Sheila's Guests and Reviews

Some novels are told from a single point of view. Others invite you into lots of different minds and ways of seeing. Some offer a single main protagonist, but open your eyes to things they've failed to see. And still others let the reader float free over a sea of strangers. So... do you prefer books with one protagonist or with many? Or does it depend on the story, or the author, the writing style, the promise fulfilled by story's end? For myself, I've experimented with multiple points of view (in Divide by Zero ), single point of view ( Infinite Sum ), and a single protagonist who doesn't quite see it all (in Subtraction, coming August 1st from Indigo Sea Press ). I read and enjoy books written in many different styles, and I can honestly say I enjoyed all the novels included in today's reviews. So, choose your novel and choose your brew. Please remember the ratings are for the coffee, not for the book (which by no means suggests the coffee's more important...

There's a young adult book I'm really looking forward to reading soon called Untimed --isn't that a perfect title? The cover's pretty intriguing too. And author Andy Gavin's previous book, the Darkening Dream , was very enjoyable ( read my review here .) I'm delighted to welcome author Andy Gavin to my blog today to tell us a little about where the story and characters came from, whether our time, another time or none, but read on and find out. Over to you Andy. Typically, Untimed began from a fusion of ideas. Lingering in my mind for over twenty years was a time travel story about people from the future who fell “downtime” to relive exciting moments in history (until things go wrong). I worked out a time travel system but had no plot or characters. Separately, in 2010, as a break from editing The Darkening Dream , I experimented with new voice techniques, especially first person present. I also read various “competition.” One of these was The Lig...

Author Dawn Colclasure is hosting my Flower Child Blog Tour today with a post on the parallel joys of math and writing http://dawncolclasureblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/mathematical-writer-guest-blog-post-by.html . Meanwhile I'm delighted to host Dawn here in yet another intersecting blog tour. About the author:  Dawn Colclasure is a writer who lives in Oregon. Her articles, essays, poems and short stories have appeared in several newspapers, anthologies, magazines and E-zines. She is the author of seven books, among them BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL: How We Survive as Writing Parents ; 365 TIPS FOR WRITERS: Inspiration, Writing Prompts and Beat The Block Tips to Turbo Charge Your Creativity ; Love is Like a Rainbow: Poems of Love and Devotion and the children’s book The Yellow Rose . She is co-author of the book Totally Scared: The Complete Book on Haunted Houses . Her dark fantasy novel, Shadow of Samhain , is due out in Winter 2011. Her Web site is at http://dmcwriter.tripod.c...

We had a good talk at our writers' group today, about characters in stories and how we might define them, so we can make them consistent and different from each other. Someone mentioned how characters often seem like extensions of the writer--all so similar they start to sound the same. Someone else mentioned characters that change (or creep) to fit the story or the scene; we agreed some change, some surprise, is good, as long as it's not purely arbitrary. Then there are those characters that start off different but all fade into one during editing--I think the ones in the novel I've been working on are doing that, but luckily it's not the novel I've signed a contract on. So many things to watch out for--I'll enjoy using those self-analysis quizzes on the internet to sort things out, but not just yet. For now, I'm taking some time off editing and working on writing instead. I've got a great coupon to use on Lulu, so I've challenged myself to finish...

My husband went to a seminar on writing software specs yesterday. He very kindly brought home his notes to see how they'd apply to fiction-writing. It was kind of fun discussing character and plot as they might appear in computer code. If you write a list of steps to be taken and instructions to be followed, is that a plot-driven story? It's also well-specified software. But what if you know the beginning and end but you're deep in investigation of what's going wrong--like when you're assigned to fix a bug by writing a new algorithm? My husband pointed out you can't specify the path till you know what's wrong. I suggested maybe that's like a character-driven story--you need to know the characters before you can plan the plot. In the end, of course, you still write an organized list--a computer program, a story with beginning middle and end. But maybe even software engineers have to work in different ways at different times, and maybe fixing a bug is like...

Bemoaning the fact that my novella's not going to turn into a novel by the end of the month (why do I set myself such tasks?), I find I'm reading lots of blogs that ask if I keep a diary or write notes . Perhaps the novella would have a better chance if I didn't wander the blogosphere, but that's a different tale. So, no. I don't keep a journal though I tried, many years ago. Somewhere hid away in a box upstairs there are lots of scarcely used diaries; I don't think there's much of a second hand market for them. January usually has a few entries. February less. There might be a shopping list or two in March, and some notes - yes, yes! I sometimes write notes - tucked in pages in June or July. The notes will be scraps of poetry, or a five-line story, a character study or two, written on a bus, or from a chair in a doctor's waiting room. As notes go, they weren't very effective, lost in a diary, lost in a long-lost cardboard box. But my theory is, and...

I wanted my characters to talk to me. I wanted the end to be more than just six letters on a page. But perhaps I should be more careful what I wish for. There I was, imagining my book was almost done. But now the wedding seems as distant as it was at the beginning, and my characters keep talking, everyone at once. David wants me to know he's not giving up on Emily. But he has to have some time to think, so he can work out what's best for her. Emily wishes I'd tell her what's on David's mind, because Elsie's not really so bad, and he really shouldn't worry. Meanwhile, I know he's glad he gave her the ring. I know they'll get married in the end. But wasn't that meant to be soon... I guess it can't happen now until I get some more free time for writing. But never mind. I'm quite enjoying their conversation.

I’ve just finished reading the second Claire Hanover mystery, and I’d have to say Beth Groundwater’s main character is another one strong enough to my interest through a series. Claire, of course, is a very different character from Sam Acquillo or Gus LeGarde . For a start, she’s a woman. Plus, while enormously resourceful, she really doesn’t have the kind of background or physical strength to be an action hero. But she does have lots of character, or chutzpah, as one of her friends has been known to say. Claire has the confidence to believe what she sees and to tell it like she sees it. Just because no one else saw the ski tracks doesn’t mean they’re not there. Just because no one else sees the danger doesn’t mean she shouldn’t protect her daughter. Just because… So she walks into police stations and describes exactly the sort of details that someone unaccustomed to such places would notice—the presence or absence of family photographs, the pictures on the walls… She walks into a ni...

Another series I’ve recently started reading is the Gus LeGarde mysteries by Aaron Paul Lazar. I’ve sort of started at the “wrong” end with them, having just read an advance copy of Mazurka which doesn’t come out until August, but I’m already hooked. Gus LeGarde is a very different character from Sam Acquillo . If I saw Gus in a coffee shop he’d probably be reading a fascinating book or magazine, or talking music with a friend. He’d be kind, polite and moderately sociable. And I’d feel safe if he were to nod and smile at me. Gus lives in a beautiful house with land and views, and has a fascinating family. He travels to France in Mazurka and I love sharing the trip. I know Gus has had his dark times, but I don’t get the feeling that he ever sets out to make trouble. It’s not just the background of the characters that’s different. Gus is much more open about himself than Sam Acquillo, who seems always on his guard. Aaron Lazar writes generous passages about Gus’s past, answering his r...

I read two thrillers recently. One was un-put-downable, even when I was only halfway through, while the other, though I was definitely interested, was easy enough to leave for the next day’s reading till I got near the end. For myself, I’d like to write so the reader is hooked all through the book. So I found myself trying to analyze what the two authors had done differently. Both books were thrillers. Both involved somewhat unlikely premises about the characters that required me to temporarily suspend disbelief. In one case, I wondered how the author would make the premise more plausible. In the other, the information that worried me was just background to the character. So perhaps I should learn to make sure that any special features feed more directly into plots. Both books included flashbacks and background information on the characters. The character studies in the slower book were fascinating, but often answered questions I hadn’t thought to ask, or not yet anyway. The other stor...