Where are the bookstores?

Just this week another bookshop has closed its doors in my neighbourhood.  This wasn't one of the big chains like Borders, who closed their collective doors in 2011.  It was just another local small ma & pa owned shop who couldn't compete with the online giants.  Though I myself do a lot of online buying -- after all it's often the best deal by a long shot, and if you buy as many books as I do, that's a pretty important factor-- I can't deny that I miss the hours I spent in the local shop, fingering the titles, purchasing books on impulse, and having conversations with strangers over what either of us was carrying in our trolley.  There was always such a nice feeling in those places, especially the local one where I knew the booksellers by name and where they knew my tastes enough to not only recommend books to me but to order and hold them when an author they knew I loved had come out with a new novel.  I also loved the way bricks and morter bookstores bridged the gap between reader and writer -- offering signings, readings, chats and other fun events. That kind of intimacy is slowly disappearing and online events, while still pretty wonderful, aren't quite the same. 

So we all know where the online bookshops are, but are there any bricks and morter stores worth visiting?  Well yes there really still are some.  If you live in the USA, there are Barnes & Nobles everywhere and they're even longer running and bigger than Borders were.  In NYC alone, there are some 58 stores.  In the US as a whole, there are 691 shops. That's a lot of bookstores, and the nice thing about B&N are that they're also online, which means that prices are as cheap as anywhere.  Of course B&N are hardly "intimate" and personal. Nor are they 'independent' so you won't get that warm fuzzy feeling from supporting them, and it's unlikely they'll be flexible in terms of supporting local authors or catering to your unusual literary tastes. If you're looking for somewhere more independent, you could try The Strand bookstore in NYC. 

I have to admit that this was my favourite haunt as a youngster and it still rates higher than the Statue of Liberty for me when visiting NY as a tourist.  But we don't all live in NYC!  For the top indie bookstores in the US, check out  http://www.bookmarket.com/top700.htm 

If you live in the UK, you could try one of the following bookstores, some of which are so beautiful, they deserve to be coffee table books themselves (and forget Black Books - the customer service is brilliant): http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/gallery/2010/jun/14/your-favourite-bookshops-booksellers

If you live in my locale, you could try MacLeans: http://www.macleans.indies.com.au in Toronto or Hamilton NSW.  They don't serve great coffee like some of the London shops, but they're well stocked and are always willing to order in books (including mine if you ask!).  

The one thing that many of these indies have in common is that they don't do a tremendous amount of advertising.  You'll need to look a bit to find them, maybe asking around or checking the local directory, but  if, like me, you're the sort of tactile person who loves browsing, holding, and playing with books, it's worth supporting these shops, be-friending the owner or proprietors, and participating in their literary events.  

About the author: Magdalena Ball runs The Compulsive Reader. She is the author of the poetry books Repulsion Thrust and Quark Soup, the novels Black Cow and Sleep Before Evening, a nonfiction book The Art of Assessment, and, in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Deeper Into the Pond, Blooming Red, Cherished Pulse, She Wore Emerald Then, and Imagining the Future. She also runs a radio show, The Compulsive Reader Talks. Find out more about Magdalena at http://www.magdalenaball.com

Make Your Mondays Marvelous!

Who likes Mondays? Nobody. Poor Monday, always getting blamed for grumpy moods and work boredom. Poor Monday is the ultimate scapegoat for everything {blah} in our lives.

I am not saying I look forward to Mondays. Like everyone, I sometimes get the where-did-the-weekend-disappear-to? Sunday-evening blues. But the other day I realized something: if I spend every week dreading Monday and slugging through Monday just trying to get through the day, that means I'll be spending 1/7th of my life in a state of yucky, grumpy, get-me-out-of-here dread. And that's just not how I want to spend my time.

So I was thinking back to when I was in elementary school, and we had adjectives associated with all the days of the week, cute alliterative names like: Super Sunday, Stupendous Saturday, Fantastic Friday, Thrilling Thursday, Wonderful Wednesday, Terrific Tuesday, Marvelous Monday.

How does that sound? Marvelous Monday.

I kinda like it.

The thing is, back in elementary school, Mondays *were* marvelous. I don't remember dreading Mondays then. Weekends were great, of course, but school was fun, too. I think a large part of it was that even school had a sense of excitement and discovery about it. Every day, even Mondays, were filled with the possibility of surprises. Magic was around every corner. Back then, even the most everyday incidents would be cause for celebration: ice cream for someone's birthday, a trip to a new restaurant, a note from your best friend passed secretively during class, a new game on the playground, a gopher discovered behind the kickball backstop...

I think it's about time to bring some of that everyday magic back. Especially to poor Monday.

From now on, instead of moaning about Monday, I am going to try to make each Monday particularly marvelous. Maybe I'll try something new, do a random act of kindness or gratitude, act spontaneously, bring out my inner 12-year-old. Then, I'll go home and write about it, bringing that renewed energy and zest for life to all of my writing projects.

Will you join me? What is marvelous about your Monday?

Dallas Woodburn is the author of two award-winning collections of short stories and editor of Dancing With The Pen: a collection of today's best youth writing. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three years in a row and her nonfiction has appeared in a variety of national publications including Family Circle, Writer's Digest, The Writer, and The Los Angeles Times. She is the founder of Write On! For Literacy and Write On! Books Youth Publishing Company and is currently pursuing her Master's degree in Fiction Writing at Purdue University, where she teaches undergraduate writing courses and serves as Assistant Fiction Editor of Sycamore Review.

Do You Use Flashbacks?

What is flashback? It’s someone remembering, in the present, what happened in the past. If you tell of bygone events in narrative summary, it’s exposition (telling). If you dramatize them as a scene, it’s a flashback. The virtue of flashbacks is that, unlike exposition, they’re showing, not telling. They have action and drama.

However, many writing experts advise not to use flashbacks, or to limit them Of course this is one of those “rules” that has exceptions. In writing, never say never.

Here are the reasons for trying to avoid using flashbacks:
1.They’re not as strong or vivid as present-time scenes, simply because they’re done with. Readers tend to take the past less seriously than the present because it’s over. We’re only hearing about it rather than seeing it happen—even though it’s presented as a scene.

2. Any flashback, no matter how well written or interesting, can distance your reader from the action. This is because flashbacks shatter the illusion that the reader is a fly on the wall, witnessing events as they happen, right now. Are you more thrilled by a kiss you experience today or one you remember from a year ago?

3. Flashbacks disrupt the story’s timeline and can stop the momentum. And if there are a lot of them, they can leech the vividness out of the whole story and invalidate the story’s present.

So, whenever you feel the need to fill in backstory, ask yourself first:
• Is this needed to move the story along?
• If the answer is yes, then ask yourself, can this be written as a real-time scene?
• If no, try to determine if you gain more in depth and clarity than you lose in immediacy.

Every story has its history or backstory. But we can’t start every one at birth and include all of the traumatic childhood or life events that shaped the character and made him what he is today. You might choose to write up this background in one or more scenes—just for your own personal knowledge of your character—and not use much or any of it in your story.

When to use Flashbacks.
This is not to say that you can NEVER use flashbacks. They can be done effectively. Like with so many writing techniques, it’s a matter of moderation.

Again, according to the experts, don’t open with a flashback. (Of course there’s an exception to that rule, too.) But the danger of opening with a flashback is that in the early stages of a story, interest is a fragile thing. Your reader is in search of entertainment, and he’s not sure yet if he’s going to find what he wants in your particular story.

Sometimes flashback might be the only way to develop your plot. But make sure to spend the largest proportion of your time in the present.

So, if you’re going to use a flashback, make sure the running plot in your story is strong, clear and well-established before splitting off to do anything else, whether following a subplot or embarking on a flashback. Make sure the flashback is vivid and interesting in itself. Connect the flashback plot with the present plot.

Next month I'll talk about how to handle flashbacks when you do use them.

The Masters Golfing Event - A Bit of History

 April Riddle

What do April, green jackets, Amen Corner, azaleas and traditions have in common?   

Answer:  The Masters.  

The Masters is magic and the one sporting event that I almost never miss.  The Masters is as close as we get to a royal event.  There is pomp and circumstance, golfing elite, ceremonial clothes and the honoring of traditions.  In this day and age of texts, tweets, instant gratification and disposable everything, tradition gives us a sense of continuity and of safety.

Players, caddies, announcers and spectators change, but the rhythm of The Masters remains the same.  We can count on first class play, immaculately groomed greens, spectacular scenery and a true display of sportsmanship.   

Tradition connects us with our history and foretells expectations of the future.  One of my favorite commercials shows a man following players at The Masters.  When no one is looking he picks up a divot, takes it home, builds a special display area and plants his piece of history.  We all want to connect with those things that are meaningful to us. 

I know this is a leap but I think this desire to connect with important things from the past is why libraries, the smell of a printed book, newspapers and family pictures hold such a powerful place in our hearts.

So, this month spend some time reflecting on those traditions that bring continuity and safety to your world…..and tune in to The Masters.

Martha Swirzinski 

www.MovementPlus.com

4 Important Character Concerns

Here are some things to consider in creating your main character. Note I don’t say “hero” or “heroine,” because sometimes the terms don’t apply at first.

Is your character an Insider or Outsider: are they already fully immersed in the world or is the reader becoming aware along with the character? Sometimes the best way to introduce a reader to the world of the weird is to introduce the protagonist to it, so that he or she begins at the same level of knowledge, basically, as the reader.
    In Odessa, Book One of the Seraphym Wars Series, or Harpies, Book Two, Myrna and Griffen are from Earth but find themselves suddenly and inexplicitly waking on a foreign planet fill with demon-dragons who run the place. Not only that, but the world is Steampunk instead of the contemporary Earth they know. People dress strangely and vehicles hover or sail through the sky while the world itself is primal and filled with monsters. These ambiguities create a lot of tension for the characters, but for the reader as well. The reader is taking the same journey as the characters in learning about their new world.

Alternately, it can be intriguing simply to launch your reader into the fictional world right from the beginning. In my Middle Grade story Masquerade’s Moon Madness, Masquerade is an adorable black cat who used to be a little girl but now lives with a young witch named Wendy. The reader accompanies Masquerade on her adventures throughout time and space as she and Wendy travel and learn. But it’s up to the reader to simply accept certain facts; like a little orphan girl becoming a cat after sipping the witch’s stew.

Can you character take abuse? As any writer is aware, every good character has flaws. The only character I can think of who might not is Jesus or a computer (and even then something could be devised). After all, if your character is too wimpy to withstand the conflict your story must cast their way, they really aren’t much of a character are they? So why should a reader continue reading about them? What will hold the reader’s attention? The other reason a character must be flawed is to seem realistic. How else will a reader empathize with the character’s plight?

But as important as a flaw or two may be, it is more important that the character have the guts and wherewithal to deal with the issues at hand. Just remember to ease the character into being able to solve their problems. If they seem super-human from the get-go, how will they grow and evolve through the story? Again, why should a reader continue reading about the character if they’re strong and capable from the beginning? This brings up the next point…

Hidden strengths: In a novel, characters’ actions tends to larger than life, so characters must be pushed beyond what you or I consider normal endurance. The result is they’ll either break or find hidden strengths that allow them to survive and solve their problems. Breaking is obviously the less heroic choice. How the character solves the conflict determines their hidden strengths and brings them to the surface.

How does your character best speak? POV: Narration, whether it comes from the main character, a secondary character or outside viewer, has changed significantly over the past hundred years. If you read anything written in the early 1900’s you will easily discern the author’s opinion throughout the story, even fiction, because it was common for the omniscient narrator to share their own ideas. But today’s readers don’t have the time for all of the extraneous narration and want to make up their own minds about how they feel about the characters and story.

Hence, the omniscient narrator has become passe and the popular POV is first person for younger books, although third person is still widely used everywhere.


First person, or the “I” perspective, is quite popular right now, especially in young fiction. It can feel intimate, which is what teens seem to like about it; but it can also be limiting, since it’s best (though not exclusively) used in single point of view. Word of caution: don’t allow your character to speak directly to the reader (another ancient form of narration). A reader wants to disappear into a book and live vicariously alongside the characters. Also, one person can’t ever truly know what’s going on in someone else’s head, so a writer must give the reader cues through dialogue, expression and body language.

Third person is the most commonly used POV. This is the “he” or “she” perspective. The reader remains in a particular character’s head until a new character takes over after a section break or new chapter. There are caveats here too. If you choose to write from more than one perspective, it’s important for each voice to sound truly distinctive so that the reader doesn’t forget who’s speaking/thinking. It is strongly advisable for the writer to limit the number of POVs so a reader doesn’t get confused and lose track of the main character’s conflict/resolution.

Generally, for younger readers one POV is used, sometimes a second POV can be inserted sparingly and obviously made different; Young Adult might have as many as three. Authors today are trying various techniques in search of the almighty best-seller. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they flop. I read a book, or started reading it, which changed perspective with each chapter. With four or five character POVs constantly changing like that I quickly got lost and lost interest in the book. So mind how many POVs you use and keep them obviously different enough readers don’t get lost.

COMING SOON

Harpies, Book Two Seraphym Wars Series for YA Readers

Transported to a planet he'd never heard of was the least of fifteen-year-old Griffen's problems. Learning to control his suddenly increasing strength and new ability to pull lightning from the sky takes some getting used to.  Angry preteen Seth joins the quest; meanwhile discovering his combusting ability as a fire-starter. Driven to find the last Vigorio, a young girl able to experience others' emotions, they journey together toward their destinies as warriors against Narciss, Ruler of Tartarus and his Legio of demon-dragons. Narciss’s Harpy henchmen have other ideas, however.

Rebecca Ryals Russell is author of Seraphym Wars Series for YA readers and Stardust Warriors Series for MG readers. She also has several MG chapter books in the works as well as a YA Dystopian. See more about her and her WIPs at Under the Hat of MG/YA Dark Fantasy Author Rebecca Ryals Russell or Tween Word Quest.

Never Throw Away a Word!

When I was very young, my grandfather brought home a huge dictionary. It was about two feet thick—the kind they put on pedestals in libraries in the old days. Everyone in the family thought he was nuts but me. I was awarded it by default, put it in the basket of my blue and white Schwinn, and pedaled it home. It was a bit unwieldy so eventually it was stowed in the rafters of a basement room. Then when I was in New York learning the ropes of publicity, my mom and dad sold the house. “Oh, no! My dictionary!” I asked them to try to retrieve it from the new owners but the story hadn’t changed much. They thought I was crazy.

So a couple years later when I went home to visit, I stopped by our old home on a whim. It took chutzpah! “Hello, I used to live here and there may be something in your basement that belongs to me—that is, if you don’t have a need for it.”

Now this was not yesterday. In those days people actually let strangers into their homes occasionally, but there was still a chance they’d consider an ax-murder possibiity. I trailed behind the new owners to the basement and there it was. It hadn’t been moved an inch but it was covered with cobwebs and dust. I was ecstatic and the new owners were either happy to let me have it or eager to get rid of me.

I still have that dictionary. It has those little thumbprint cutouts for the different letters of the alphabet and the edges of each page are gilded. It has a linen cover. It can’t really be used because it has none of the new words in it.

Ahhh, yes. But it does have four color plates of the flags of countries that existed then. There are even a few that still exist. Most of the changes have been in Africa. There are other pages that illustrate flowers and the human skeleton. Stuff like that. I mean, this is a real dictionary. So I kept it for the smell (however smudgey—that’s my own word for moldy-but-I-don’t-care-how-bad-it-stinks!), the memories, the feel of the silky thin but still substantial pages. And because I kept reading that dictionaries discarded old words to make room for the new. And, naturally, I couldn’t discard any words, right? Fiction writers can find old words valuable.

By the time computers came along, I was attached to this volume, this tome, this giant doorstop! And now the kicker!

National Geographic tells me that the words in the Oxford English Dictionary never disappear. Once a word has been very carefully vetted, it stays there. “The OED is unique,” says the new words editor of the book, “in that we never remove a word once it has been included.”

Just in case you’re interested, they add some 4,000 words of 6,000 considered each year. Including the new meaning of the word “unplugged.” It now also means the “state of living without electronic devices.”

Now wouldn’t that be awful! Almost as bad as living without my near-ancient dictionary!

PS: Can’t resist another just-added word. You know when you put your Coke bottle on a manuscript and it leaves a caramel-colored ring that can’t be erased? Rejoice. You have made a “dringle.”

PS: My articles, essays—even my rants—are available for reprint in your blog or Web site. Just let me know what article you like and I’ll supply you with an appropriate credit line with links. HoJoNews @ aol (dot) com.

-----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second ediction of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog.

Grammatical Memory

I wanted to write a post about parts of speech, subjects, objects and all that. One of the reasons is my annoyance over misuse of pronouns, especially two cases: after prepositions, and as subjects of an implied phrase, but I quickly fell into the mire of memory. You see, I remember all this stuff, the grammar, the parts of speech, the rules of usage, because my father drummed the rules relentlessly into my head. Almost every night at dinner featured discussions about some point of grammar.

In French, the rules are simple: if the pronoun is the subject of the verb, AND it comes right before the verb, it's the subjective form.
But in English, what is a subject is a little more complicated:

Jack is taller than I.

Why? Because "I" is the subject of the implied phrase, "than I am."

and:

It's I, or was, when I was in school.

Here are two old poem of mine. I give them to you unedited, in its original form, in spite of my itch to revise them.

This is why I remember my grammar.

If You Were Still Alive

In spite of what I know everyone says
About each successive generation

Being deficient,
Not as able,
Morally superior
Or grammatically correct

As the one before,

I am privately convinced
Of the truth of the proposition
That today's youth's knowledge
Of the English language

Is sadly lacking,

And that even those
Who should know better,

To wit,

Those writing for the local paper,
Do not know how to properly use pronouns

Or, indeed,

That English has a subjunctive,
A fact that you revealed to me
When I came home and told you
That French had a subjunctive but that

English didn't

So I just wanted to say that I still remember
All that stuff and that in spite of my

Extreme annoyance

At your continual repetition of the entire rule
And its complete explanation,
Every time I said,

"It's me"

I want you to know that every time
I hear someone misuse a pronoun
I not only mutter under my breath,
But I think of you and think,

"If you were still alive..."




Seasons



You took out the garbage
and got lost outside your apartment,
unable to recognize your front door.

That night you wandered naked
down the hall. I waited for you to flinch
as you recognized me, your daughter.

You never noticed me,
instead continued to the bathroom,
where you attempted, fruitlessly, to pee.

Your pubic hair was gray. When had
you gotten so old?

Where was the father who taught
me to make scrambled eggs,
pledging me never to add milk?

Where was the father who argued
about gerunds over dinner?


In the morning I took you to
Mount Sinai hospital, where
they diagnosed prostate trouble,
admitted you.

When we took your grandsons to see you;
you barely remembered their names:
your mind, once so sharp, now rusted.

We moved you to the nursing home
near Trinity Church. When we came to visit
we would go across to the church
and pray.

I had to take care of you.

It was my time.