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BookBub’s mystery word cloud

Most of us on this blog haven’t thought too much as yet about what we’ll name our books when they’re finished. In class, we talked about the burden a title must bear—a good one should suggest genre, theme, tone, maybe even setting and character. Getting it right is difficult.

The words used in book titles have trends, according to BookBub, an ebook promotion  services company. Using data from the last six months, BookBub analyzed 3,850 books to see which words turn up most frequently in titles. BookBub looked at multiple fiction categories, including mysteries, thrillers, women’s fiction, historical fiction, action and adventure, horror, contemporary romance, historical romance, children’s and middle grade, and religious and inspirational, and built word clouds to show the results. Which word was used the most often across all categories?

I’m guilty of ending sentences with prepositions. I sometimes use “hopefully” wrong. Maybe I say, “I feel bad” instead of “I feel badly.” Even worse, just recently, I said “absolutely” in an interview (an overused answer, though absolutely viable–just a pet peeve). But here, I will give just a few pet peeves I’ve encountered in the last week–things that made me go grrrrr:

I’dof instead of I’d have. Example: I’d of thought he’d buy me that ice cream. How lazy is that? I know the brain doesn’t always coordinate with the fingers. They type what they sense from those crafty synapses, but this one frightens me. It sounds right!

Nonplussed means confused, not indifferent. Grrrr. She was so nonplussed when Justin Bieber knocked on her door (I’d be indifferent–and confused).

Aspiration vs. inspiration. Zac Effron–though I loved him–mixed up these two at the Oscars. As he said the…

By Shannon Donnelly

Great dialogue can make or break a novel.

This view may stem from growing up watching a lot of 1930’s screwball comedies. Zingers fly with rapid fire and everyone talks. A lot. But the importance of dialogue really sank in when I wrote A Proper Mistress. I went for a lot of dialogue in that book and it went on to be one of my best selling romances.

We all know great dialogue when we read it—and the best dialogue seems effortless. But good dialogue takes work, sometimes needing multiple edits and thinking it over and totally revising a scene. It also takes a few key ingredients.

1) Give Your Characters Unique Voices.

Can you tell who is talking without any tags to make this obvious?

You have to get your characters talking in order to find their voices. And each character needs a distinct voice.

That…

This post is a tad late as I’ve had an oversubscribed weekend, first hosting a workshop at the London Author Fair and then teaching at the Guardian selfpublishing masterclass. In all that whirl I’ve met a lot of writers and would-be selfpublishers and thought I’d share some of the advice I gave most frequently.

1 Whether you intend to go indie or not, learn about selfpublishing

– then you’ll know how to weigh up the value of a publishing deal. As well as the money (which usually won’t cover the time you spent writing), a publisher offers editorial guidance, copy editing and proof reading, cover design as appropriate for the audience, print book preparation, publicity using their contacts and reputation, print distribution.

As I’ve said in this blog post, all of that is services that indie authors do for themselves. Some (not all) are easy to source and manage…

©iStock.com/Franck-Boston

Sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste. I counted five, right? Five senses which govern our experience of the world, and lead us—luxuriously, deliciously, gloriously—through life.

We often talk of a sixth sense, the guide that alerts us to danger or deception, leads us to opportunity or outcome. This intuition of ours is also a governor, every bit as vital as our biological sensors.

Each of these six senses is essential to the writing process. But I suggest that a seventh sense is required for any sort of sustained activity which would yield a viable, worthy result—whether a sonata, a sonnet, or a work of sculpture. I’m talking about the sense of discipline. And because I’m not a composer or a musician but an artist of a different sort—a writer—this essay is about the seven senses of writing.

One could argue that honesty is a sense, but it’s not. It’s…

By Laura Drake

I don’t know about you, but I can’t write a book without secondary characters. Yes, I’ve read books without them (or ones where they had tiny roles), but I can’t write that way.

I’ve never gotten over my crush – how about you?

I mean, where would The Lion King be without the hyenas? Where would Westley be without Fezzik? (or Billy Crystal as Miracle Max – Love him), or, for that matter,  Hamlet without Yorik?

You get the idea.

Yes, secondary characters can be enjoyed for their comedy, their loyalty, or their stupidity…but other than entertainment and to fill word count, why include them?

As Outlets

A secondary character can allow your protagonist totalk. You know that dialog is waaay more compelling than thoughts, right? It also allows you to slip in backstory in an interesting way, because it’s natural to talk about your history…

Last week ArghInk featured a post detailing the importance of loving the antagonist in our story. It’s not a new concept to me (we talked about it at McD) but I disregarded all that because my antagonist, Hawk, is not the hero. He’s Cheyenne’s half uncle and up until now he’s been the quintessential “bad guy”. In other words, one-dimensional, predictable, and boring. Which is why until now my focus (and sympathy) has been on Cheyenne.

Image courtesy of Cellar Door Films WANA Commons

In my last post we discussed striving to find balance and giving ourselves permission to be imperfect. This brought about some interesting discussion and I’d like to expound. I confess. Americans are notorious for “shortening” the language.

We use a lot of words as synonyms when, truth be told, they aren’t. Or we have “blanket words” which mask truth, thus prevent us from making progress in life, with relationships, our career or even ourselves.

As writers, we of all people should appreciate the power of words. We have the ability to create entire new worlds that could possibly endure hundreds or thousands of years…all by using various combinations of symbols. Words have creative and destructive power. This is true in non-fiction, fiction and in life.

When I began college, I was on scholarship to become a doctor, thus spent over three years…

How cool is that for a title? It rhymes and the ! just seals the deal, doesn’t it? I’ll discuss titles some other time–though, if you think about it, they are beginnings of a sort. Once I turn the page, I become a little pickier. Bookaholics have to be picky. As I weed out books from my shelf, I do a scan of the first few pages, then decide if I want to continue. It’s a great equalizer since I will recycle books by established and debuts authors. If the opening doesn’t grab me, the rest won’t either. “But the story really gets going after the first few chapters.” This I’ve heard before to convince me against a revision letter, but that’s too late for me–unless it’s a weighty tome, like Don Quixote . Here, I have different expectations. For a winning beginning in romance I want to:

See something.

Do you need help to get your novel started or finished? Four of us experienced scribblers talk about how we stay creative through the tough times and reveal our secrets for drafting, fixing and finishing, not to mention keeping our confidence. Solutions include running, composing music, meditation and lying on the floor scribbling on sheets of A4 using the hand you don’t normally write with.

My co-conspirators are Orna Ross (who is the author of Go Creative, several literary novels and leader of the Alliance of Independent Authors), Kevin Booth (who’s a translator as well as an author and trained as an actor before he took up writing), and Jessica Bell (who runs the Vine Leaves Literary Journal as well as having a parallel career as a singer-songwriter, which you might well know already from her appearances on The Undercover Soundtrack).

We’re forming the creative posse at IndieReCon…

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Is this the smoking hot sex scene you submitted to a contest and won?

Ha, what a way to start! I was going to thank you for hosting me today, but…

Just kidding. 😉 Yes, the first big love scene between Mick and Jenna is the one I submitted to the Between the Sheets contest back in 2011. I received perfect scores from two of three editors/agents, but the competition must have been fierce because I took 2^nd place.

2nd Place?! I find that hard to believe.  😦

Oh, hello K&T readers. Sorry to start the interview without formally introducing you to today’s author. You see, she’s one of our own and we are SO PROUD OF HER! Scroll down a couple of inches and Gwen Hernandez’s picture is on the left…there she is! Today is her debut of BLIND FURY. I had the honor (i.e., beat…

Original image via Lucy Downey from Flickr Creative Commons

The world around us is always pushing this notion of “perfection” and, I don’t know about you, but sometimes I wonder what “reality” looks like. All the models are tall and thin and young with poofy lips (and men have their own variety of the super model stereotype). They have fabulous clothes and new cars and go on expensive vacations.

Even our homes! When I look around my house that’s littered with toys, my sink full of dishes and two baskets full of laundry (even though I just DID laundry) I wonder what a real home is supposed to look like? Where do I fit? Sure NOT on Pinterest.

Granted, there are areas I KNOW I am slacking (*cough* Christmas tree is STILL standing) and let’s not talk about the state of my drawers and closets. But, I generally (when the…