I wonder whether he misses the one-on-one he received from his fans before he rocketed to the New York Times bestseller list.

Recap of April: Busy!

The first two weeks of April, I took Laurie Schnebly Campbell's online course on writing query letters. This was my third online course this year -- part of my personal commitment to expand my knowledge about the business and craft of writing, improve my own skills, and not grow complacent, just because I'm published and have an award. During this course, we tackled exercises designed to develop the different parts of a query. The most insightful piece for me was the exercise of packaging what my novel is about in twenty-five words or less. To successfully accomplish that goal, a writer must be clear on the dramatic conflicts that power her book. The more conflict you can squeeze into twenty-five words, the better.

Friday 10 April, I was the guest speaker for the Stamp Defiance chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Wilmington, NC. I talked about my adventures as a reenactor and why I write about the Southern theater of the war. The ladies of this chapter have been doing their local research, and a number of them were keenly interested in the Wilmington setting for A Deadly Occupation. They were also interested, even enthusiastic, that I planned to explore the British occupation of Wilmington in 1781 from the eyes of a redcoat. Looking at matters from the other point of view makes for great discussion. Thanks to Martha Poole and the chapter for such a fun day.

I gave my presentation "Plotting with the Hero's Journey" for my editor's screenwriting class on 22 April. The students had lots of intelligent questions. I don't think I've ever had so many questions after a presentation. My hat's off to the discipline of screenwriters. If they want a script to be accepted, they must adhere to a strict upper limit on the page count. On the other hand, novelists can write 1000-page tomes, and if they're bestsellers, their editors and publishers might not balk at the page count. Thanks to Mike Everette and the students who attended.

The rest of April was jam-packed with editing the fourth draft -- and what I hope is the final major rewrite -- of A Deadly Occupation. The manuscript is out now to reviewers, and I'm regrouping for a few days before I dust off my half-finished first draft of Regulated for Murder. End of this month, I return to Summerville, SC, and the Lowcountry Romance Writers of America, this time to present on the Hero's Journey.

The Carolina Writers Conference

The Anson County Writers' Club, South Piedmont Community College, and the Carolina Romance Writers teamed up to present the Carolina Writers' Conference on Saturday 4 April at the Lockhart-Taylor Center in Wadesboro, NC. For their first conference, they did a good job of pulling in authors and attendees.

I stayed in town Friday night at the home of Catherine Crandell. She heads the town Arts Council and is also on the conference's oversight committee. When I present at a conference out of town, I enjoy staying with folks on conference committees because I get to know individuals, share a meal with them. Catherine took me on the grand tour of Wadesboro. The industry in this town was textiles, so it's received the economic one-two punch recently. But Catherine is spearheading an exciting project: renovation of an old town theater that dates from the Vaudeville era. Check out the marquee of this place. Personality and romance, yes? The grand opening, set for 2010, will give Wadesboro residents their own performing arts stage.

First thing Saturday morning, bestselling Southern author Robert Inman kicked off the conference with his keynote theme, "Who are your people?" This question resides at the heart of all the poking and prodding small-town Southerners do when they assess someone who is new in town. Inman, a native of Alabama, assured the audience that it's the Southerners' attempts at establishing a connection between themselves and others.

That explains why I get approached at so many events by folks with the last name of Adair. They're hoping I'm their people. (It really is too bad that I'm an Adair in pen name only. Otherwise, I'd have made the acquaintance of kissin' cousins all over the South.) Inman develops his stories by asking his characters, "Who are your people?" That echoes something Mary Buckham told me several years ago: "Keep talking to your characters." To develop your characters beyond two-dimension, you must engage in ongoing conversations with them. Ask them questions like, "Why did you do this?" and "How would you react to this?"

Inman, pictured here with graphic artist Lillie Templeton during lunch, mentioned that his mother read to him when he was very young. I did this with my sons, and the impact it makes on children later is incredible. Both of my sons love to read. They'll read a variety of material, not just graphic novels. Neither is afraid of writing. They do well at writing in school, and they often entertain themselves at home by writing stories. Now that they're older, I don't read as much to them; however, the three of us often read the same book separately. Then we get together and talk about the book: its characters, plot, merits, flaws. In effect, my sons have become discerning book editors. That ability extends to what they see in movies and TV shows. They have also become the tough first readers for my manuscripts. Trust me, teenaged boys don't have the attention spans to tolerate slack in a plot or characters acting out of character. In essence, when I started reading to my sons over a decade ago, I made investments in their future as well as mine.

Okay, back to the Carolina Writers Conference. Romance author Judi McCoy, military fiction author Robert Macomber, and poet Glenis Redmond led solo sessions, and throughout the day, there were simultaneous sessions on the craft and business of writing. I attended Leigh Greenwood's session on romance because I have an idea for a paranormal erotica novel (or maybe it’s a series), and I'm at the stage of information collection: getting an idea of where the industry is headed with this fairly new sub-genre and who's doing what with it.

My session on plotting with the Hero's Journey was scheduled for the afternoon, and it was well-attended. At the conference, I ran into fellow mystery authors Joyce and Jim Lavene of the Carolina Conspiracy. I also ran into a woman (Carole St-Laurent, I think!) who attended my pitch session at Moonlight & Magnolias 2008. Small world, eh? In addition, I met a bunch of romance writers that I might otherwise not have met, such as Virginia Farmer, president of the RWA chapter in Charlotte.

This picture is of Leigh Greenwood, author Gail Martin, and publisher Nancy Knight, with whom I chatted in the authors' lounge and during lunch. Connecting with other authors, especially those from other genres and other regions, was how I spent a good deal of my time at this conference. I guess you might say it's one way of finding out "Who are my people?"

Thanks to the conference committee for the opportunity to present yesterday!

Empowering Characters' Emotions

During March, I took an online course taught by Margie Lawson. "Empowering Characters' Emotions" is designed to help a writer add psychological power to her writing, improve the pacing, and hook the reader viscerally. Here are the highlights:

• Basics of writing the full range of body language: the physiology of emotion, kinesics, facial expressions, proprioceptive stimuli (visceral), paralanguage (dialogue cues), haptics (touch), proxemics (spatial relations), nonverbal gender differences, communication accommodation, cross-cultural nonverbals, levels of intimacy, love signals, and how to convey primary emotions.
• Levels of Powering Up Emotion: writing basic, complex, empowered, and super-empowered levels of fresh emotion, escalating intensity, providing emotional authenticity, and creating complex emotional states.
• Foundations of the EDITS System: recognizing and analyzing dialogue and different parts of the narrative in your manuscript for patterns and voids, and improving your work.
• Introduction to psychologically-anchored editing: backloading, emotional hits, cliché twists, backstory management, cadence, white space, projecting emotion for a non-POV character.

That's a load of stuff for one month. Margie teaches chunks of it in workshops during conferences. I received a sampling of her EDITS system when I took her abbreviated workshop at the Moonlight & Magnolias conference last year. What I learned and was able to apply to my own writing, just from that three-hour workshop, so impressed me that I decided to take this month-long online course.

I planned to participate fully in each class exercise last month by applying lessons to the completed first draft of book five, Regulated For Murder. Great idea, right? However, when the first day of class rolled around, I didn't have a completed first draft for Regulated for Murder.

Grasshopper has learned another lesson this year. Taking classes online while writing a first draft conflicts with writing! Duh!

So I continued writing the first draft, lurked in class, absorbed the lessons, and applied concepts straight into my writing.

Caution #1: I don't recommend that you take this course unless you can apply it to a completed manuscript. If you're a writer who never finishes first drafts because you keep obsessing over what you've written in the early chapters, this course will encourage your obsessions, feed your insecurities. So buck up, complete your manuscript, then sign up for Margie's course.

Caution #2: I don't recommend that you take this course until you're prepared to dig in and apply the ideas to your work. I wasn't the only published author taking the course. No matter what stage your writing is in, "Empowering Characters' Emotions" contains concepts to help you polish your communication.

The greatest insight I learned from Margie is that there's a huge difference between body language that carries an emotion, and visceral/involuntary reactions to that emotion. One isn't a substitute for the other. I also realized that I need to "people-watch" more and note for myself the types of quirky, subconscious actions that they perform. And I learned how to focus on my most basic, sometimes boring, sentences and, when appropriate, hike up the intensity on them. All this has somehow freed my imagination, such that in my first draft, I incorporate more lovely rhetorical devices like alliterations and anaphoras that normally wouldn't show up until a third draft.

Three cheers for Margie Lawson!

National Women's History Month 2009

March is National Women's History Month. Since 2007, I have participated in the organization's mission to "…recognize and celebrate the diverse and historic accomplishments of women by providing information and educational materials and programs."

 From left to right in the picture, authors Suzanne Adair, Phyllis Harrison, and Sharon Ewell Foster at East Regional Library in Knightdale on 8 March. Our panel had a small audience that afternoon because we'd just been inflicted with the spring time change, and everyone was running an hour behind schedule. But our discussion was phenomenal. In one thread, we talked about the suppression of religion experienced by various groups throughout history. For example, export a captured Yoruban into slavery on Saint Domingue (Haiti), and force her to listen to a Catholic priest, and the result is not the obliteration of her native beliefs. Instead, those beliefs will be transformed into the powerful religion of vodou. History provides us with other examples of suppression being an ineffective tool for obliterating religion, government, sexuality, etc. Reminds me of what Master Kan said to Grasshopper in the 1970s TV show "Kung Fu:" "To suppress a truth is to give it force beyond endurance." A timely message for National Women's History Month.

I presented on the topic of women as camp followers in the Revolutionary War at the North Carolina Museum of History 11 March, the museum's "History à la Carte" program. This continues to be a topic of confusion, as most folks equate "camp follower" with "prostitute." Technically, the term "camp follower" wasn't yet used during the Revolution to describe those civilian artisans, sutlers, and retainers, male and female, who traveled with an army. But even by the time of the Civil War, when the term had entered the English language, prostitutes comprised only a tiny segment of an army's non-combatants. So the first matter I clarify for audiences is that not all women who followed an army were prostitutes. What amazes me is that these women endured great deprivation and occasionally found themselves in the middle of battles, just to stay near their loved ones. It speaks to the innate courage of women and their ability throughout time to do what needs to be done. Another timely message for the month.

Redcoats in Hillsborough, and a Recap of Kris Neri's Class

Here's a fun little slice of history. In early 1781, General Nathanael Greene and his army retreated across the Dan River into Virginia ahead of the pursuing Crown forces in North Carolina commanded by Charles, Lord Cornwallis. The famous "Race to the Dan" was arduous for both British and Continentals, with both sides making great concessions to achieve their goals. For example, in effort to lighten his load and move more quickly so he could overtake his opponent, Cornwallis ordered his baggage burned. (Ack! The baggage contained supplies that made army life bearable, like booze!) All to no avail. The swollen Dan River came between the exhausted Brits and their quarry.

The Earl Cornwallis, knowing that the soldiers and civilians of his army needed R&R, found a little town to occupy: Hillsborough, North Carolina. But his army only stayed in Hillsborough from February 20 – 26, 1781. The British weren't greeted with great enthusiasm. Many residents of the area were peace-loving Quakers or Moravians. And every time the redcoats left town limits to forage for food, patriot snipers with excellent aim picked them off.

Fast-forward more than two hundred years ahead. Visit Hillsborough, where Cornwallis is now a celeb, and count how many places in and around town are named after him. Every year, usually the third Saturday of February, the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough celebrates the British occupation with an all-day encampment on the grounds of the Orange County Visitors Center, a.k.a. the Alexander Dickson House. Reenactors portray soldiers of the 33rd Light Company, militiamen, and civilian camp followers. It's a colorful, inexpensive, fun-for-the- family event where you can watch a military drill or a demonstration of a colonial skill such as spinning, listen to storytellers, taste the kind of food soldiers would have eaten, and tour the colonial city. This year, 21 February, the event drew a big crowd of spectators. I know, because I sold my books on the porch of the Visitors Center all day. A big thank-you to Elizabeth Read, Virginia Smith, and the folks at Historic Hillsborough for organizing such a fun day. And hey, don't those redcoats look sharp?

Kris Neri's class on mystery and thriller structure ended in February, and it was excellent. For me, the most useful piece of the course was the exercise of writing out the villain's story. A number of students in the class balked at this exercise. Think about it: you write the mystery/thriller from the point of view of the detective/protagonist. Villains often possess undesirable personality characteristics, so many writers don't want to spend time inside the villain's head.

While I don't shirk the task of crawling inside the heads of my villains, what I'd never done before this class was write out the whole villain's story. This exercise does show you how much goes on in the background. But telling the villain's story made me focus the villain's energy in advance of writing most of the novel. I felt the full weight of the villain's negative energy up-front, and it made me realize how hard my protagonist, Lt. Michael Stoddard, would have to struggle to overcome that. I will definitely apply this technique in future novels.

And I suspect that one reason why justice doesn't get served often enough in real life is because the villain is good at keeping the full impact of his/her negative energy unfocused, or maybe the good guys aren't able to show the villain's negativity consolidated. Many thanks to Kris Neri for her excellent teaching.

 

Mystery and Thriller Structure with Kris Neri, Week 2

This week's assignment for Kris Neri's class is writing the dust jacket blurb. In her lecture, Kris gives a number of examples and points out that all good blurbs contain the following elements:

• Introduction
• Triggering action
• Complication
• Hook

Here's the dust jacket blurb that I wrote for Regulated for Murder:

June 1771. Townsfolk of Hillsborough, North Carolina were shaken by the executions of six men: ordinary citizens hanged by order of Royal Governor Tryon for their participation in the Regulator Rebellion. When the tumult settled, and the bodies were buried in a location known only to officials, a young man and his sweetheart had vanished from town. Those who knew the couple presumed that they'd eloped.

Bearing a dispatch from his commander in coastal Wilmington, British Lieutenant Michael Stoddard arrives in heavily-Patriot Hillsborough in early February 1781, his red coat swapped for civilian garb to conceal his identity. He expects to hand the letter to a courier from Lord Cornwallis, then head back to Wilmington the next day. Instead, he's greeted by the courier's freshly murdered corpse, a chilling trail of clues that leads him back to the Regulators' execution ten years earlier, and his nemesis, the brutal, cunning Lieutenant Dunstan Fairfax, who suspects him of treason against King George the Third.

Since I haven't yet started writing the first draft, I cannot say for sure that the above reflects exactly what's going to happen. Somewhere in the first quarter of the draft, my characters will take over; I'll get out of the way so they can tell the story, and that always leads to unforeseen but delightful plot twists. But fortunately, the blurb at this point isn't set in stone. Its purpose is to give me a point on the horizon to head for.

By the way, here's the root story from last week's assignment. I forgot to post it in the flurry of snowflakes:

Will a villain who concealed evidence of his act of murder among men executed by Royal Governor Tryon after the Regulator Rebellion ten years earlier get away with his crime in the past as well as the murder of a present-day message courier for General Cornwallis and Major Craig? Or will Michael Stoddard, Major Craig's investigator in Wilmington, North Carolina, recognize the connection between the murders in 1771 and 1781, uncover the secret the villain is hiding, and bring him to justice?

Mystery and Thriller Structure with Kris Neri, Week 1

Q1 2009, I'm writing the first draft of Regulated for Murder, book five of my series. I'm also taking two online courses and participating in the Chocolate Challenge.

Kris Neri's online course runs through the end of February. "Mystery and Thriller Structure" provides a methodology for a writer to focus the elements of novel development and advance her manuscript from an idea to a fully-planned novel that's ready to write. Sounds good to me, as long as I don't have to plot the whole novel in advance. I've never been able to do that. As soon as I know where to start and end a novel, and I have an idea of a few plot points that I must hit in between, I begin writing the novel. I get out of the way and let my characters fill in the rest.

This week's assignment for Kris's class is writing the "root story." As they say in screenwriting, "two dogs, one bone." In other words, describe what the antagonist and the protagonist want that puts them at odds with each other. While this may seem simple, after a writer has been thinking about an unwritten story for awhile, all the sub-plots start filling in, and the root story can get obscured. So stating the root story up-front provides a destination and contributes clarity to the process.

 I had some trouble concentrating on the assignment yesterday, when we got nearly six inches of snow in Raleigh. The magnificent sledding hill four blocks away called loud and clear, and every kid in the neighborhood hit the double-slope. My beagle Annabelle insisted on coming along and rode down the slope on the sled. (In the arms of a human, of course.)