Wicked Wordsmith

Impressions Though Dialogue by George Thompson

So far, I’ve allowed only one person to read my in-process manuscript, A Summer’s Evening.  And, it’s not a relative.  He’s read fifty pages of my novel. One  of my main questions for him was, “What do Riley and Wiley look like?” 

These two men are the perpetrators of the abduction and subsequent murder of an old woman.  My friend, the reader, gleaned his information only from the dialogue between the two men because I did not come right out and describe how they looked.  Their “lingo” is displayed in their conversation.  He said, “I see them as just short of six feet tall, both rather thin and around thirty.  Perhaps their hair is sort of blondish.  I know one smokes because you wrote the other says, ‘You oughta quit smokin’ them things.’ I think they wear jeans mostly.”
   
I’m hoping he will read the rest of the chapters I sent him and will be able to give me his mind’s impression of the other characters I’ve used:  Doris, the receptionist at the police station, the two deputies, the sheriff himself, the priest, the old woman who is a member of a coven and so many others.  None of these characters are described in the narrative. The reader learns about them through dialogue alone.

He has said that I’m very precise in what I’ve written and now that I look back on the 45,000 words I done so far, I must agree.  It’s almost like a screenwriter’s dream come true.  With a little blocking—very little blocking—a screenwriter could adapt this for a movie production.  Again, I think that goes to using so much dialogue to tell the story.
   
I have used an erasable board to keep the characters in mind while writing the novel.  I also used a technique in each chapter of separating what was going on simultaneously with characters without using transitions like, “Meanwhile, across town….”  So, if the sheriff was doing something at 8 a.m., I could also have Riley and Wiley doing something at the same time in the same chapter on the same day.  I even decided the reader needed to hear both sides of a telephone conversation so it would not have to be repeated somewhere else in the story unless absolutely necessary.
   
There’s a part of the story where the sheriff must have tests—this takes place in the 80s—to see if he has lung cancer and through dialogue, I want the reader to feel the pain the sheriff has as he goes through a battery of tests and scans.  I even want them to commiserate with him because he must take Tylenol-3 for migraines and Niacin for high cholesterol.
‘   
One thing I’ve found very easy to slip into while using dialogue:  the present progressive tense.  That’s a no-no.  I don’t know how many places I’ve had to edit to get rid of that tense and put it in past tense where it should be.  That’s one of the dangers of using so much dialogue to tell a story.
   
I’ll say one thing positive:  I’m halfway finished.  And, I’ve already started putting out feelers for publishers.
   
Until the next column.  Good luck with your writing.

Poet George Thompson is a critic for the pop culture site www.PopSyndicate.com and a regular contributor to Wicked Wordsmith.

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Characters Too Real by George Thompson

In my autobiography that is under contract, I have a portion set aside where one of my roommates and I have an early morning discussion.  I have a hangover and he’s upset because I almost upchucked in his car the night before on the way home from a birthday party.  The language between us gets very raunchy and he uses the “f” word with frequency.  I haven’t shown him the dialogue and after reading the books that I have, I don’t think I will.  To “sell” him to the readers of my book, I’m going to have to dig into my own character and “act” as though I am him.

It’s all well and good that I tell him he’s a part of the book, but I dare not share that with him because were he to read what I have written, he would tell me he is nothing like that character.  Nothing at all.  Therefore, I must use my imagination to “become” a person who is “like” him in many ways but not him in any way, shape or form.  I must control the character instead of letting the character control me.

I don’t use the vulgar language this character uses; I just find I don’t need to talk that way to live my daily life.  Yet, I know all the words and can pull them out and use them.  However, can I do them successfully as another character and not as myself.  I’ve placed myself in my character’s shoes and I think I’ve come up with a pretty good character study of someone who shoots from the hip, pulls no punches about how he feels about the carpets in his car, the side paneling on his car door, the cover on the car speaker in the car door and all the other amenities that could be affected by spray from someone regurgitating.  He’s very upset and the only way he can show that is through vulgarities and profanities; he can’t have a conversation without profanity.

On the other hand, I’m so hung over that I can’t comprehend what he’s saying because he’s using profanity.  I need him to just get to the point.  Did I put a dent in the door, leave the door ajar, kick the door shut, break the light in the door, forget to readjust the seatbelt?  I can’t comprehend what he’s saying; I just need coffee because I’m late getting dressed for work and want to deal with the matter later.  He doesn’t.

When he finally reads this section of the book, he should only be able to ask, “Were you writing about me,” to which I can answer, “I used some of your mannerisms, but that’s all.  You’re too kind to be this person.”

Poet George Thompson is a critic for the pop culture site PopSyndicate.com, and a regular contributor to Wicked Wordsmith.

A Short Character Study

In my first novel - which I’m struggling to put together electronically - I introduce one of the main characters, Judd Locke, on the first page.  I give very little detail about his looks if any at all and deal more with his flaws.  But, I want the reader to figure out what those flaws are, so here’s a brief part of the novel to help you figure the traits I’m uncovering.

“Judd Locke didn’t care for some of the professors who shared the same large office with him.  They were numbskulls, thick-headed scholars who couldn’t see past their noses in spite of all their knowledge, and strutted their brilliant intellects in front of the students until he was sick of them.  He would rather thumb his nose at their attitudes than invite them to the same tale….He sat quietly at this table, clearing his mind of all thoughts of the other professors’ attitudes, yet tried to leaf through all the reasons they bothered him so much.  Perhaps it wasn’t their attitudes that were so different; his attitudes didn’t necessarily conform to their standards.  He lifted a spoon of split pea soup to his lips and absentmindedly let it slip, spilling the soup down his shirt and new tie.  He said, “Dammit,” under his breath as he slid out of the chair and made his way to the restroom, hoping no one watched his hasty exit while he watched the spot soak into the fabric.”

The above shows nothing whatsoever about plot and I didn’t intend for it to.  I wanted to introduce one of my main characters and let the reader pick up on what kind of person he is.  Of course, it’s obvious he breathes.  That’s a given.  But notice his thought processes.  They stink.  He’s like a lot of people, but I let his vindictiveness show through in his thoughts:  he hates those around him.  He despises having to share space with other professors, probably other people in general.  Given the chance, he would probably lecture each of them on what he finds wrong with them, pointing out their faults.  Not to make himself look good, but to prove his point that they are all just too caught up in themselves.  Doesn’t that kind of mean that Judd is caught up in himself, too?
   
What about cursing?  He was awfully quick to use profanity when he spilled the soup.  Granted pea soup is green and it does have this innocuous way of looking out of place on anything other than being in a soup bowl.  But, gracious.  Pea soup on a tie wasn’t the end of the world!  And, he was so preoccupied on the way to the men’s room, I guess, he didn’t watch where he was going.  He must have expected everyone to make a wide berth for him as he strode—maybe ran—to the bathroom.
   
What I gave you above was from two paragraphs of my book.  We didn’t even get to the bathroom where he knocked over some trash cans.  I included that here so we can put this together.  Judd is:  conceited, self-centered, jealous, quick to anger, ambivalent, clumsy.
   
How are your characters doing?

George Thompson is a Missouri poet, book critic and regular contributor to Wicked Wordsmith.

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That Old Dusty Manuscript by George Thompson

Where’s that first manuscript you handwrote or tediously typed and used whiteout to cover typos?  Still in the original box that held a full ream of paper?  Mine is.  But not for long.

Now that you’re doing well, you’ve been published and you’ve got ideas for upcoming projects, how about digging that first manuscript out of the closet—you know, the one of the highest shelf?—and see if you can polish it up for publication.  Handwritten?  Typed?  Are you going to take the time to transcribe it into a digital format?  Have a friend who loves to type—fast?  How ‘bout contracting out if you can afford it?  It will save you time.  Got a month of your own time before you start that next paid, planned project?  Then keyboard it yourself and put it away for a rainy day.  You never know just exactly who will be interested in the first manuscript.

Just think of all the writers whose first “written” effort was not the first book published.  Some of our best known author’s first books were rejected and it was only after their second or even third book was accepted for publication that editors went back and showed interest in publishing books one and two.  Who knows?  You’re writing poetry now, it’s been widely publicized, you made it when it was published and have even gone on the circuit promoting your book and ever since then you’ve wanted to “branch out” into other genre and all along you’ve had that novel stuck away gathering dust in your closet.

My novel made the rounds of thirty-six publishing houses and the last one sent me a nice note saying that if I fleshed out the characters a little more they would be happy to look at the manuscript again.  Unfortunately, my work stood in the way and I never re-submitted my idea to them.  I often wonder where I might be now had I followed through with that endeavor.  As many say, “Hind sight is twenty-twenty.”

I face the same dilemma that many of you do:  retyping my manuscript into the computer—that is only 500 pages double-spaced!  The other problem that is the same as yours:  time.  It’s not on my side unless I make it so.  I know exactly where my manuscript is and you would think that since I’m retired I would have lots of time to sit down and start typing.  Not true.  I still have to dedicate myself to the project before anything will happen.

So, give it a try.  I’m going to surprise myself.  You may just do the same thing.  Smile while you do it.  Just think of all the “side” memories you will have when you open that box and recall sounds and smells that took place when you first started typing your great idea years ago!

George Thompson is a poet, book critic for www.PopSyndicate.com and regular contributor to Wicked Wordsmith.

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Marketing That Book Part II

Now we have all the paperwork reader for the publicity packet, it’s time to do the research as to where you want to mail your packets. This is the part that involves most of your time and effort and I’ll explain as succinctly as possible.

The easiest way to do this is to access the Web site I found quite by accident by searching for WHO OWNS WHAT. The Columbia Journal Review (http://www.cjr.org) came up and I chose Resources (located about the middle of the top part of the screen) and was surprised by what I found. There is a pop-down menu that lists companies, e.g., BELO, CBS, Gannett, etc., and when you choose a company, you are taken to a list of the companies they own. This list includes: radio and TV stations, magazines and newspapers. I chose one particular company and headed for the listings of newspapers. With the names of three companies jotted down, I then searched the Web for these newspapers and refined my search by looking for the Arts and Leisure, Leisure, Amusements sections of the paper. I found a book reviewer in an

Iowa

newspaper, read the review and printed it for reference. I then searched the other two newspapers and found the same review by the same reviewer (they were word-for-word in each paper). I wrote the name of the reviewer and called the headquarters in

Boston

(the phone number was listed) and talked with a nice gentleman who gave me the location of the reviewer, the address of the newspaper and even the phone number for the paper. I was surprised to learn the reviewer worked out of

Houston

,

Texas

, although the column appeared in an

Iowa

paper as well as two on the west coast.

This one transaction saved me time with the other 35 companies I had chosen to contact and in a short matter of time, I had all the names of the reviewer and was ready to write my “letter of introduction.” I intentionally kept the letter to one paragraph since all the necessary information was contained in the other items placed in the marketing packet.

Because reviewer received unsolicited books by the dozens, I decided on the sample booklet in the packet with a small personal note on the booklet stating I would be more than happy to send the entire book if requested because the mailing is cheaper; I also decided to take the “slow train” and send out the packets at the postal service’s Media Mail rate. Believe me, I saved a fortune in postage doing this.

As I said in Part I, your biggest investment is going to be in the amount of time you expend to make this effort work. Everything else falls into place for you with the right preparation and a little elbow grease. Good luck!

George Thompson is a regular contributor to Wicked Wordsmith. He is also a critic for PopSyndicate.com.

 

Marketing That Book Part I

So you’ve published your book on your own, the subsidy press has sent out your press release to 300 markets all over the

US

and you’ve had a few sales. You knew you’d be on your own after the initial “newness” of your book had subsided; your editorial benefactor kept telling you the next steps were up to you. Your friends and family have even bought your book and you were overjoyed to autograph each one. So, what’s next?

How about a marketing plan where you hype your book all across the country? Sound far-fetched and out of reach for your budget? It’s not and it all boils down to a simplistic approach to market the proper way. Granted, there will be an initial investment on your part with most of it centered on the time you have to invest in such a venture. Your biggest cash outlay will be for folders, paper, printer inks, envelopes and postage. The rest will be research. You can create your own marketing packet after several hours of research on the Internet. This sounds like a monumental task, but it’s not. Your most valuable asset is your computer and access to the Internet for research. And remember one thing: Work smarter not harder.

You can purchase folders, the ones with pockets and not 3-rings. Choose any color you wish, perhaps even the colors from your book’s cover. These folders are usually 9x12 and have inside pockets to them. Some even have small slits (four of them) on one pocket that is perfect for your business card (I’m sure business cards were a part of your subsidy package.). Perhaps that contract also gave you postcards and bookmarks. All the better for you if they were included in the printing package.

Your publicity packet needs to include the following—some of which you already have: 1) about the company; 2) author bio; 3) samples of your writing; 4) a condensed version of your book; 5) information about the book to include: a) ISBN; b) where it can be purchased; c) age group for which it is designed; d) sale price for US and Canada; 6) a letter of introduction, i.e., cover letter, and 7) press release. Items 1, 2, 3, 5 should be as short as possible and placed in the left side of the folder. Item 4 is just that: a sample of your book. If it is poetry you are selling, make a booklet of no more than ten poems on 8½x11” paper (fold the paper in half after printing two poems per page on both sides). If your book is any other genre, choose at least enough to have a ten-page booklet. The right side pocket will hold your press release (7), your small booklet (4) and the letter (6) to the reviewer.  Putting a business card in the four slits is optional.

We’ll do the research and put the packet together in the next column. See you then.

George Thompson is a regular contributor to Wicked Wordsmith. He is also a critic for PopSyndicate.com.

 

Strong Charactarizations by George Thompson

For the last several columns, I’ve been discussing what to do to make lead characters in writing stand out by descriptions the author uses to put a mental image of the person in our minds. Here are some good examples of characters that are not only memorable, but jump off the page. You form your own image of each person according to what has been written about the character.

“Christy slipped off her glasses and pushed aside the lank, brown bangs covering her forehead. Only ten in the morning and she was already writing wet…..The thirty-man facility baked in unshaded isolation among countless rows of Thompson Seedless grapevines,….Christy, working at the reception area directly in front of the door, felt the heat shrivel her patience like a raisin.” (from Fools Rush In by Sunny Frazier)

“The watcher pulled his van into the parking lot, left the engine running, and opened a pack of Camels. It was

9:40 p.m.

 The heater warmed him. He inhaled the cigarette, thinking he’d have to quit one of these days. Okay, he thought. This is going to take awhile. Let her enjoy her last supper. The boss would approve.” (from Shadow In The Rain by Harriet Ford)

“Deciding to take his breakfast by the pool,

Marshall

shook out his shaggy brown hair and dragged his slight frame into faded jeans and a denim shirt, which he wore untucked, in defiance of local fashion.” (from Exposure by Kurt Wenzel)

 Through the use of metaphors, similes and other comparisons, the reader is given information about a character in the book and that image remains fixed in our minds until we’ve read the last word at the end of the story. Catch phrases are also great for holding a reader’s attention. Something like “hair like a lion’s mane,” “eyes that could kill,” or “spoke with a lilt in her voice,” are good examples that shape images for us. We are really at the beck and call of the writer whose words can keep us occupied throughout a 300-page novel or make us set it aside for casual reading only.

We must dangle the carrot in front of our readers to keep their attention. After all, they bought our book and we want to make the best impression possible.

George Thompson is a book critic for www.PopSyndicate.com and is a regular contributor to Wicked Wordsmith.

The Right Title

Do you start writing your novel before or after you’ve chosen your title?  Does the title of the book give your novel a different slant?  Do you call it a tentative title and later change it to fit more closely with the content?  I know I did with my novel that is finally under contract.  Starting as I’m STILL a Preacher’s Kid, the story line was to follow my entire life from birth to current age through the three segments my life has encountered.  In fact, that’s the title I first used when talking with my agent.

But after writing a few more chapters about the first third of my life and knowing the second part would be filled with all kinds of “dirt” (when I started sinning), I just had to find a more suitable title, something that would make readers remove it from the shelf and peruse the first several chapters before purchasing it.  I came up with From Christianity to Sin and Back Again, a title my agent assured me would bring me closer to more people wanting to read about my trilogy of life.

I’ve been through bookstore after bookstore in search of something, usually not knowing what, and turned away from thin as well as thick books simply because the title bring did exert an influence on me to pick it up and read a little bit.  I, in fact, found the titles boring.  So, choosing a title for your book is of paramount importance and the title you choose may make your editor or agent sit up and take notice.  Then again, they might ask you to think of something more closely associated with the content of your novel; they do have that right if they want to stay in business.

I recently acquired three books and have set them aside while I think about the titles and which one I want to read first.  Return to Me, Die With Me and Exposure all await my choice for reading first.  Of the three, the most interesting promises to be Die With Me which I intend to start reading as soon as I find the time.  The other two will just have to wait.  This book entices me simply because of the title by a new writer on the scene.  That played a part in wanting to read it first, but the most prevalent reason is its title.  I’ve had the books for two days and cannot get that title out of my head.

Now that my editor/agent/publisher have agreed on the title of my book, I will not change it again unless someone else comes up with an even catchier title than what I’ve proposed.  That title is all important and will be for you also.  Good luck choosing the right one for your endeavor.

George Thompson is a regular contributor to Wicked Wordsmith. He also reviews books for www.PopSyndicate.com.

Directions Duly Noted by George Thompson

It seems to me that locations for a novel are a must and, if used, must be so specific that your readership will know exactly the location you are describing.  That is, they will know for sure if you are using a real city and not a dreamed up fantasy land as you would find in science fiction on some distant planet.

There is a Highway 1 on both coasts of the United States.  You cannot write, “John drive west on Hwy 1 for four miles,” since that highway runs north and south.  Interstates 70 and 80 run east and west.  If you have a chase scene through Washington, DC, you must know which way the streets run and whether they are one way and in which direction.

When I had a talk with mystery writer Doris Miles Disney and told her about the chase scene in my novel, she admonished me that I could not write about a city if I had never been there and explored it.  She warned me that I should not be so specific unless I knew about what I was writing.  I assured her that I had a map of Washington, DC and at the time period of the novel, knew which street was one way north, south, east and west.  I could not have my character get from the Jefferson Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial without driving on three streets.

Very few people realize that the Pentagon is not in Washington, DC, but Alexandria, VA, instead.  Entry to the Pentagon’s parking lots is either from the north or the south.  People are also unaware of the many stores and restaurants located inside the Pentagon just outside the doors into the security-ridden complex and just above the escalators from the subway.  I didn’t know until I made a visit both as a person on a mission while in the military or shortly after being discharged.

In DC itself, the Forrestal Building housed the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and was located one street south of the old brick Smithsonian Building.  The Forrestal Building is now home for the EPA.  The Marine Barracks is just east Capital Hill and Southeast Washington DC is the smallest of the four quadrants that make up the city.  There are more twists and turns in the city than you find in major mystery novels and if you use outside scenery as a backdrop, you must be correct or your readers will correct you.

If your plan is to use the ghetto as a backdrop, you need to know where it is located.  Things have changed since the riots during the 60s.  Old bars and restaurants I used to frequent when I lived in Virginia are no longer present; the national convention center was built in their place between the police station to the east and the bus station to the west.

Things change, so know whereof you write when using directions for a backdrop.  Make that race through downtown streets real for your readers by having the directions correct from the beginning.

George Thompson is a regular contributor to Wicked Wordsmith. You can find his book reviews at www.PopSyndicate.com.

How Much Characterization? by George Thompson

How much should you build your characters in a novel?  Should you take thirty pages to describe you central character as well as his girlfriend or wife if he has one? 

When I worked on my first novel, I really thought I had good characterizations for my male and female leads; publishers did not think so.  I made Felix, the male, to be a milquetoast type while Gina was flamboyant and outgoing.  Felix cared more about which tie he wore when he stood in front of his students at the university where he taught than he did about whether his socks matched.  Gina, on the other hand, was petite yet strong, could carry a conversation with anyone she might meet and the two—rather than clashing—seemed to hit it off from their first meeting which was strictly by chance.

            

Being the son of a preacher, I was rather reluctant to have any intimacy between the leads or even hint there might be something going on between the sheets when they weren’t solving the crisis in which they found themselves involved.   I used a storyboard to keep track of my characters and each time I introduced a new character, I gave only surface hints as to any backgrounds they had.

            

The plot seemed plausible to me at the time I was submitting to one publishing house after another:  abduction of cabinet members and substituting them with clones who answered to a Chinese authority.  Granted, I wanted to tell the story of how Felix got involved in this thriller and that plot stood in the way of building strong characters that would be remembered years after my book was published.  I still have the original manuscript in its original box that I typed more than thirty years ago; it gathers dust in one of my closets.

            

There are many ways in which to develop characters whether you use the direct approach or indirect approach as I call them.  The direct approach is straight on from the outset and centers more around the way the characters looks and acts and less about his or her thinking processes.  The indirect approach is developed either through back stories on the characters or the impression that one character has of the other.  Both can be time consuming because there comes a point when you have actually written more about the character than the plot itself.  You must—to a certain point—live the lives of the characters to make them real.  Their habits, their backgrounds, even the clothes they wear and how they wear them.

            

Could it be as simple as writing, “He looks like Cary Grant or Gary Cooper.”?  “She’s Greta Garbo to a tee.”? There must be something memorable about your characters that make your reader return day after day to finish reading what you’ve carefully penned to paper.   Character flaws or habits are also a good way to introduce and perpetuate characters.  He has a nervous tic; she has a dimple in her chin.  Something declarative and descriptive at the same time.

            

Good luck with your characters.  Make them strong and easy to remember; your characterizations can make the difference between a book that gets put on the back shelf and one that makes the Best Seller list.

Poet and professional critic George Thompson is a regular contributor to Wicked Wordsmith.