As a student of Spanish, my goal was to think in Spanish. Skip the word-by-word translation so I'd have the necessary speed to speak and listen. I know words in Spanish that I'd be hard pressed to translate. Usually profanity, I confess. Chingow! Back when I taught English in China, my students studied grammar for years, and knew it better than you or I. They read. They wrote. But speaking involves moving faster than that. In conversation, we don't have time to write it first and make sure it's all grammatically flawless, then read it aloud, perhaps after a bit of rehearsal. So, I tried to give them a chance to practice putting words together on the fly, rules be damned. The rules they'd internalized would kick in and keep them comprehensible, which would build their confidence in their ability to keep creating conversation that way. This is not unlike what we go through as authors. First we study rulebooks, perhaps take some classes, and conclude just about...

The many faces of April, from April Fool's Day to Easter to "April showers bring May flowers." Claude Shafer   (The Tacoma Times), Public Domain   As we close in on the end of April, I figure we can't turn our backs on the month without a quick look at what books might be out there with an April Fool's theme. Let's start with mysteries. (After all, mysteries are basically designed to mess with readers' minds, and then jump out, shouting "Fooled you!" at the end.) We have this handful from the Cozy Mystery List . Hurray for Janet Rudolph, whose Mystery Fanfare blog always comes through for holiday/special day reads. April's Fool's is no exception .  Moving away from murder and mayhem... The blog Borrow.Read.Repeat. offers " Laugh-out-loud reads " for April Fool's Day. Listopia has Hoover Library's Insatiable Reads' April Fools (It's Always Good to Laugh) list, including Howl: A collection of the ...

April is the month of fooling people. It makes me think back to a time long ago when I was young, foolish, daring, and maybe a bit irresponsible. I’ll keep it chronological, so I’ll start in the fifth grade. I always wanted to be foreign and speak another language. Even when I was in grade school, I was fascinated with anyone from another country. In the fifth grade, my home room teacher was Greek, so when two sisters newly arrived from Greece were placed in her class without regard for their ages just because Miss Thanaglou spoke Greek, I was right there making friends. I was invited to their house and served a bowl of Greek tomato soup with lots of lemon. An older sister came in and whisked the bowl away thinking I wouldn't like it, but I did. I learned how to write in Greek, really translating from English to Greek letters. I still remember how to count in Greek, say stand up and sit down; hello, how are you, fine thank you, and you? Recipe: Domata Soupa - Épices de Cru ...

Not all stories have a traditional good guy and bad guy, nor should they. Readers love compelling characters, and they love conflict that propels a story forward. However, no requirement dictates those characters must wear either black or white hats. Many shades of gray reflect personality, decision processes, lifestyles, character traits, and the list goes on. One option that steps away from the black hat/white hat scenario is a foolish character that unwittingly (or not) upends the lives of a spouse, friends, family, workmates, etc. How can such unwise characters keep readers turning pages? Let's consider a story possibility where foolish choices rule the roost and drive the story to a costly conclusion. Tears coursed down Marisa's cheeks and fell onto the clothes she was throwing into the large suitcase. She brushed them away, but they persisted. The last thing she wanted to do was leave Tom, but reality was a stern teacher, an unforgiving taskmaster, a destroyer of...

In the month of April Fools' Day, it seems like a good time to look at one of the characters we love to hate: The Con Man. He can appear in any genre. He can be the hero or the villain. The Con Man plot is most often used in Mystery or Thriller, but can be used in other genres. Cons can be conducted in person or via mail or the internet these days. There are successful swindlers and not so successful ones. Whether Dick is good at the game or laughable depends on your plot. Cons have been gaining people’s confidence since the population grew large enough to support snake oil salesmen. Let’s take an in-depth look at what makes a con tick. Dick the scammer is selfish and greedy. He isn’t lazy. Conning people takes a lot of energy and he is constantly in danger of getting caught. Traveling light and avoiding relationships is a good idea. Dick can be a charming predator. The most deadly scammer is a true sociopath. If you want to humanize him, give Dick a smidgen of conscience. ...

Next to running in the park with my two best friends, spending time at the small library on the corner of my street was my favorite thing to do in the summer when I was growing up. My girlfriends and I would go there almost every other day to get a pile of books to read at some comfortable place, often a park about a mile away. We were into bike riding, too. Fast-forward a lot of years to when I started my writing career as a journalist. Then I wasn’t just going to the library to get books to read for myself or for my kids. This was a time when I relied heavily on libraries, and the wonderful reference librarians, to help me when I needed facts and figures for articles and my nonfiction books. (Kudos to the librarians at the Plano Public Library. They saved my bacon more than once.) During that time I wrote nine books for  Rosen Publishing that included Coping With Weapons and Violence in School and on your Streets, and the librarians proved invaluable in steering me towar...

Yes, it’s possible to enjoy using Twitter instead of getting stressed, frustrated, and downright angry. How? I have four main suggestions for those who truly want to use Twitter to make connections around the world without tearing their hair out along the way.This post assumes a reader already has knowledge of how Twitter works and how frustrating it can be. However, if you’ve never tried out the site because of all the bad stuff you’ve heard, I can assure you there are ways to keep the monster under control and have fun. Connect with people who share your interests. If you're on Twitter because you want to see and engage in vicious political discussions, it will be easy to find followers who are willing to agree, fight, stalk, and threaten. But if you want to avoid that kind of community and instead search for those who are more interested in knitting, cats, books, mountain climbing, etc., begin by posting tweets, liking, and retweeting the things you see that fit...

As an editor, I occasionally run across writers who are not nice people. They're angry, difficult to work with, believe their words are chiseled in stone on the tablet Moses carried down from Mount Sinai, and worst of all, they're condescending and think they know better than everyone about everything. Despite all these charming qualities, a few of them do manage to get published eventually, but their writing careers are often short-lived. When I had just started editing for a major genre publishing house, an acquisitions editor sent me a manuscript. Normally a lovely person, on this occasion she was edgy and irritable. She wanted a fast read and I gave her one. The author had a long publishing history and won a couple of awards, but she regarded him warily. I soon discovered why. He had an ugly temper and didn’t have much use for women. Apparently, this guy also didn't know how to write, so how had he been published so often? The book I read was not only shot throu...

I read voraciously, a habit I recommend to any author who doesn't already have it. You'll subconsciously pick up on what does and doesn't work. Characterization, dialogue, pacing, plot, story, setting, description, etc. But more importantly, someone who doesn't enjoy reading will never write something that someone else will enjoy reading. I don't write 'for the market.' I know I can't, so I just write for me and then try to find readers who like what I like. I'm not trying to whip up the next bestseller and get rich. Not that I'd complain. Nope, I have to write what's in my heart, then go find a market later. It makes marketing a challenge at times, but I wouldn't have it any other way. When you write, be a dreamer. Go nuts. Know that you're writing pure gold. That fire is why we write. An author who I truly admire, Kurt Vonnegut, sweated out each individual sentence. He wrote it, rewrote it, and didn't leave it alone unti...

So you think you have an original story idea. Um, think again. Christopher Booker, who took thirty-eight years to write The Seven Basic Plots, subtitled, Why We Tell Stories, boiled down all the plots to these: Overcoming the Monster Rags to Riches The Quest Voyage and Return Comedy Tragedy Rebirth Every story plot derives from one of these themes, according to Booker. I can see how a writer could manipulate her plot to fit into one of these, except maybe Riches to Rags, but that’s tragedy then, isn’t it? I won’t bust your bubble, but whatever storyline you are working on, someone has done it before―thousands of times. Now if that isn’t a downer, I don’t know what is. Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to create something different, knowing it's impossible.  There are dozens of books on how to write a novel. Many teach structure: In The Hero’s Journey, Joseph Campbell’s narrative arc, refined by Christopher Vogler in The Writer’s Journey, the hero’s journey ...

Just because St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, it doesn't mean we can't read books with a bit of a "green theme." Other holidays in March offer some themes as well. How about Pi Day (March 14?) or the Ides of March (March 15)? Or spring equinox (March 20)? Sooooo let's see what's out there to whet your reading appetite. Let's start with St. Patrick's. Wear (or plant?) some green this month. National Library of Ireland on The Commons [No restrictions] The Cozy Mystery List site has a roll-call of St. Paddy's Day mysteries . And, of course, Mystery Fanfare offers up St. Patrick's Day crime fiction from cozy to noir, with recommendations of Irish crime writers thrown in for good measure. The holiday seems to invite romance. Why is that, do you think? Here is the Listopia link for 123 romance books for St. Patrick's Day. Check out the "Shamrocks and Clovers" book list —some for kids, some for adults. For the kidd...

Graphic courtesy of  WriteOpinions.com In case you missed it, there has been a recent controversy over plagiarism that has received international news attention. A story in The Guardian outlines the major points of the issue between American author Courtney Milan and Brazilian author Cristiane Serruya, who was accused of  plagiarism. The books in question are Milan's The Duchess War and Royal Love by Serruya. There were numerous instances of Serruya taking several sentences verbatim from Milan's book, and the following is just one example of what she copied: From The Duchess War - There was a reason they’d kept their conversations to inane niceties up until this point. There was no way to talk about anything else without bitterness. They had no common past to draw on, almost no shared acquaintances. His mother had spent more time visiting Sebastian’s mother—her husband’s sister—than she had lived in Robert’s household as a child. And she’d chosen to do it. He mig...

Last week I was reading The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield. It’s a best seller with lots of good reviews. And some not so good. Read the not-so-good ones before buying this book. I had borrowed the book from the library because I was interested in the Pressfield’s observations about procrastination and what makes creative folks fight their creativity, sabotaging that internal drive to make art. It’s all about Resistance, he says. If you read the book, you’ll get used to seeing that word over and over: Resistance. Pressfield says he has the answer to all our procrastination problems. Become a pro by acting like a pro. Show up to work every day. Show up at the same time every day, prepared to create. Then create. Okay, I thought. I can do that. The next morning, even though I’d had only one cup of coffee and felt foggy and sleep-deprived, I hurried to my computer and sat down, ready to work. My second cup of coffe...