Jul 25, 2024 | Uncategorized |
Writer and editor B. Lynn Goodwin owns Writer Advice, www.writeradvice.com. She’s written three award-winning books, Talent, Disrupted, and a memoir titled Never Too Late: From Wannabe to Wife at 62. Her flash fiction is published in Flashquake, Nebo, Cabinet of Heed, Murmur of Words, 100-Word Stories, Ariel’s Dream, & Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and 50 Give or Take. She’s also a book reviewer and teacher at Story Circle Network, as well as an editor and manuscript consultant at Writer Advice.
All books are available on Amazon, B&N, and Bookshop.org. Use the links in the article below.
I started as a journal writer, and I now write fiction, memoir, articles, personal essays, book reviews, and author interviews, so yes, I write in more than one genre. I’m also an editor who works with all kinds of prose, and you can see what I offer at Writer Advice’s Manuscript Consultation and Editing Services.
Recently, I’ve been writing wherever I’m physically comfortable—living room, office, Starbucks, or even the passenger seat of my car.
The first time I put a do-not-disturb sign on my door, my husband didn’t knock.
Whew!
Instead, he texted.
Oops!
What part of do-not-disturb did he not understand? He’s very supportive, but our brains work differently. I tolerate disruptions and relish the times when I don’t have them.
On an average day, I work on Writer Advice, book reviews, do outreach/publicity for both Writer Advice and my latest book, Disrupted, do some editing for clients and Story Circle Network Independent Study Students, and sometimes edit my past work or work on a current project.
Today, July 16, 2024, for example, I’m working on the first draft of a true story about totaling our RV and Jeep on the way home from Texas this past May, reading Javier Zamora’s Solito, sharing that I posted another piece on Writer Advice on social media, publicizing the latest piece to go up on The Winners Are, responding to new Story Circle students, and talking with several fellow writers.
Associations help me build a writing community. For example, I know George Cramer, who shares this wonderful blog through the California Writers Association. I’m on the board at Story Circle and the San Francisco Branch of the Women’s National Book Association.
My characters take more risks than I would. That makes them three-dimensional. An editor once told me that my protagonist can seem mature and foolish in the same chapter and sometimes on the same page. In Disrupted, some characters behave better than others, and you get to see how they respond to stress and situations beyond their control.
Here’s a tip for raising the stakes in your story: As soon as a conflict is resolved, another one comes up, and sometimes it comes up before an earlier one is resolved. The more personal the issue, the more private or shameful or nuanced the problem, and the more life-altering the situation, the faster the stakes will rise.
When I was asked about tips for new writers in an article with the
San Francisco National Book Association, I gave these tips:
Write daily for at least 20 minutes.
Let one idea lead to another. You can edit later.
Read widely.
Review the books of others. You’re giving back to the community.
Edit carefully, asking yourself what you intended to convey.
Keep writing.
Find a writing community.
Don’t try to do it all in one day.
Look for the joys in life.
There are stories all around us, but no two people see them in the same way
If you have the time, I’d love to have you share your opinion of Disrupted in a review on Amazon or B&N. E-mail me through the Contact Page on Writer Advice for details. While you’re there, click on Current Contest. We’d love to read your work. And if you are skilled at WordPress and would like to work on Writer Advice, please contact me.
You can reach me through the Contact box at www.writeradvice.com. Or send me an e-mail at Lgood67334 AT Comcast DOT net and put George Cramer Interview in the subject box so I can open it immediately. Other social media include:
https://www.writeradvice.com
https://www.facebook.com/writeradvice/
https://www.instagram.com/blynngoodwin/
https://writeradvice.com/books-by-lynn/
https://www.threads.net/@blynngoodwin
Thank you for reading. I’d be honored to answer your questions.
Apr 18, 2024 | Crime |
Bruce Berls and Jim Rowson are the authors of UNCOMMON SCENTS, a cautionary frolic with more humor and 80% less dystopia than the average near-future thriller. The authors are reclusive introverts rarely seen in public, so having them with us is thrilling.
Bruce: Thank you for coming today.
Jim: What are you on about? I’m in my living room, the same as you.
Bruce: I’ve known you since we were wee lads in high school.
Jim: We were both six feet tall when we met, so “wee lads” isn’t quite the right image. I think we bonded in high school because everybody else thought we were weird.
Bruce: We became fast friends right away – in tune with each other’s senses of humor, sharing a love of science fiction during its glory days in the 70s, and being there for each other as decades went by – roommates, best man, bad influences, someone to laugh at each other’s jokes and provide comfort in hard times. In 2021, I had been writing snarky articles about Microsoft for Bruceb News for twenty years, but it was slowing down. You were finishing your career at YouTube and would soon have free time for the first time in your life. The drab landscape of retirement stretched before us until you said casually, “Have you ever thought about writing a novel?” Technically, everything that has happened since then has been your fault. What in the world was in your head?
Jim: I’m completely astonished that I’m writing novels now. My background is in programming, where fictional stories are not an asset. I actually can’t remember ever taking a creative writing course while at school, though I would be delighted to boor you with details of the 20,000 lines of BCPL code I wrote in 1976. As an avid sci-fi reader, I’ve loved world building. My favorite books are those that have a new idea on every page, exploring how new ideas and tech impact society. Our collaboration started with building a world around technology that enables everyone to experience augmented reality without special equipment.
Bruce: I’m convinced that augmented reality will have an even larger impact on the world than computers and the internet. Instead of doing research, we invented injectable nanobots over lunch at an Italian restaurant. Then, we came up with a plausible explanation of how a large company would convince everyone to adopt them. The word “plausible” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Jim: Some near-future science fiction is heavily researched. It winds up being dystopian because whatever current trend you research – AI, climate change, bio-warfare, gene editing, drones – leads inevitably to the conclusion that we’re all doomed. We didn’t want to write that kind of story, so we just made stuff up.
Bruce: We’re plotters, not pantsers. UNCOMMON SCENTS has an Oceans 11-style plot
involving corporate secrets and mixed-up MacGuffin envelopes moving from place to place. Collaboration was fun as we figured out how to get characters where they needed to be.
Jim: I’m pretty sure that the personalities of a few of your characters are drawn from me and our wives. Two questions: (1) How could you? Those things are private, and you’re well aware no one pressed charges. (2) Where did the characters come from? Is there any significance to the names?
Bruce: Obviously, you’re the inspiration for Spiro, our uber-
nerd programmer who works at Arrgle and invents a way to augment people’s sense of smell. Congratulations! Cabalynne came out of thin air, a slightly pudgy young woman who spends her big scene in an ill-fitting ninja suit. As a leader of an online army of conspiracy believers, it’s appropriate that her name starts with “cabal.” She plays a minor role in UNCOMMON SCENTS, but she was a natural to become the protagonist in my second novel VEILPIERCER.
Jim: One of my favorite characters is Sanger Manjoo, a garrulous reporter whose voice was inspired by the Peter Falk character in the movie The In-Laws. I’d quote him, but we don’t have space, as Manjoo would want to buy you a cookie and learn in great detail how your day has gone.
Bruce: He pretends to be a New York Times reporter, so I drew his name from two real NYTimes reporters, David Sanger and Farhad Manjoo. The character’s name was originally intended to be an online pseudonym, but the two of us fell in love with him as we wrote the book, and now it’s impossible to imagine him with any other name. After finishing the book, we had to figure out how to publish it.
Jim: Yeah, we tried the traditional route. We sent off query letters to a bunch of agents that specialize in science fiction. Sadly, our impatience and their indifference got the best of us.
Bruce: I find it strangely thrilling to say that Uncommon Scents was rejected by some of the top agents in the business.
Jim: We ended up self-publishing through Amazon, partly because we couldn’t wait to get our hands on a printed copy. Now, we’re working on marketing, trying to find a way to stand out from the crowd.
Bruce: Our website at https://arrgle.com provides hours of riveting entertainment – articles in plain English about augmented reality, ChatGPT, and modern tech, along with sample chapters from our novels. Sign up for the weekly newsletter, which is far more than the usual marketing fluff.
Jim: You can also follow us at @ArrgleBooks on both YouTube and TikTok, where we pique our followers’ interests with quotes from famous authors, sci-fi book reviews, snippets from our work, and even my Mom’s chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Bruce: We’re working on two more novels. Both are set in the same world as UNCOMMON SCENTS, but neither is a sequel. I’m revising the sixth draft of VEILPIERCER, the story of a young woman who assembles an unlikely team for an assault on the most powerful computer on earth, seeking to expose the secrets of the wealthy. It has the same snarky tone as UNCOMMON SCENTS because it is literally impossible for me to write any other way.
Jim: And I’m working on a serious noir detective story called THE AVATAR MURDERS, also
in the Arrgle universe. My detective, Kurt Hardash, solves mysteries using his eyes that, due to a mishap when young, can see both augmented and actual reality. He sees more than others, allowing him to solve a serial murder case and track down who killed his wife—less snark, more violence, including altercations with forks and kitchen appliances.
Bruce: Thank you, Jim. You’re my favorite collaborator.
Jim: If I was going to say lovely things about you, I think you know this is where they would appear.
Website: https://arrgle.com
Newsletter: https://arrgle.com/newsletter/
YouTube: @arrglebooks
TikTok: @arrglebooks
Contact: info@arrgle.com
Jan 18, 2024 | Action & Adventure, Historical, Thriller |
Michael was born in Manchester, England. He lived in France and joined a French Order of Missionary priests. He spent ten years in West Africa, several of them during a civil war when he was stood up to be shot. He spent a year living as a hermit in Northern Ireland, was a teacher in Madrid, Spain, and as part of the British ‘brain drain’ taught at the Univ of Puerto Rico.
The owner of MJB Consultants, he flew all over the world monitoring and evaluating humanitarian projects and has worked in more than thirty countries. He is fluent in several languages, an avid golfer, and academically considers himself over-engineered, having three Masters’ Degrees and a Ph.D. On his bucket list is to pilot a helicopter, become fluent in Arabic, and spend a week’s retreat at Tamanrasset in the Sahara Desert.
Michael lives with his French wife, who designs and paints the covers of his books, and a Tibetan terrier in Clayton, California.
I have just finished reading my third novel by Sally Rooney, followed by Cormac McCarthy’s latest, Stella Maris, and I’d like to report the speech marks are missing! Punctuation goes in and out of fashion, and the marking of text with inverted commas to signify direct speech seems, in the current moment, is decidedly going out of fashion.
Cormac McCarthy called punctuation, “Weird little marks. I believe in periods, in capitals, in the occasional comma, and that’s it.” Since this was his first novel after a 16-year hiatus, I started reading it because I was intrigued by the subject matter, dedicated solely to a dialogue between two people, a woman who self-committed to a mental institution and a psychiatrist. It was a disaster. After twelve pages, I’d had enough and just couldn’t handle page after page with no italics. However, I was sufficiently intrigued to purchase the audiobook. And oh, my goodness, what a difference. I didn’t want to stop listening. I was enthralled by the female and male voices that gave color and texture to a dynamic, intriguing, and labyrinthine script.
But with Sally Rooney, not so. Why she has chosen to use this technique in her novels, only she can say. I found it gimmicky at best since her lack of italics didn’t enhance the flow of the story or blend with the rest of the text. But a greater irritant for me was her use in all three novels of another technique, the way she attributes the spoken word. No writer wants their characters to become disembodied, but attribution, clarifying for the reader who’s saying what, is key to maintaining good order in dialogue. It sustains the novel’s pace and orients and relieves the reader from unnecessary guesswork. As writers we shouldn’t have to send the reader window-shopping in search of a speaker to “assign” the script to! Distractions of that sort break the spell of the interactive flow, and are really an earmark of the inexperienced writer.
I’m speaking here, of course, of “she said” and “he said” the most common attributions, and their host of variants. When it’s evident who’s talking, the reader can readily do without them. Often enough, in a brisk exchange between two people once the talk gets rolling, it takes nothing more than a paragraph change, the customary tool for differentiating speakers, to make clear to the reader who’s saying what. Repeated attributions can serve to heighten the intent of the exchange two people are having. Beginning writers in particular are prone to suppose that “she said” and “he said” become too humdrum, are used too frequently, and need to be replaced by such alternatives as “she replied,” “he explained,” “he responded,” “she murmured,” “she protested,” and so on… all of which, when used judiciously, are useful.
Repeated indications as to who’s doing the talking can also be used for dramatic effect. And this is where Sally Rooney drives me crazy. A creative writing teacher advised, not to labor too much about attributions, “Go ahead and use “she said” and “he said” with little fear of over-use! They soon enough become mere transparencies for the reader, barely noted in passing as the reading proceeds.” If this is the case, why does it irritate and distract me from the story line making me want to stop reading? In Rooney’s Normal People on just one page I counted thirteen times her use of “he said, she said.”
An additional curiosity is Rooney’s point of view as she described her characters. In Beautiful World Where Are You much of its tension comes from the disconnect between the spare prose of the third-person sections, (I can’t remember seeing a semi colon in any of her books) with sometimes one paragraph filling an entire page, and the rambling soliloquies of the emails. Once they have been named, she ghosts her characters through page after page by simply referring to them as ‘she’ and ‘he,’ and given that she rarely fully develops them, I found it annoying and my attention flagging.
But there is a reason her books are bestsellers. In addition to her famous sex scenes, described as “the best in modern literary fiction,” she captures with unembellished, often plaintive prose, the angst of her millennium audience, albeit, her sometimes meandering chapters while reflecting the time and milieu, can be perplexing to those of us north of 40. But be that as it may, I still need my punctuation.
Michael’s latest book is No Room for Heroes: A novel of the French Resistance 1942-44.
Contact: majb7016@gmail.com
Books on website: www.mbwriter.net
Dec 18, 2023 | Mystery |
A student of many interests, Jim Guigli, has been a SCUBA diver, auto-mechanic, and gunsmith . . .toured Quantico as an FBI Citizens Academy graduate and earned BFA and MA degrees in Art/Photography. Jim is an active member of SMFS, PSWA, & Sacramento CWC.
Do you outline, or are you a pantser? Both. Start pants, finish with structure.
Where do you place your settings—real or fictional locations? Real with fictional subparts.
Tell us about your writing process: I get an idea, a title, or one sentence, and then I write.
For example, my short story, Blood on the Stairs, was an idea and a title.
I like the old Dell Map Back mysteries and follow them on eBay. One title, Blood on the Stars, by Brett Halliday (pen name of Davis Dresser) appeared often, but I always read it as, Blood on the Stairs (touch of dyslexia). I put that new title with an idea that came to me after I attended a Left Coast Crime Conference:
What would happen if the attendees at a writers’ conference were encouraged to visit (bother) real local private investigators during the conference?
I already had my PI, Bart Lasiter, and my setting, Old Town Sacramento, with Bart’s fictional building and office. Then I added a murder and some what-ifs to get:
Bart attends a Crime Writers Conference and pencils in a murder.
Do you outline, or are you a pantser? Both. Start pants, finish with structure.
Where do you place your settings—real or fictional locations? Real with fictional subparts.
Tell us about your writing process: I get an idea, a title, or one sentence, and then I write. For example, my short story, Blood on the Stairs, was an idea and a title.
Blood on the Stairs is available from Amazon in the fine anthology Murderous Ink:
Crimeucopia – We’ll Be Right Back – After This!
https://www.amazon.com/Crimeucopia-Well-Right-Back-After/dp/1909498424/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1701815141&sr=1-3
How do our readers contact you? jimguigli@sbcglobal.net
Website: https://www.jimguigli.com/
Aug 1, 2023 | Action & Adventure, Mystery, Police Procedural / Crime, Thriller |
The first book in the Hector Miguel Navarro Series, New Liberty, is available from many sources. I’m taking this opportunity to share a teaser and Chapter 1.
Outside Phoenix, two gangs rule…
…and one police officer is caught in the middle.
How will he stop them?
Hector’s parents, wealthy east coast college professors, raised him to work towards making the world a better place. In New Liberty, Arizona, gangs have ravaged the city. As a young police officer who lost his mentor, he struggles with the question.
Why did his partner kill himself?
Across town, a small sickly-looking man approaching fifty is about to make a move. DeShawn “The Knife” Galloway has a reputation as a contract assassin who prefers to kill with the Japanese Tanto. And It’s time to take control.
The war will start on his terms.
In a world of human trafficking, drugs, and violence, two people’s lives are about to be intertwined in a way where only one can survive.
But this story isn’t all black and white.
This dark urban crime novel will grab you as it reveals far more than just greed and power. This one will keep you turning the pages.
NEW LIBERTY
A Hector Miguel Navarro Novel
And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and
Hades followed him. And they were given authority . . . to kill with sword
and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth. Rev. 6:8
CHAPTER ONE
They were alive moments ago.
“I told you to use the GPS. Why’d you buy a Lexus if you aren’t going to use the gadgets?” The old woman chides her even older husband.
“The map program takes too long. Besides, the boy’s graduation isn’t until tomorrow.”
“I know, but we’re not even in Phoenix. We should have been there an hour ago. Admit it. We’re lost.”
“Okay. I’ll pull over and set the GPS. Will that make you happy?” The man was tired from the long drive. Even breaking the drive into two days from Oakland to the Arizona city was more than he should have undertaken at seventy. His wife had suggested they spend a few days in Los Angeles, maybe even visit Disneyland, but the old man had insisted. She had been right. I should have skipped poker with the boys this time.
“Now we’re lost, exhausted, and you finally agree with me. That doesn’t help much.” She was younger by a decade and had offered to help with the driving. The old man was always stubborn and refused to give up the wheel. “This neighborhood looks pretty sketchy. I don’t think we should stop here?”
“We’ll be fine. Besides, there’s no one around.”
A minute later, absorbed in entering the address in the GPS, it’s difficult for the old man with his arthritic hands and new trifocals. Hearing a banging on his side window, and without thinking, he hits the down switch.
“Hey, old brother, whatcha doing?” Standing next to the car door is a skinny kid, fifteen or sixteen. It’s hard to see his face. He’s wearing a dark hoodie with the front cinched down. His hands are jammed deep into the pockets.
“I’m checking my map. We’ll be going.”
“I don’t think so,” the kid says as his right hand appears. He’s holding a small pistol, barely visible in his large hand.
“He’s got a gun,” screams the woman.
“That’s right, Bro. You and the sister get out and walk away.”
The man may be in his seventies, but he’s not about to let a teenage punk rob him. Reaching to put the car in gear, he says, “No.”
The old man doesn’t hear the shot or feel the twenty-five-caliber bullet that passes through his skull and into his brain. The small lead slug comes to rest against the right side of his skull, ending his life. His wife screams as another teenager opens the passenger door and drags her out of the car. Drawing her head back exposes her neck. She sees the Ka-Bar. The blade, dull and heavy, is meant for work, not slicing throats. As the boy saws her neck open, cutting the carotid arteries, blood gurgles until she is dead.
“Don’t get blood on the seat,”
“That’s why I pulled her out. What about the old dude?”
“He didn’t bleed much.”
* * *
Now that they have killed the old couple, they aren’t sure whether to run or take the Lexus. Their problem worsens when three men emerge from Ernesto’s Pool Hall.
“What’re you doing?” demands Jerome. “Geronimo” Dixon. The easily recognized president of the 4-Aces. Even at fifty, he is an imposing figure towering over the men behind him. The man stands six feet five and carries three-hundred pounds—no fat—packed on a muscular frame.
The frightened shooter’s answer is a whisper, almost apologetic. “We jacked them for the Lexus. The old man gave us shit. We had to off him and the old lady.”
“Who the hell gave you permission to jack a car in 4-Aces territory?”
“No one, we didn’t. . .”
“Shut up and gimme the piece. What else you got?”
The boy hands over the small pistol and the other gives up the K-Bar, “All we got.”
Geronimo turns to one of the men standing behind him. “Get DeShawn.”
Within minutes, DeShawn “The Knife” Galloway is at his side—Geronimo motions for the young killers to stand behind the Lexus. Out of earshot, he hands their weapons to Galloway. “This’s going to bring a load of shit our way. Make the idiots disappear.”
“Forever?”
“Forever.” The tone of Geronimo’s voice leaves no doubt.
“The old couple?”
“I ought to. If they weren’t innocent civilians, I would.” Geronimo lets out a sigh. “Leave them.
“Don’t nobody touch da bodies, nothing. No DNA to tie the Aces to this shit.”
Galloway calls the other men over and tells the first, “You drive. We gotta clean this up.” To the second, “Put the fools in my Escalade. You ride with me.”
Showing false bravado, the shooter speaks up. “Why?” Stepping close to Galloway, he looks down at the much older and shorter man and repeats, “Why?” adding, “I ain’t no fool, old man.”
Galloway raises his head and gazes into the face of the shooter. His expression is as lifeless as his eyes. The shooter does his best to maintain a defiant pose and succeeds for perhaps three seconds. His body begins to shake. The shivers betray the boy’s fear; without another word, he walks to the Escalade and death.
Here’s the link to the trailer created by Lisa Towles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvrdESP4jTI
Great interview!!
Thanks, Linda. What are you writing these days?
Excellent writing advice, Lynn, Best of luck to you on your new one.
Thanks so much Michael.