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Tuesday, August 31, 2021

ESSENTIAL KEYWORDS YOU NEED TO KNOW_IWSG post

 

"Evil does not sleep. 
It waits."
 - Hippolyta


The same is true for another Amazon ...
The One in whose ranks 
we all want to stand out.


There are Keywords that will draw attention
like SEX

But it may not result in SALES


The above image represents
poorly your novel
of two shy retired teachers
finding love unexpectedly.


We must narrow the focus of
our keywords
from broad to narrow
to catch the eye 
of the reader who is
searching for something
different than bare chests
and heaving bosums.


SO HOW TO PLUG INTO
THOSE READERS'
INTERESTS?


ASK YOURSELF
ABOUT YOUR NOVEL

What is the time period?
What stands out about its setting?


What are its interesting
character types or roles?


What themes or events
interweave in your novel?


From whose perspective is it told?


Is it a children's fantasy?


Is it a Noir supernatural mystery?


What is your novel's style and tone?


Remember:

Some Keywords will draw attention 
but few sales

Others will draw less looks 
but result in more sales.


Once you give a new reader
a great story she loves, 
she will return again and again
for more of your books.


Keep an eye out for my new book.

Coming Soon.

Nothing can bring so much death
as a debt unpaid ...
especially for spies.


Tuesday, August 10, 2021

COMING SOON

 "How Lucky Am I to Have Someone 

Who Makes Saying Goodbye Hard."

 - Lucas

In the end, it is not if

you survive the journey,

only if you traveled it well.




Sunday, August 8, 2021

The WORLD of BLACK MAGIC

Actual photo of the first nuclear detonation, Code Name Trinity.


It was meant to test a weapon to end the
"Second War to End All Wars"
It did not do so.

But in another dimension much like our own,
it ripped a tear in reality,
creating a revolving portal to other
vicious dimensions.


The portal quickly changed to other dimensions,
stranding curious "tourists" in what used to be
Lake Tahoe,
soon to be ironically called
Lake Pleasant,
a city as  toxic as 
its transformed waters.


Decades later, in a world bereft of computers,
cell phones, oversea communications
and human compassion ...

the orphan private detective, 
Adam Black,
is hired by the not-human 
crime lord of Lake Pleasant
to find his missing daughter.

His fee?
Black gets to live.

Along the way, he meets two entities
claiming to be his parents


and the Native American Trickster
 Coyote


Can he and his only friend, 
cabbie Ray Clark,
find the deadly daughter
and keep their lives in 
the madhouse city that is 
Lake Pleasant?

Thursday, August 5, 2021

HOW JOHN STEINBECK FOUND THE WRITE PATH_ Of Ducks and Men

 

I am not a successful writer.  It looks as if I never will be. 
 
But being a Sci Fi/Fantasy writer,

I thought how fun it would be to exchange letters with John Steinbeck when he was a struggling writer in the Depression
 
So here is the exchange --  (530 words)
 
 
{John Steinbeck - 1931}

Pacific Grove
December 1930

Dear Roland -

     What a stupendous thing Samuel McCord has done for me.  In his presence I reflected how might the struggling author 100 years from now compare to my own starving state. 

     And as a Christmas present, he has arranged for us to send letters back and forth.

     How wonderful is that? 
 
I do not mind that I must not inquire what my fate will be.  Judging from my plentiful rejections, I doubt you even know my name.


Thank you for your letter. I am sorry I must answer it from memory.

 
     Tillie Eulenspiegel, the Airedale, has puppies, as sinful a crew as ever ruined rugs.
 
     Four of them found your letter and ate all of it but the address. I should imagine they were awed by the address if I had not learned that they hold nothing in reverence.
 
     At present they are out eating each other, and I must try to remember the things I should answer. 

 I am daily expecting to receive both of my novels back. That will be a blow but I don’t see how I can escape it.
 
     My work is improving, I think— and eventually I shall be able to dispose of all of it, but this is rather a long period of waiting, don’t you think?
 
     Yesterday we bought two mallard ducks for the garden. The drake has an irridescent green head. They are beautiful. They swim in the pond and eat the bugs in the garden.
 
     We are pretty excited. They cost our amusement quota for this month but are worth it. Named Aqua and Vita. Carol hated to go to work this morning and leave them because they are so interesting.
 
     They do not ever step on the plants— just edge between on their big clumsy feet. They very promptly caught and ate the goldfish, but we don't care.
 

      I thank you for your own Christmas present in response to my question of what might a bestselling book be like in your time.


     I read only a page or so of The Da Vinci Code. The pages I read seemed to be a hodgepodge of quotations and confusing logic. 

     Brown's words are virtual blunt instruments of prose.  My brain feels positively bruised. 

     Christmas broke Carol and me, so that we must live nine days on two dollars and five cents.

     I think we can do it although the last few of those nine may find us living on rice. That doesn’t matter either. It’s rather amusing. 
 
     At least I try to tell myself that.

     I have been filled with a curious cloying despair. I haven’t heard a word from any of my manuscripts for over three months.

     It is nerve wracking. I would welcome rejections far more than this appalling silence. My new novel slumbers. I doubt myself. This is a dreadful, crucial time.
 
The other day I asked a young friend to read a story, and he felt that he should criticise because that was what one did to a ms.
 
     So he tore a pretty nice story to pieces and showed me how to do it.
 
     It was funny because he hit all the places which are simply matters of opinion and tore up some of the nicest writing I have ever done.
 
     Such things reassure one in the matter of believing critics.
 
     Has that ever happened to you?  How do you deal with criticism of your work, Roland? 
 
     Do you ever feel guilt for putting those you love and who love you under such strain from the clinging to your dream?
 
      That is all I can think of. If there was more to be answered it is in the stomachs of those khaki-colored devils in the garden.
 
     They are eating the fence now. The appetite of a puppy ranks with the Grand Canyon for pure stupendousness. I am very grateful to you for your interest. 
 
     Has Man grown kinder by 2021?  Or is the human heart withered by all it has endured?

     Tell me how your work proceeds.  No particulars on what you are writing as McCord forbids that, just how you find it within yourself to continue when all you receive are rejections.

John



What would you tell John Steinbeck were you me?

Monday, August 2, 2021

HOW TO WRITE LIKE RAYMOND CHANDLER_IWSG Post


 Ghost of Raymond Chandler here.
I've appeared in one of Roland's books





HOW WOULD I FIT INTO THIS 
#MeToo WORLD?

Why should I want to? 

Why should anyone expect a writer from the 1940's to do so?

My world-weary detective, Philip Marlowe, lived in a male-dominated world of corrupt politicians, 

insulated by their wealth businessmen, and burned-out cops.

Along with women, who through necessity or from the sheer pleasure of dominating rather than being dominated, 

learned to get what they wanted through the only coin appreciated by the world:

 their beauty



My modern critics seem to forget my girl Friday, Anne Riordan, in FAREWELL, MY LOVELY.

Prejudices are so much easier to carry when you ditch those awkward facts which question the veracity of them.

HOW TO WRITE LIKE ME?

The Truth? Don't.

BE YOU,
THE BEST VERSION OF YOU.

(Midnight is not fond of my pipe smoke)

But if you must, here are a few thoughts

FIRST -

I’m an intellectual snob who happens to have a fondness for the American vernacular, largely because I grew up on Latin and Greek. 

I had to learn American just like a foreign language. …

 If I hadn’t grown up with Latin and Greek, 

I doubt if I would know so well where to draw the very subtle line between 

what I call the vernacular style and what I should call an illiterate or faux naif style.”

My poetic, high-brow literary phrases are interlaced with low-brow slang, crime jargon, and Depression-era wisecracks 

to create a text in which sophisticated cultural references appear 

like bright flowers rising above broken bottles and cigarette butts in a dark alley.



EXTREME EYE FOR DETAIL

Readers did not want non-stop action. 

They wanted to feel something. 

The things they really cared about, and that I cared about, were the creation of emotion through dialogue and description.

It was through detailed description of the clothing, bodies, mannerisms, and voices of my characters as in:

I started up the steep steps. It was a nice walk if you liked grunting. 

There were two hundred and eighty steps up to Cabrillo Street. 

They were drifted over with windblown sand and the handrail was as cold and wet as a toad’s belly. 

When I reached the top the sparkle had gone from the water and a seagull with a broken trailing leg was twisting against the off-sea breeze.

WHAT DO I MEAN?

Write a basic text, then keep injecting more and more descriptive language 

until your reader can see, feel, smell, and taste everything your protagonist is experiencing.

STOP WORRYING ABOUT THE PLOT

Does Life have one coherent Plot?

Not that I have seen on either side of the grave.

It seems to me that the real mystery is not who killed Sir John in his study, 

but what the situation really was, what the people were after, what sort of people they were.

Once you have illuminated those facets, the whole gem of the mystery is revealed ... 

as is the murderer.


A good plot is one which makes good scenes. 

The ideal mystery is one you would read even if the end was missing.

HAVE SOMETHING WORTHWHILE TO SAY

A good mystery is an allegory of what makes life worth living 

and how easy it is for it all to go astray.

I talked about what I saw in my L.A. - 

the corruption, the crime, the hubris of the elite and their relationship to the human condition -

while telling a riveting, absorbing tale.

WHAT DO YOU SEE IN YOUR WORLD?

How could you relate your impressions of it in a ripping good yarn?

SPEAKING OF GOOD YARNS

My friend, Roland Yeomans,

has written another good one.

TRY IT OUT.

THE 1ST 3 CHAPTERS ARE FREE