A Closer Look at the Writing Process

A few days ago, I was asked by mystery writing colleague, David Russell, to take part in a blog tour that focuses on the writing process. The arrangement is that I answer four questions about writing, then introduce you to three other writers who will do the same. Unfortunately, I found only two who were available this week, but they’re terrific people. So, here we go:

#1) What Am I Currently Working on?

Right now, I’m editing a mystery novella and the sixth installment in my Casey Holland series. I’ve been writing the series for years and while I enjoy spending time with Casey, I’m also becoming eager to work on other things. I’ve been making notes for a fantasy novel which I hope to start writing this year. It has the potential to turn into a series but making time for it is my biggest challenge.

#2) How Does My Work Differ From Others of Its Genre?

Like most writers, I weave my background and experiences into my stories, so in that sense everyone’s story is unique. I have a college diploma in criminology, which might not be terribly unusual for a mystery writer. But what is different is that I became a security officer at age 53, for a couple of years, partly because I wanted to do something different but also because my protagonist works in this field. The training Casey would need is the same type of training I took with the Justice Institute of British Columbia. I worked on a  post-secondary campus but all of the courses, including conflict resolution and supervisory skills, proved to be useful research for the novels.

#3) Why Do I Write What I Do?

This is a tough question and I wound up with two answers. I write what I do because I’ve loved reading mysteries since my Nancy Drew days starting at around age ten. Mysteries make me rapidly turn the pages to find out what happens next, and justice is always served. The second reason evolves out of my studies of crime and criminal behavior. For a long time, I’ve tried to understand why people do the things they do, to try to make sense of senseless behavior. Writing about criminal behavior allows me to explore the question that matters most to me….Why?

#4) How Does My Writing Process Work?

Since returning to full-time employment (now clerical work at a university) eight months ago, my writing process has changed drastically. Although I still write (most of it is editing) every day, I write much less than I was a year ago. I get ready for work as fast as possible, to arrive early enough to write for a half hour before I start my day job. I spent another half hour during my lunch break. By the end of my work week, I’ve put in a solid five hours of writing. At night, I’m often too tired to edit, so I work on a blog or book review. By Saturday morning, I’m up early and bouncing back and forth between more editing and errands, and housework. For the moment, it works although I’m usually exhausted by Friday nights. 

Now, I’d like to introduce you to the two great authors who'll be exploring these same questions. Please visit their blogs!

First is Leanne Dyck, a truly nice person I’ve had to privilege of meeting at writing events over the years. Within the last five years, Leanne has been published in Island Writer, Kaleidoscope, Canadian Stories, Icelandic Connection and Island Gals magazines. Leanne's self-named blog (Leanne Dyck's blog), which she created on October 10, 2010, currently has over 220,000 page views. Leanne is one of the finalists in the Women On Writing Winter 2014 Flash Fiction Contest. Leanne lives with her husband on a remote island off British Columbia's mainland. To follow Leanne's author journey and meet other publishing industry professionals, please visit her blog (http://sweatercursed.blogspot.ca)

Second is my co-contributor on our Writetype blog, Pat Bertram. Pat is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” All Pat's books are published by Second Wind Publishing. Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook. Her blog is http://ptbertram.wordpress.com

Have fun!

How Do I Write? Let Me Count the Ways

Okay, I admit it: I am a closet pencilphile. Seems silly, I know, in this electronic age, but I write in pencil on loose-leaf paper. There. I’ve outed myself. I feel so much better now.

I am not being contrary. I do have reasons. I have a better mind/writing connection using pencil and paper than I have with a keyboard; a mechanical pencil is easier on my fingers than pen, and paper is easier on my eyes than a computer screen.

(The above photo is the handwritten copy of A Spark of Heavenly Fire.)

For me, fiction writing is largely a matter of thinking, of trying to see the situation, of figuring out the right word or phrase that puts me where I need to be so the words can flow. I can do this better in bed, clipboard propped against my knees or on a pillow than sitting at a desk. If, as Mel Gibson said, “A movie is like public dreaming,” then novels are like shared dreaming, and where better to dream than in a comfortable bed?

I don’t know the entire story before I writing, but I do know the beginning, the end, and some of the middle. That way I can have it both ways: planning the book and making room for surprises.

I need to know a bit about the hero, but most of the time I get to know the characters the same way a reader would — by the way the characters act. In my work-in-progress, I thought I had a mother who was manipulative, but a reader pointed out that if that’s what I wanted, I needed to show it better. I reread the sections with the mother and decided not to impose my will on her. Although she drove her son crazy, I saw her in the rereading as sad, as if she were trying to find a way to fit in the world or make it fit her, and that was much better for purposes of the story.

I need to write the story in the order it happens — it’s more satisfying for my logical mind and easier to keep track of — but if I get to a place where I know something happens without knowing what, I will skip it and go back later when I know what is missing.

So, there you have it. That’s how I write.

What about you? How do you write? Do you have a favorite place or a place that puts you in the proper frame of mind? Do you write from start to finish, or like Margaret Mitchell, do you start with the last chapter and work forward? Do you have to search for the words?

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, andDaughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.”

Rubicon Ranch: Necropieces -- The Story Continues

Rubicon Ranch is a collaborative and innovative crime series set in the desert community of Rubicon Ranch and is being written online by the authors of Second Wind Publishing. Seven authors, including me, are involved in the current story — Rubicon Ranch: Necropieces.

Residents of Rubicon Ranch are finding body parts scattered all over the desert. Who was the victim and why did someone want him so very dead? Everyone in this upscale housing development is hiding something. Everyone has an agenda.

Everyone’s life will be different after they have encountered the Rubicon. Rubicon Ranch, that is.

Although some of the characters were introduced in Rubicon Ranch: Riley’s Story, a previous collaboration, Rubicon Ranch: Necropieces is a stand-alone novel.

We hope you will enjoy seeing the story develop as we write it. Let the mystery begin! Whodunit? No one knows, not even the writers, and we won’t know until the very end!

Chapter 9: Melanie Gray
by Pat Bertram

Melanie locked the front door of the house and turned around to face the day. It was clear and warm with a platinum sun shining in an azure sky. She felt her spirits rise. With such lovely weather, things couldn’t be as bad as they seemed. She marched down the driveway, and her spirits plummeted as fast as they had risen. The sheriff’s tan Navigator, like a brooding predator, loomed in the driveway of the Sinclair house next door.

Melanie had tried to forget Sheriff Seth Bryan and the conflicted feelings he had aroused in her, but apparently she hadn’t succeeded. She could feel the emotions rushing back to fill the emptiness inside her. She still couldn’t tell if she’d felt more drawn to him or more repelled by him. With any luck, she’d never have to explore those feelings. As soon as he finished his business and left the area, she could forget him again.

She heard the sound of his voice, though not his words, and for a moment she considered dashing back into the house to avoid any encounter with him, but then she realized the truth. The sheriff had no interest in her. It had been almost three months since she’d last seen him, and in all that time, he had made no effort to contact her.

She lifted her chin. She didn’t need him or any man. They were all worthless creatures who had no regard for anyone but themselves.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to see what he was up to.

She took a few steps forward so she could see the front door of the Sinclair house. The sheriff looked the same as he always had. Jeans and a white shirt with a badge on the shoulder clothed his lean, flat-bellied body, and a navy blue ball cap with a yellow “Sheriff” embroidered on it covered most of his dark brown hair. And he still wore those ridiculous mirrored sunglasses.

The sheriff and Moody seemed to be standing closer together than politeness dictated. Could something be going on between the two of them? Movement in the passenger seat of the Navigator caught her attention. Deputy Midget. If the sheriff intended anything shady, surely he wouldn’t bring a deputy along to witness his behavior? Then this must be an official visit.

Moody looked okay — happy, even. It had been very quiet the last week or so without “The Sounds of Silence” blaring at all hours, and she’d probably been enjoying herself in Morris’s absence.
The sheriff starting walking toward his vehicle. Melanie squatted to retie a shoelace, hoping he wouldn’t catch sight of her. She might have the courage not to seek refuge in the house, but she had nothing to say to him.

When she heard the sheriff’s Navigator slowly moving down the street, she squelched a pang of disappointment. As annoying as his attentions were, at least they had reminded her she was alive.
She’d been living with the dead — or rather memories of the dead—for way too long.

She arose with only the slight aid of one hand to push her erect, and angled her steps to the right of her driveway, intending to head up Delano Road to the desert. She paused, took two steps to the left.

The Daily Indecision is how she’d come to think of this inability to act. “Sounds like a newspaper,” she said aloud. “They’d print both sides of every story since the editor would be unable to decide which view to stand behind. Or maybe the paper would be blank because they’d never be able to decide which stories were newsworthy. And since when do you talk to yourself?”

Since Alexander died. She often wandered in the desert, trying to understand her husband’s death and her grief, and she’d gotten in the habit of talking aloud to him, hoping he could help make sense of her chaotic thoughts. He never responded. But then, he’d seldom replied even before he died.

When had their relationship become all about him? And why hadn’t she noticed the change? She sighed. Probably because she’d spent so much time online doing research for the coffee table books she and Alexander wrote. Well, she wrote. He took the photos. After his death, she discovered he’d somehow squandered the advance for the book about the Mojave Desert they’d contracted for, so now she needed to take the photographs in addition to writing the text. She thought she’d become good at shooting photos, but just this morning she’d received an email from her publisher:
“Some of your photos are usable, but most are uninspired. You take photographs, but the great photographers, like Alexander, make photographs. And when they make photographs, they make love. We feel the empathy between the external and internal events.”

Whatever that meant.

“What it means,” she said aloud, “is that you have work to do.” She took five resolute steps up Delano Road, then stopped. She could see Eloy Franklin hunched on his porch like a land-locked amphibian, watching everything that went on in his vicinity.

After all the turmoil the neighborhood had gone through recently, after all the deaths, she thought that things would have changed, but there Eloy sat, as unapproachable and forbidding as always. She’d smiled at him a couple of times when she passed in front of his house, but he’d never acknowledged her efforts at friendliness by so much as a nod.

Unable to stand the thought of Eloy’s scrutiny, she turned left. The sheriff’s navigator hadn’t gotten far, only a few houses away. The vehicle still moved slowly, as if the sheriff were looking for something. Trying to see the neighborhood through his eyes, Melanie peered down Delano Road. A petit woman held a camera to her face, either taking photographs or hiding behind it. Did Sheriff Bryan think the woman was Melanie? Melanie smiled to herself. Whatever faults the man might have, mistaking one woman for another was not one of them. Melanie had seen the woman several times before; she was shorter, prettier, and younger than Melanie, and had the clear luminous complexion of someone with a mixed race heritage.

Beyond the woman, a skinny man lurched along the side of the road. Melanie had also seen him several times before, and he worried her. Anger seemed to crackle around him, like lightning right before it strikes.

The Navigator’s siren blared, and the vehicle shot down the street and tore around the corner onto Tehachapi Road, heading east.

A dark cloud seemed to lift from the neighborhood, and Melanie’s indecision disappeared. She turned right, past Moody’s house, past the strange no-man’s land that separated the Sinclair land from the Franklin land, past Eloy’s house.

The wilderness beckoned.

* * *

Melanie stood at the crest of knoll and surveyed the expanse of desert. Somewhere out there, midst the creosote bushes and cacti, a photograph she could make waited for her — an image so compelling, viewers would immediately sense her empathy with the subject.

But how did one get emotionally connected to something as vast and as alien as the Mojave Desert? Then she remembered Alexander saying he looked for a significant detail. By focusing on a single feature, by making it the heart of the photo, the rest of the scene came into focus.

Crap. I’ll never get the hang of photography. Damn you, Alexander, for putting me through this.
She heard a sound closing in on her from behind, a leisurely whup . . . whup . . . whup. She turned and froze, transfixed by the raven gliding by. It flew so close she could see the brown pupil of its bright black eye and the purple and blue sheen of its feathers. She’d never seen such a huge bird—the body looked bigger than a cat, and its wings spanned at least three feet, maybe four. For a moment, it seemed to hang motionless, then a graceful wing beat stirred the air and propelled it forward.

Melanie fumbled with her camera, almost in tears. She’d had a perfect opportunity to make a photograph, but she’d become so lost in the moment, she’d forgotten all about taking a picture. Alexander wouldn’t have forgotten. His camera had been an extension of his hands, his eyes. He never let anything get between him and an image he wanted to capture. Not even Melanie. Especially not Melanie.

Then she heard it behind her again, the whup . . . whup of wing beats. And this time she held her camera ready. As the second raven passed her, she caught the image. Joy burst inside her.

I did it!

Only then did it strike her as odd that the two ravens had been so focused on their goal that they hadn’t seemed to notice how close they’d been to her.

The first raven had already disappeared, but she watched the second one descend behind a rocky outcrop thirty feet away.

She followed a barely perceptible track through the scrub to where six or seven ravens pecked at what looked to be the carcass of a small animal. A rabbit, maybe. Thinking how wonderfully the image of this raw savagery would contrast with the majesty of the flying raven photo, she crept closer. And gagged.

The ravens weren’t feeding on a rabbit, but something oddly familiar and totally out of place.

* * *

Melanie waited for Sheriff Bryan and Deputy Midget to pick their way up the rock-strewn path to the top of the hill. The sun glinted off the sheriff’s mirrored sunglasses, making him appear soulless.

When he drew near, Sheriff Bryan grunted. “I wish you’d stop finding bodies in such out of the way locations.”

“I didn’t find a body. I found . . .” She swept out a hand, showing the track and which direction he should travel.

The sheriff furrowed his brow at her, then followed the track. Deputy Midget trailed after him. Melanie brought up the rear.

Sheriff Bryan stopped by the outcropping. “A boot? You called me here to see crows playing with an old bloody boot? You must really be desperate to talk to me.”

“Desperate?” Melanie stared at him, the heat of anger flushing through her body. “Are you really so self-absorbed that you think I called you here on a pretext? I didn’t call you. I called dispatch and told them exactly what I found. It’s not a pretext, and they’re not crows. They are ravens.”

The sheriff and his deputy exchanged shrugs, then proceeded forward. The ravens squawked, rose as one, and circled above them, as if protecting their treasure.

Sheriff Bryan squatted, then whipped his head around, lips drawn back in a rictus, and faced Melanie. “A foot? That’s what you found, a foot?”

Midget took a step back. “It looks like something out of Morris Sinclair’s books.”

“Necropieces,” Bryan said, turning back to the foot.

“So where’s the body?” Midget asked.

“Maybe there isn’t one. Someone could have been illegally dumping medical waste.” Bryan rose and loomed over Melanie. “What do you know about this?”

She studied him for a moment, wondering what was going on behind those sunglasses. “Are you accusing me of something?”

The sheriff cocked his head like a raven getting ready to peck at its prey. “The person who calls in a report is always suspect.”

Rubicon Ranch: A Collaborative Novel

I am involved in a wonderful project with eight other Second Wind authors. Rubicon Ranch is an ongoing collaborative novel that we are writing online. It is the story of people whose lives have been changed when a little girl's body was found in the wilderness near the desert community of Rubicon Ranch. Was her death an accident? Or . . . murder! But who would want to kill a child? Everyone in this upscale housing development is hiding something. Everyone has an agenda. Everyone’s life will be different after they have encountered the Rubicon. Rubicon Ranch, that is.

Each of us writers is responsible for the development of our own characters. My character is Melanie Gray. She has traveled the world with her husband, a world-renowned photographer. Together they authored many coffee-table books (she did the writing, he the photographs). One of the books told about mountains of the world, one about rivers, one about oceans, one about forests, and now they have a contract to do deserts. After they rented a house in Rubicon Ranch to begin their in-depth study of the southwestern deserts, he died in a car accident.

Now, not only does Melanie have to deal with the pain of losing her husband and figuring out what she’s going to do for the rest of her life, she needs to fulfill the publishing contract or she’ll have to reimburse the publishers, which she cannot do because the advance is all but spent. Since she is not a photographer, she roams the desert bordering on Rubicon Ranch, taking hundreds of photos, hoping that a few of them will accidentally end up being as brilliant as her husband’s photos always were. She finds the child’s body and takes photos of the scene after calling 911. At first she is a suspect but once the Sheriff has ruled her out, he requests her help in reading the desert and desert-related clues. Still, the sheriff does not trust her completely, thinking she is hiding something.

Chapter 26: Melanie Gray -- by Pat Bertram

Fury, like wildfire flashed through Melanie. Fury at the sheriff for paying his silly games when people were dead, fury at herself for playing his fool.

She’d been flattered that he thought she could help with his investigation, but apparently the only thing he’d been investigating was her and how to get in her panties. And she’d fallen for it. Cripes, what an idiot! All her resolve not to let him get to her had been for nothing.

And that whole seduction scene—”So maybe, when I need you to help me, I won’t have to bully you. You’ll cooperate with me because you understand that getting my job done honestly is the most important thing to me.” Did he believe his own drivel? And anyway, how could she help when he wasn’t doing anything? It had been two days since Riley died. Didn’t they say that if they didn’t catch a killer within the first forty-eight hours that chances are he or she would never be caught? And the sheriff had wasted those precious hours trying to seduce her.

She’d fallen for Alexander’s crap and apparently she hadn’t learned anything, because here she was again, playing straight-woman for another unprincipled clown. Alexander, at least, had offered her adventure and marriage, and for a while he had even been faithful. But Seth? What did he have to offer? Nothing. He was married, and he was a taker. He’d take everything she had, which wasn’t much, just her integrity, and she’d be damned before she let him tarnish that with a tawdry affair. She’d seen the look in his eyes when he’d said “And I know you’d rather claw out my eyes and slash my throat than let me touch you.” And that look had belied his words. He seemed to think all he had to do was pretend to know her and she’d fall into his oh, so understanding arms.

“What?” he said, sounding as if he didn’t know exactly what was going through her mind. How could he not? He, Sheriff Seth Bryan, the great detective.

“As if you don’t know.” Melanie spit the words from between clenched teeth.

Seth’s brows drew together in an almost believable though comic look of confusion. “That’s such a typical womanish remark. I thought you were different.”

“You thought I was gullible and naïve. You thought since I put up with Alexander’s philandering, I’d put up with yours, too, but that is not going to happen. Only a fool gets involved with a married man, and whatever you think, I am no fool.”

Seth held up his hands, palms toward her. “Whoa.”

“Being a widow does not make me ripe for the plucking. I don’t need to be serviced like a bitch in heat. Believe me, the last thing I need in my life is a man, especially a married man. Calling it separate maintenance does not make you any less married.”

He flashed his teeth. “So you do like me. You’re protesting too much.”

“Not protesting enough, apparently, or else you wouldn’t have that silly grin on your face.”

He lost the grin. “What’s going on here? I thought we were having a nice meal while we went over the case.”

“You should be going over the case with your deputies. They, at least, seem to understand how inappropriate it is for you to include me in your investigation. Unless I’m still a suspect and you’re trying to get me to let down my guard and confess?”

“I told you, you were never a suspect.”

“As if playing with me, gigging me as you called it, is any better. So let’s discuss the case. What were the results of the autopsy? Was Riley murdered or was it an accident? If she was murdered, how was it done and who did it? Were there drugs in her system? Have you interrogated her parents yet to find out what they’re hiding? Have you found out who the dead man is and what, if anything, he has to do with Riley’s murder? You pretty much ignored me when I said he looked liked Riley, but then, that’s understandable. I never got a good look at the girl. All I saw was her jaw line, her nose, and her eyebrows, so whatever I blurted out after seeing the man’s corpse has to be discounted. Did the same person kill both of them? Or were there two different killers? Or . . .” Melanie paused to grab the thought that flitted through her mind. “Did he kill Riley and someone else kill him?”

Seth picked up his sandwich, dipped an end in the au jus, bit off a piece, and chewed slowly.

Melanie nodded. “That’s what I thought. You’re all talk.” She deepened her voice and mimicked him. “‘We have to solve these murders.’ Yeah, like there really is a we. Well, there was a we, but that was Alexander and me. You and I will never be a we.” A cough shuddered through her torso. She took a long drink of water, hoping she wasn’t coming down with a cold but was merely dehydrated from the strong air-conditioning and her rare monologue.

Seth gave her a searching look, opened his mouth and then closed it again with what sounded like a resigned sigh. She wondered what he’d been going to say and why he thought better of it, then she let out a sigh of her own. It didn’t matter. She had enough to do with grieving and fulfilling her book contract. She had nothing left for the sheriff and his investigation. Whatever he might think, she really didn’t know anything. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. She did know one thing.

She threw her napkin on the table and stood, ready to flee.

Seth gaped at her. “What’s going on?”

“I’m going home, Sheriff Seth Bryan. I’m through with your games. You lied about investigating Alexander’s accident. I saw the photos in the newspaper and I visited the scene of the accident. There was nothing there to indicate that the crash had been anything other than an accident. Perhaps someone had tampered with the car, but the only way to find that out was to investigate the vehicle itself. And you didn’t care enough to check it out.”

***

An additional chapter of the book will be posted every Monday. Please join in the adventure — it should be fun! We don't even know whodunit and won’t know until the end. You can find the earlier chapters here: Rubicon Ranch

"A Spark of Heavenly Fire" Embodies the Essence of Christmas

Washington Irving wrote: “There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.” As I read these words several years ago, I could see her, a drab woman, defeated by life, dragging herself through her days in the normal world, but in an abnormal world of strife and danger, she would come alive and inspire others. And so Kate Cummings, the hero of my novel A Spark of Heavenly Fire was born. But born into what world?

I didn’t want to write a book about war, which is a common setting for such a character-driven story, so I created the red death, an unstoppable, bio-engineered disease that ravages Colorado. Martial law is declared, rationing is put into effect, and the entire state is quarantined. During this time when so many are dying, Kate comes alive and gradually pulls others into her sphere of kindness and generosity. First enters Dee Allenby, another woman defeated by normal life, then enter the homeless --- the group hardest hit by the militated restrictions. Finally, enters Greg Pullman, a movie-star-handsome reporter who is determined to find out who created the red death and why they did it.

Kate and her friends build a new world, a new normal, to help one another survive, but other characters, such as Jeremy King, a world-class actor who gets caught in the quarantine, and Pippi O’Brien, a local weather girl, think of only of their own survival, and they are determined to leave the state even if it kills them.

The world of the red death brings out the worst in some characters while bringing out the best in others. Most of all, the prism of death and survival reflects what each values most. Kate values love. Dee values purpose. Greg values truth. Jeremy values freedom. Pippi, who values nothing, learns to value herself.

Though this book has been classified by some readers as a thriller --- and there are plenty of thrills and lots of danger --- A Spark of Heavenly Fire is fundamentally a Christmas book. The story begins on December 2, builds to a climax on Christmas, and ends with renewal in the Spring. There are no Santas, no elves, no shopping malls or presents, nothing that resembles a Christmas card holiday, but the story --- especially Kate’s story --- embodies the essence of Christmas: generosity of spirit.

(Why does A Spark of Heavenly Fire begin on December 2 instead of December 1? Glad you asked that. All through the writing of the book, I kept thinking: if only people could get through the first fifty pages, I know they will like this book. So finally came my duh moment. Get rid of the first fifty pages!! With all the deletions and rewriting, I couldn’t make the story start on December 1 as I’d originally intended, but that’s okay since it didn’t end on December 25 as I had hoped. The story overgrew it’s bounds, but the symbolism still held since it ends around Easter.)

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Spark-Heavenly-Fire-Pat-Bertram/dp/1935171232/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_4

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1842 (You can download the book in any ebook format, including a format for palm held reading devices!! Even better, you can download 30% absolutely free to see if you like the story.)

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/spark-of-heavenly-fire-pat-bertram/1100632312?ean=9781935171232&itm=2&usri=pat+bertram

Book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxrHuv1a2mo

Whose Story Is It?

Every story is someone’s story. Whether we are writing about war, child abuse, romance, murder, or any other topic, we must make readers care about a character. Readers want someone to root for, to bond with, to love. Once they have found that, they will be eager to read further.

One of the hardest things for some of us writers is to decide whose story we are writing. We create a lot of characters while writing our novels, and we fall in love with all of them, even the villains. We feel disloyal to our creations if we give one character more consideration than others, and we believe the story needs all those points of view. Perhaps it does. But the reader doesn’t know that. All the reader knows is what is on the page, not what is in our minds, and all those equally significant characters become confusing. Readers need to know whose story it is. Or whose story it mostly is.

One way for us to decide this is to figure out which character has the most at stake, which one will change the most. If we are lucky, the two will be the same, and we will know whose story it is. If not, we have to make the character who will change the most into the main story character while upping that character’s stakes.

A character with nothing to lose is not one people will care about. If someone in the story parachutes out of a plane for fun, readers might find it entertaining, but they won’t be concerned. But if someone wearing a faulty parachute jumps out of a plane into flames to save a child lost in the middle of a forest fire, everyone except the most curmudgeonly will care.

The same is true of character growth. A character who remains static, who learns nothing from experience, is not someone readers can love. A story is always about change, and since a story is also about a character, that character should grow. A timid character could learn to stand up for himself. An arrogant character could learn a touch of humility. The essence of the character does not need to change. A timid reporter who turns into superman is the stuff of comic books, not a realistic novel. But a character who grows, who learns, who comes back from his or her experiences with something to share, that is a character readers care about.

And that’s whose story it is.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I.

Announcing the Birth of Light Bringer!

It's been twice nine months since Light Bringer was accepted for publication, but it has finally arrived!! Born on March 27, 2011, it weighs a mere one pound, and is 8.5 inches tall. Small for a human baby, but just the right size for a newborn book. I counted all it's Ts and Os, and am pleased to announce they are all there. (One defect did show up, a tiny beauty mark, or rather a lack of one -- for some reason, a period was left off on a sentence at the end of a chapter, and all the book's midwives failed to notice). Still, the newborn is beautiful, and when it has been out in the world for a while, perhaps it will make its mark. It was created out of love, and no matter what its destiny, I am proud of my newborn.

If you would like a chance at winning an ebook of Light Bringer, go to the launch party on the Second Wind blog and tell them you would like to read the book. Leave your comment at: New Release Launch Party.

Click here to read the first chapter of: Light Bringer

Click here to read the back cover copy and an excerpt: Light Bringer

Click here to buy: Light Bringer

Light Bringer is also available from Amazon and Smashwords.

A Possibility of Something Wonderful

I have never seen the point of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I always figured that those who wanted to write wrote and those who didn’t write didn’t really want to. I used to be in the first category, and gradually slipped into the second. After the past couple of years of editing, promoting my books, and blogging, I lost the habit of novel writing. Apparently, I don’t really want to write the books I want to write, otherwise I would have been writing them.

Thinking that perhaps there is a book I want to write that I don’t know I want to write, I signed up for NaNo. The theory is that if you churn out the words without worrying about what you are writing, perhaps “you’ll start surprising yourself with a great bit of dialogue here and an ingenious plot twist there. Characters will start doing things you never expected, taking the story places you’d never imagined. There will be much execrable prose, yes. But amidst the crap, there will be beauty. A lot of it.” At least that’s what the NaNo people say.

I’ve always been a slow writer -- never been able to write 1,000 words in a day let alone the 1,670 words I’ll need to write to achieve my goal. The last time I tried writing for word count rather than content, I talked to my hero but didn’t add a single word to my poor work-in-pause. (see Pat Bertram Introduces Chip, the Hero of Her Work-in-Pause, a Whimsically Ironic Apocalyptic Novel (Part I) and Pat Bertram Introduces Chip, the Hero of her Work-in-Pause, a Whimsically Ironic Apocalyptic Novel (Part II))

I won’t be adding to an existing book this time. (The above mentioned WIP is still paused.) I’ll be trying to write from scratch, following any idea no matter how silly, since there won’t be time to think of alternatives. The way I figure, I haven’t a thing to lose since I haven’t been writing anyway. At the very least, by doing NaNo, I will get into the habit of writing again. I’ll probably have fodder for several blog posts. But possibly, just possibly, I’ll come up with something wonderful.

Everything in Service to the Story

I’ve been retyping some of the outtakes from A Spark of Heavenly Fire. These are the scenes I deleted from the book (and apparently also deleted from my computer, hence the retyping). Since the story takes place in December, and this is December (as if you didn’t know) I thought I would celebrate by posting those scenes on my blog.

I expected to be embarrassed by my puerile writing, but some of the deleted work was surprisingly good. The scenes were nicely set up, fairly well written, and advanced the plot, but unfortunately they did not serve the overall story.

One of the hardest lessons I had to learn while writing is that everything in a novel is in service to the story. Nothing stands alone -- not the writing, not the characters, not the plot, not the individual scenes. Perhaps what I’m talking about is balance and flow. If a good scene stops the flow, it’s not a good scene. If a minor character is so weighty that he overbalances the hero, his scenes need to be restricted. A couple of the scenes worked quite well to show the onset of martial law in quarantined Denver, but they were from the standpoint of Jeremy King, the hero of the secondary story. Kate was supposed to be the driving force of the book, and she barely showed up in the first fifty pages. So poor Jeremy had to go.

If you’d like to see my outtakes, you can find them here:
A Spark of Heavenly Fire Outtake #1
A Spark of Heavenly Fire Outtake #2
A Spark of Heavenly Fire Outtake #3
A Spark of Heavenly Fire Outtake #4
A Spark of Heavenly Fire Outtake #5
A Spark of Heavenly Fire Outtake #6

Pat Bertram is also the author of More Deaths Than One and Daughter Am I.

Daughter Am I Blog Tour 2009 Update

Day nine of the Daughter Am I blog tour, and I am still going strong. I actually went to bed before midnight last night, and I’m a bit more rested. Good thing -- there is a lot going on today! First, check out “After the Writing Comes the Work.” Great discussion going on at that unscheduled tour stop, and a wonderful compliment about Daughter Am I.

Next, check out “How Best To Procrastinate” on Claire Collins’s blog. It was actually yesterday’s tour stop, but I kept finding other things to do and never got around to telling you about it. (Procrastination humor. Trite, but still amusing. I hope.)

Claire is a guest on my blog talking about “Welcome to the Business of Writing”, and the importance of a mission statement. Mine is: “It is my mission to become so well-known that a traditional publisher will offer me an obscenely large advance. I will turn down the advance because I’d like to show that there is value in being published by a small independent publisher, and because the resulting publicity could be worth more than the publishing contract.” Did you notice that it says nothing about writing? Hmmm.

One of these days I really do have to work on my poor stalled WIP. I’m thinking of doing WriMo -- my own slimmed down version of NaNoWriMo. Instead of National Novel Writing Month, I might do simply a Writing Month. Perhaps try to write a sentence or two each day in November to get back into the habit of writing. I did sign up for NaBloWriMo (National Blog Writing Month) and NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). Since I’ve already contracted to do a blog post every day for the first three weeks in November because of my blog tour, all I need to do is to finish out the month and I win. Win what? you might ask. Nothing, of course. It’s the challenge that counts.

But I am digressing.

Today I am again visiting Joylene Nowell Butler in Cluculz, this time for an interview. I am at Untreed Reads talking about my Rites of Passage as an author. And I am trick-or-treating at the Second Wind blog.

This is turning into an international tour. I’m in Canada today and Wednesday, in Florida tomorrow, and in Australia on Thursday. In the middle of November, I’ll be in South Africa. You gotta love the Internet!

Today’s schedule recapped:

After the Writing Comes the Work
How Best to Procrastinate
Welcome to the Business of Writing
Interview at Cluculz
Rites of Passage
Trick or Treat! Let the Game Begin!

Have fun. I intend to.



Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

Dialogue with Pat Bertram

The Internet is such a wonderful place. Today, day five of my blog tour, I am in Florida with author Nancy J. Cohen talking about dialogue. Virtually speaking, that is. Physically, I am in Colorado, listening to leaves falling like rain. In Florida, it's a sunny day at the beach. At least I hope it is. I sure would hate to get caught in a hurricane while I'm visiting!

Yesterday someone commented that a virtual book tour seemed like a lot of work and asked if I would do it again. My first inclination was to say, "No way!" It's too much work for such seemingly meager results, yet I am meeting people out of my normal circle of connections, which is always a good thing. I am getting to talk about my books, which is fun. And it's a challenge, not just setting up the book tour, writing the articles, and promoting the tour, but figuring out how to make the same basic comment a hundred times and yet make each time seem fresh and new. So, would I do it again? I don't know. Ask me in six months when my next novel Light Bringer comes out. My goal (silly me!) is to be so well known by then that the book will just fly out of Amazon's warehouse as soon as I announce its publication. It could happen. And oh, by the way, I just bought London bridge. :)

So, please join me in Florida to dialogue about dialogue at: Nancy J. Cohen's Notes from Florida

Don't forget, my books are available in all ebook formats at Smashwords. Even better, you can download the first 30% of each book free. And speaking of free downloads, stop by Second Wind Publishing for a free sampler or two. One sampler includes the first chapters of all Second Wind's romances, the other sampler includes the first chapters of all Second Wind's mystery, adventure, maitstream novels. The first chapter of A Spark of Heavenly, More Deaths Than One, and Daughter Am I are in the Mystery Sampler.

Snow White and the Seven Old Fogies

Mary stared open-mouthed into the hole in the wall. Instead of the dining room, which should have been on the other side of the wall, there was a windowless room not much bigger than a walk-in-closet.

"A secret room," she breathed. "It's like something out of Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys."

That brief excerpt from Daughter Am I has nothing to do with my blog today. It's a clue for a Halloween contest at the Second Wind Blog starting on October 26. I hope you will play. It should be an interesting game.

What I really wanted to talk about today is time. Or rather the lack of it.

In August, when Second Wind Publishing celebrated its first birthday, Mike Simpson wrote an article called: Ten Lessons I Learned (The Hard Way): A Publisher’s Reflections on the First Year. Number five on the list was: "Everything takes longer than you think." He was referring to publishing, but that line has stuck with me the past two months because everything takes longer than you think. Or at least, in my case, it takes longer than I think it should. I had hoped to be further along in my preparations for the Daughter Am I blog tour, but . . . yep, everything takes longer than the time I've allotted. I worked on an interview last night, which should have been easy. Ten questions about my books. That was it. Yet it took me three hours. (I'll let you know when it's posted. Try to stop me!)

Today's guest post took almost that long, which completely mystified me. It's simply a brief description of my characters -- my seven old fogies. I didn't go into depth about their character flaws, the dreams that drive them, the failures that created them. Nope -- just a simple description. I've been spending most of my words talking about my hero Mary Stuart, lumping her traveling companions into a group: crew of feisty octogenarians -- former gangsters and friends of her grandfather. They deserve better than that. So please click here to visit The Book Faery Reviews and meet Snow White and the Seven Old Fogies.



Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

Pat Bertram, Gangsters, and 'Daughter Am I'

Day Two of my Virtual Book Tour, and I am still going strong. This is like saying: I've just run the second block of a marathon and am still going strong. Most of the tour is still ahead of me, but I'm looking forward to seeing what happens, to meeting new people, and visiting new blogs.

Today I am at Malcolm's Round Table for a discussion of gangsters and Daughter Am I. I'd hoped to include more of Malcolm's book, Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, in the discussion, but he was kind enough to focus the talk around me and my gangsters. And do I have gangsters! My hero, Mary Stuart finds her grandfather's little black address book in a secret room of the farmhouse she inherited from him, and she goes on a whirlwind tour of Colorado, Arizona, and on into the midwest searching out the people who knew him. Though in their eighties, none of them are what you would call upstanding citizens, though they are all loveable in their own way. Even Iron Sam, aka Butcher Boy, seemed less lethal than I intended him to be. Of course, he is dying, so he is more concerned with his own death than others'.

See, I'm doing it, too -- focusing on my book. So, let's focus on Malcolm's novel for a moment. If you are a fan of humorous mysteries with outrageous (though incredibly realistic) characters, you will love Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire by Malcolm R. Campbell. I'm on my second read through. The first time was for the story. This time it's for Malcolm's wordsmithery.

So, please join me at Malcolm's Round Table for a discussion about: Pat Bertram, Gangsters, and Daughter Am I.



Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

YOU ARE INVITED . . .

Daughter Am I, Pat Bertram's young woman/old gangster coming-of-age adventure will be released by Second Wind Publishing on October 15, 1009, and you are invited to the cyber book launch party! Please stop by Bertram’s Blog any time on Thursday for fun, puzzles, games, even a free download!

Daughter Am I: When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents -- grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born -- she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead. Along the way she accumulates a crew of feisty octogenarians -- former gangsters and friends of her grandfather. She meets and falls in love Tim Olson, whose grandfather shared a deadly secret with her great-grandfather. Now Mary and Tim must stay one step ahead of the killer who is desperate to dig up that secret.

“A delightful treasure hunting tale of finding one’s self in a most unlikely way.” --Publisher’s Weekly.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC

Pat Bertram Is Two Years Old Today!

On May 17, 2007, I --- or rather, Pat Bertram --- signed up for the Internet, and it was love at first byte. The entire world opened up to me, and I was reborn. I’d already written four books, but until I went online, I hadn’t started creating the author of those books. Who should I be? What name should I use? I considered using a male pseudonym, Cole Black, perhaps, since men with hard C’s and K’s do well in the public arena. Anyone heard of Steven King? Dean Koontz? Tom Clancy? Kevin Costner? Clint Eastwood?

In the end I decided to stick with a version of my own name, one that I didn’t use in my offline life. It’s a good name for an author with enough hard consonants to sound authoritative. And it has the whole androgynous “It’s Pat” thing going for it; I can be whoever I want. Besides, p’s and b’s and t’s and r’s didn’t hurt Brad Pitt any.

I signed up for my domain, set up a website at patbertram.com, then fished around for another way to create myself, and discovered blogging. I didn’t even know what a blog was, didn’t think it was something I would ever be able to do (my diaries as a kid never lasted more than a day or two), but I’d discovered that an author needed a blog. Since I was intent on creating myself as an author, I signed up for Wordpress, and oh! What a joy! I could write whatever I wanted, say what I wanted, be what I wanted, and people would read what I wrote. Okay, only a couple of people read Bertram’s Blog at the beginning, but I am still friends with one of them. How cool is that? I’m too embarrassed to admit how many blogs I now have -- some of which I keep up with on a regular basis, some I don’t -- but blogging remains one of my favorite online activities.

From blogging, I went to Gather.com to enter a crime writing contest, and through a series of incredibly serendipitous encounters, I found a publisher. And more friends. After that, of course, I had to start promoting, so I started social networking. I’d heard from so many authors how much they hated promoting, but me? I think it’s great fun. It’s all about making friends, and what’s more fun than that?

So, friends, please join me in celebrating this very special birthday. You don’t even have to bring me a present. I have presents for you! Click on any package to open. Or click on any other image. I hope you have fun.

I know I will.