The Winner of "The Taming of Enkidu" is...

The winner of a copy of the e-book

The Taming of Enkidu

by Thea Hutcheson

is

Karen Duvall

Congratulations, Karen!

Flat versus Full or How I Flesh Out a Scene by Thea Hutcheson, Guest Blogger

Please welcome Thea Hutcheson, also known as Thea Hudson, author of The Taming of Enkidu, a historical, paranormal, erotic romance. I'm not sure whether Thea is keeping her real identity a secret or whether she just likes keeping a low profile, but the photo below is her beloved kitty cat Ed Gumji.

Thanks for sharing this excellent writing tip with us, Thea.

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Flat versus Full or How I Flesh Out a Scene by Thea Hutcheson, Guest Blogger

You've read it, I know you have. Bland descriptions that do nothing for the atmosphere, nothing to ground you in the story. Your character is in the forest. You sit at your computer and write, "She entered the forest."

So is it a pine forest, an old growth forest, a forest teeming with wolves or fairies or home to a Green Age Walmart?

It's a forest you say, you know, with trees.

I say, "Stop." Put yourself in that scene. Just stand for a moment and be there. Look, listen, taste, feel, and hear what is going on. Experience the forest around you for a few moments. Then put all that into the scene.

Dean Wesley Smith says you should have all five senses in every thousand words. That works out to roughly one and a quarter senses on every manuscript page. You can spread them out, and you should, so it doesn't overload the reader, but when setting a scene, nothing works better than a full house of sensory detail.

Think about it. Which would you rather read? "Carolis stepped into the forest and began her journey."

Or

"Carolis nudged her chestnut war horse between the two massive oaks that signaled the entrance to the Dragon's Wood. The winter shorn tree limbs reached toward her like witches claws (sight). One scraped over her steel helmet and she shivered, her belly clenching tightly (feeling). Pearly light filtered down through fog that billowed in the light breeze (sight and feeling) and helped muffle (hearing) her horse's hooves as the gelding made his way over the thick mulch of centuries of fallen leaves. Those same hooves kicked up the smell of damp humus (hearing), reminding her the years she'd spent tending the mulch pile on the farm at her foster home. The water from the fog condensed on her hands, chilling them and turning gilded leather reins slick between her fingers (feeling). What a way to start a quest."

So you know where you are and what is going on (she's starting a quest). You get a hint of who she is (gilded reins and a steel helmet, grew up on a farm with a foster family), how she feels about it (clenched belly and shivering). Much richer than just "Carolis stepped into the forest and began her journey."

A lovely exercise to get you started on learning how to pull all that richness into the scene comes from Kristin Kathryn Rusch, an award winning author and editor across many genres.

It's very simple. Close your eyes and picture a place you know well. Do as before -- put yourself in it and experience the place with all senses wide open.

When you have it, write five paragraphs, concentrating on one sense in each one. Then take the best sentence or two out of each paragraph and combine them into one paragraph. The result is rich and full, giving the reader a complete suite of sensory details about the place. It is amazing what you can pull out of the scene if you will immerse yourself in it and how thoroughly you can ground a reader in the story.

Remember, all setting is Point of View -- what the character notices and how he or she describes it or experiences it. This goes a long way toward building character voice.

But that's a different essay!

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Renaissance E-Books has graciously agreed to give away one e-book copy of The Taming of Enkidu to a reader who leaves a comment on today's post. We'll select the winner at noon Mountain time tomorrow (Friday, January 27th) and will announce the winner here.

"When the people of Uruk beg the gods to do something about their despot God King, they make Enkidu, a wild man. Enkidu is set down on the plains where he becomes the animals' champion, disrupting the hunters who prey on them. When the hunters complain about Enkidu to the king, he sends Shamat, one of Ishtar's temple harlots, to the wild plains to seduce the savage man and make him civilized. Over seven hot days and hotter nights, Shamat will teach Enkidu what it means to be a man and the scorching pleasure to be found in the experienced arms of a Goddess' harlot."

You can learn more about Thea and her books at her website. She is also on Facebook and Twitter.

Wednesday Potpourri

Tomorrow's Guest

Author of steamy hot romance (and a bit of erotica under a pseudonym) Thea Hutcheson is this week's Thursday guest. Her post is about fleshing out scenes in your writing. No. the post is not about sex. Sorry! :)


The Lightfoot Chronicles

Northern Colorado mystery author Cricket McRae of the Home Crafting mysteries launches her new series as Bailey Cates in May. The dual author/series website has links to the Hearth Cricket blog as well as the newly launched The Lightfoot Chronicles blog.

"Welcome new witch and professional baker Katie Lightfoot as she shares her lessons in magic and hedgewitchery, herbal craft, baking and the South."

The first book in the new series is Brownies and Broomsticks, already available at online booksellers for pre-order. Cricket....I mean Bailey.....will be my guest blogger on May 31st.


Favorite Tweet of the Week

From @SusanSpann (California attorney and mystery writer): "I am raising a geek. I asked my son if he finished his homework, and he looked at me and said 'Error 404...Homework not found.'"


My Interview with Terri Bischoff at Chiseled in Rock

Terri is the acquisitions editor for Midnight Ink, publisher of crime literature in most sub-genres. If you didn't catch this interview yesterday, here's the link.


Five Star Publishing is on Facebook

Here's a great place to learn about new mystery releases from Five Star. It's worth a visit just to scroll through the gorgeous cover art, so drop by and "Like" the Facebook page.


25 Ways to Increase Blog Traffic

This excellent blog post is at My Name is Not Bob, Robert Lee Brewer's blog.


What I'm Reading

I'm just finishing up Tilt-A-Whirl, the first mystery in the John Ceepak series by Chris Grabenstein. I liked it a lot, so I'm jumping straight into the second book in the series, which I think is called Mad Mouse.


Facebook's Timeline Roll Out

If you're on Facebook, everything you wanted to know about the Timeline Roll Out (or should know about it, whether you want to or not) is in this post from Mashable.


Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

I think I'm tired of winter, even though the weather has been relatively mild. The truth is, I'm missing color in my days. There have been a few spectacular sunrises, or so I hear, but I wasn't up early enough to see them. I'm putting this flower here just to cheer me up:



There. Now I feel better.

Chiseled in Rock Tuesday: Interview with Midnight Ink Acquisitions Editor, Terri Bischoff

Terri is the acquisitions editor for Midnight Ink, publisher of all kinds of crime literature. Join us at Chiseled in Rock to learn more about Terri, her job, and Midnight Ink.

Where Do Your Characters Come From? by Camille LaGuire, Guest Blogger

My special guest today is Camille LaGuire, a Michigan writer of mystery and adventure stories. She has published fiction in magazines ranging from Cricket Magazine to Handheld Crime, to Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. Her work has been reprinted in educational materials and overseas, and her short fiction has been nominated for Derringer awards. Her thriller play, Slayer of Clocks, was produced to sold-out audiences at the inaugural Discovering New Mysteries Festival in 2007.

Thanks for joining us today, Camille.

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Where Do Your Characters Come From? by Camille LaGuire, Guest Blogger


People ask how I come up with my characters. Do they come from people I know? Do I use character development sheets? Do they just spring fully formed from my imagination?

Characters are complicated. They may develop in all of those ways and more. For me they often start with an image, or an idea, but they usually come to life with an emotion -- something that feels like the heart of the character.

The title character in my latest book, George Starling, started when I was thinking about old-fashioned action stories. What would happen if this masterful "take charge" guy were to take his rescued damsel home and move in? He might come across to her family as a dangerous control freak. I had some fun with that, coming up with amusing or dramatic misunderstandings, but it didn't lead to a compelling character.

But then I thought: what if he wasn't really a masterful action hero who arrogantly takes control of every situation, but just a guy who has a compulsive need to make things better? What if he's trapped by his own need to rescue people? What if he needs to be rescued from himself?

That was everything I needed. With that question, I knew what his deepest worries were and his greatest desires. I even knew his blind spots, which is important to any character. But even more than that, I now not only had a character, I had the theme and title of the story: The Man Who Did Too Much.

Is George like anyone I know? No, he's a fantasy cliche made gently human. I mean, sure, I use my own feelings of pride or self-doubt, or annoyance to inform my writing on any character. But I don't know anybody like him. I wish I did. (I sometimes have fantasies of George stepping into real life, and staging a coup at my day job or in local politics. It's something that I imagine he might do if his girlfriend were inconvenienced in any way....)

The other major character in The Man Who Did Too Much is Karla Marquette. Her creation was more deliberate. There were two things I wanted to do:

The first thing I wanted was to write a mystery series in the old-school way, with a quirky, highly intellectual but perhaps socially inept master detective. I was thinking about detectives like Mrs. North, and Nero Wolfe, and even Ellery Queen. Happy, contented people without a driving problem, and who are a little detached from reality, and therefore able to see things that others can't.

I also wanted to try writing a character who was very close to home. Perhaps someone based on, uh, ... me. Or elements of me; my foibles, highly exaggerated. And, I'm afraid, the whole "detached from reality" thing made me an obvious match for that classic detective.

But, of course, Karla is not me. I let her grow out of a collection of quirks. She didn't click, though, until I stuck her in some scenes with George, and then it all came together. Karla is the opposite of George. He has wide experience of the world and reality, and she barely leaves her house, but while he has no idea how to be happy, Karla is a master at it. If anybody can rescue George, it's Karla.

It feels like magic when characters click like that, but in reality, that comes from a lot of work. I played those characters in my head for months, maybe years. I let them play through all kinds of scenes, sometimes replaying the same scene in different ways, to let them grow the way little kids grow. They succeed and fail and learn, and I learn with them.

But I'll admit it, I don't know if this is the best way to develop characters. I only know that it's the most fun. It really comes down to playing with the characters. It's why I write -- I end up falling in love with them and I have to tell their stories.

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The Man Who Did Too Much is the first of the Starling and Marquette mysteries, a combination of cozy mystery and comic suspense which take place in northern lower Michigan. Camille also writes the Mick and Casey Mysteries, about a pair of young married gunslingers who solve mysteries in the old west.

Learn more about Camille and her books at her website. You can follow her ongoing adventures in writing at her blog The Daring Novelist. Camille is also on Twitter.

Two More Writing Contests

Incite Denver

In addition to the Northern Colorado Writer contests I mentioned in this week's Wednesday Potpourri, there's a brand new contest sponsored by Chiseled in Rock blog that you need to check out.

This one is called Incite Denver, has minimal requirements (except that you have a completed manuscript), and doesn't cost anything...unless you have to travel from a great distance for the February 29th event in Denver because only those in attendance have a chance of winning. I guess that means most of the entries will come from the Denver area, or at least the Front Range of Colorado.


Killer Nashville's 2012 Claymore Award

Registration deadline is May 31, 2012. Visit the Killer Nashville website for more information on this award for unpublished crime literature.

The Four P's for Attending a Writers' Conference by Kerrie Flanagan, Guest Blogger

Kerrie Flanagan is the director of Northern Colorado Writers, a writers' support organization born from Kerrie's desire to help writers of all types learn their craft and succeed in the marketplace. Her business started as a small conference targeting local writers in Northern Colorado but has grown steadily. There is now a writers' studio where classes are held and critique groups can meet, as well as the annual conference.

Welcome, Kerrie. I'm getting very excited about the 2012 conference, especially now that I've seen the lineup of workshops, presenters, agents and editors. As usual, you have something for everyone.

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The Four P's for Attending a Writers' Conference by Kerrie Flanagan, Guest Blogger


Each year I host the Northern Colorado Writers Conference. As we get closer and closer to the event, I get more and more excited. I love spending two full days with writers. My personal opinion is that every writer should attend one conference a year. Of course I am partial to mine, but there are so many wonderful conferences around the country to choose from, you shouldn't have a problem finding one that fits your needs. (Visit Shaw Guides for conference information).

I have put together these four P's to help you get the most out of a writers conference you might be attending in the near future.


*Be Prepared*

The Boy Scouts were definitely on to something here. Take time to research the faculty who will be there. This will allow you to figure out who you want to meet and also give you some talking points when you do visit with them. If you are pitching to an agent or editor it is imperative you do some upfront work. (Here is an article I wrote with tips on pitch sessions.) Make a plan of the sessions you want to attend and what you hope to get from them.

*Be Professional*

Writing is a business and I believe all writers need to treat it as such.Therefore, at a conference you should be professional. Have business cards made and ready to hand out when people ask for one. Be respectful of the agents and editors. You want to be remembered-- but not for stalking. Put some thought into what you should wear (think business casual).

*Be Polite*

A conference is not the time to be a wall-flower and hide in the corner or in your hotel room. It doesn't matter if you are a self-proclaimed introvert, you need to dig deep inside and unearth any extrovert skills you may have. Introduce yourself to other writers at meals, hand out business cards, ask questions during sessions and talk to the agents and editors. You never know what may come from this meeting.

*Be Productive*

Go to as many sessions as possible and meet as many people as you can. Regardless of how tired you get, you should stay until the end. There is plenty of time for sleep and rest after the conference. A lot of time goes into making a great event from start to finish, so take advantage of that.


*What are the conferences near you that you will be attending in the next couple of months?

*Do you have any conference advice for those writers new to the conference scene?*

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To learn more about Kerrie and Northern Colorado Writers, visit the NCW website. She can be found on Twitter as @Kerrie_Flanagan and on Facebook as Kerrie Stephen Flanagan.

Kerrie's article mentioned above on How to Pitch to a Literary Agent at a Writers' Conference for WOW! Women on Writing, is a must read for conference goers.