Crafting a Sentence: Information versus Impact

Part of voice is how you craft a sentence. For example, Julian would say "One can impart the information in a variety of ways" while Nixie would say "You can spin the 411".

It's information versus impact. You, the author, has to impart certain information. But the impact is how you say it.

A hero can be described as "hard and powerful as a cannon shot". But to me that's a bit bland. I might say "cannon-shot powerful". The second phrase loses information, the word "hard". But that's implied with cannon shot so I'm willing to lose it. The plus to me is that "cannon-shot powerful" gains impact. Short, punchy. It hits the eye/brain in a way "powerful as..." doesn't. As a verby sort of person, I also like the implied motion.

Movement and punch aren't the only kind of impact, of course. You might make a lyrical impact with (for example only) "Powerful as a cannon's blast amid bombs bursting in the cool night air". You might choose an emotional impact with "The soaring cannon shot of freedom" (both with better word choice, of course :). 

Have fun creating your own impact!

Biting Love News Update

The Biting Love Series is now renumbered! The Bite of Silence, novella with Twyla and Nikos, has been added to the series as Book 3 and Biting Me Softly, Logan and Liese's story, is Book 4.

In other news, the title for Biting Love Book 5 is getting closer to being a reality. The Title Goddess has actually gone back to another incarnation, and though I can't say what the title will probably be, it involves "Oz" and "Biting." :)

More Biting Love news! Biting Love books are now on Kindlegraph! Bonus--there's a great handwriting font so you're not subjected to my chicken scratching.

Followers know I've got two new books up through first drafts--another Biting Love and a wolf shifter/witch romantic comedy--and am now working on a third first draft. I'm very excited about this third book, a serious shifter novel about two wolves who, in the first 19,000 words, are sparking off each other like crazy.  This draft is going slower because I'm also working up Prokofiev's First Symphony. For those of you who don't know the flute, the range of the instrument is middle C to the C three octaves above (C to shining C, heh). Well, Prokofiev decided he didn't care what the range of the instrument was and wrote all these C#s and Ds above the highest C. And not slow easy C#s and Ds. No, these are eighth notes at half-note=158. (Take my word for it--blindingly fast. Brain-numbing fast. Eek fast.) Needless to say, it's taking a big chunk of time and energy getting the part under my fingers. Thank you Mr. P. But the draft is still shaping up!

3T Writing Tidbit

I've been published since 2009 but I've been writing for a lot longer. Over the years I've accumulated various items of wisdom from all over. Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit will showcase these items one at a time in no particular order.

Look for concept words and replace them with specific actions and feelings.

Example: Loyalty.

The dog was loyal vs. the dog lay warming his sick master's feet, gazing at his full food bowl but not moving.

The Artist's Eye

Heroes, especially alpha males in genre romance, are gorgeous. Or compelling. Or something that sets them apart from the everyday.

Why?

I have a simple reason. Consider a desert. I'm picking Baja California because there's a good set of pictures halfway down the page that shows the dry desert and the same desert in full bloom. How can you see it?

I can think of three ways. You can travel to California and see it in person. It's WYSIWYG, wizzy-wig or What You See Is What You Get. Chances are pretty good you'll get sand, cactus and scrub, dry dry dry.

Or you can view a map of the area. This will give you roads and names of features. Nice, bite-sized, and has the advantage of being more portable. Also the map maker can choose what features to include.

The third way is with a picture or painting. This is the most flexible of all, especially the painting. You can choose what to include and what to exclude. You can paint the desert as is or in full bloom, even though that may only happen once a decade. You can show a deeper truth, the beauty that only exists for a moment.

If you brought one of those three into your home, which would it be? I'd pick the desert in bloom. Because frankly I've got enough dry grass of my own :)

So when I read a novel, I want something different than real, everyday life. If I wanted everyday life I could just live it. If I want to make sense of everyday life, I could read a non-fiction self-help book. But if I want to relive the moment I fell in love with my husband, that belly-punch of the first time I saw him, well then I read a romance novel. What about you?

1T Giveaway!

Welcome to the First Tuesday giveaway! Each first Tuesday of the month I'm offering a contest where I choose one winner (who hasn't won in the past twelve months) by random number from all comments on that post. The winner will receive his or her choice of one Biting Love ebook *or* a $5 gift certificate from Amazon or Samhain!

If you're a 18+ and an adult, and if you consent to having your name listed on the rotating 12-month winner list, just comment on this post to enter! Void where prohibited. Please note, the Biting Love books contain explicit sex and violence. If you win please consider that when making your prize selection. Winner chosen at the end of the month and posted as part of next month's contest.

Decembers's winners--Mrs. Missive and Pam O! Congrats, and thanks to everyone who commented!

Werewolves Don't Hamstring, Do They?

I read werewolf romances as far back as early Susan Krinard, but I haven't written one until now. Writing requires being a temporary expert, so of course I started researching wolves. What I found surprised me.

I gotta say, there doesn't seem to be a lot of wolf in werewolf romantic fiction. Oh, wolves mate once and there's an alpha couple and they have packs and they bring down big game. But here are some tidbits that you may not have known.

Packs are small--usually a family unit of the alpha pair and pups. Most packs are less than 8 members (although the size can get up to 30 or so). Larger packs may have another adult pair that breeds.

Kills are rare--the reported hunting success rate varies depending on the site (and the year) but even the highest is about one in four...and that's after the initial testing for weaknesses is done.

Wolves don't hamstring--they prefer to latch onto the nose or rump.

Wolves don't have to hunt in packs to bring down big game--even a single wolf can bring down big game.

That's just some of what I found. You should see what I discovered about sexuality and scenting...makes my hair raise if it's true. I'm still cross-checking. Obviously when writing about wolf shifters, the werewolf legends have to be researched and woven in. And there's the age-old choice of magic shifters vs. physical shifters...but that's another blog.

**Be sure to check out my guest blog December 29 at Whipped Cream! Comment to enter.
**Just a few more days on the 1T Giveaway

Some sites I used for this information:
Wolfsong
eHow
International Wolf Center
USGS

Writing update

I have recently come to the conclusion that my writing takes time. I'm not one of those authors who can write and polish a book a month, every month. This is a hard thing for me to accept because, well, I'm a bit competitive, and a bit of a perfectionist (I can just hear Mrs. Missive saying "No, really?" :) (Mrs: NaNo writing buddy who kept me in line.)

It's not that I can't write fast. I regularly write 3000 words a day and did a bunch of 10,000 word stories in two days each. I wrote the bones of a 40,000 word story in eight days and once wrote a 90,000 word novel in three weeks.

But my writing takes time to steep. The really good stuff perks through just one thought at a time. I have to make a lot of little edit passes rather than a couple big ones. Although the big ones have their own purpose. Hmm, sounds like a blog topic :)

Anyway I'm trying something out. Instead of writing one story and sticking with it to the bitter end, I'm writing three. I'll take all three to the end of the first draft. Then I'll do all three revisions. Then a trio of polishing passes.

So here's what I'm working on. I have the next novel in the Biting Love universe a few scenes from a complete first draft. I'm not sure if it'll be in the series--right now the heroine is a bit too serious, so we'll see. I started a humorous shifter story in July and am finishing the first draft right now. And I have a dramatic shifter story perking away in my brain for next month.

In about four months I should know if this works or not. I'll either have three wonderful complete novels...or all my hair torn out. Wish me luck!