3T Writing Tidbit

More tension! We hear it all the time. But how can we do it without resorting to characters simply screaming at each other for no good reason?

Well, goal, motive, conflict. Pick two characters with goals that don't mesh and you have conflict. But here's a little variation that's really nice, if you find a place it's appropriate.

Have people accuse the hero of stuff (usually not true or not true in the way people accuse). But here's the twist: don't have the hero rebut the charges. Have them walk away or stand and take it, making no answer--until by sacrifice or suffering or heroic act they earn the right to say their piece.

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits.

2T Repeat Performance - The Conquering Vampire Hero

I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published April 12, 2010 for VampChix

Thanks, Michele, for inviting me to VampChix today!

I love alpha males, heroes that leap off the page.  But I never wanted to write a vampire story.

Vampires scare me. Always have, since I snuck into my older brother’s room and a book cover of Dracula sent me scampering back out. Dark places and things that go bump in the night scare me. Death scares me, having dealt with it too early.

Oh, and blood. I get faint at needles and blood; it doesn’t even have to be my own. Don’t make me tell the story of when my son broke his arm and we took him to the emergency room. It’s embarrassing.

But I write vampire romances. Why?

In her interviews Michele asks five wonderful thought-provoking rapid-fire questions. Three that interest me especially are light/dark, neck/bag, dead/undead. Overwhelmingly the responses are dark, neck, undead.

Michele’s questions gave me the key. Vampires are all about dark. It’s their natural habitat, to the point that daylight is a threat. They’re all about blood, to the point that they consume it.

And vampires are all about death—are in fact about beating it, about going through death and coming out undead on the other side. 

That’s why I write about them, why they fascinate me. Vampires aren’t afraid of the things that scare me. They’re not afraid of blood and death. They’re not afraid of things that go bump in the night—because they are the things that go bump in the night.

Vampires have no fear of dark and blood and death—more, they thrive on them. They’re beyond fear because they’ve conquered it—the ultimate hero material.

What’s your preference? Light/dark? Neck/bag? Dead/undead?

Biting Me Softly Coming April 20 2010!

He’s a candy box of sex appeal wrapped with a golden bow. She’s on a diet.

Blood, sex, violence. Blood, okay, but computer geek Liese Schmetterling had enough S&V when her cheating ex fired her. Now security expert—and lip-smacking gorgeous—Logan Steel saunters into her Blood Center, setting fire to her libido. And threatening her job.

Visions of pink slips dancing in her head, Liese tries to push Logan away without touching his jutting pecs…or ridged abs. Or petting the Vesuvius in his jeans. He’s hiding something, but it doesn’t seem to matter when his smiles stun her, his kisses crank her to broiling and his bites rocket her to heaven. Fangy bites which, if she weren’t grounded in science, would make her think ampire-Vay.

Centuries old and tragedy-scarred, Logan’s mission is to fortify the Blood Center’s electronic defenses against his nemesis, the leader of a rogue vampire gang. He’s ready for battle but not for Liese, who slips under his skin, laughs at his awful puns, charges beside him into dark, scary places—and tastes like his true love.

No matter how often Logan declares his love, Liese can’t bring herself to trust him. But when his archenemy comes after her, not trusting him may cost her life...

Warning: contains explicit vampire sex involving absurdly large male equipment (hey, they’re monsters), unbelievable stamina (just how long can he stay underwater in a hot tub?), hide-your-eyes violence and horrendously bad puns. And, just when you think it can’t get any worse, a computer geekette trying to play Mata Hari.

Five Nymphs Literary Nymph Reviews Only

Five Cherries Whipped Cream Erotic Romance Reviews

Read an excerpt at MaryHughesBooks.com.
See the trailer at YouTube!

Mary Hughes is a computer consultant, professional musician, and writer. At various points in her life she has taught Taekwondo, worked in the insurance industry, and studied religion. She is intensely interested in the origins of the universe. She has a wonderful husband (though happily-ever-after takes a lot of hard work) and two great kids. But she thinks that with all the advances in modern medicine, childbirth should be a lot less messy.

To learn more about Mary Hughes, please visit www.maryhughesbooks.com.

Or visit Mary on Facebook!

Kindle Daily Deal today only

"Your book has been chosen!" Exciting words to any author. But hopefully these words are exciting to readers, too, because this sale's for you.

Biting Me Softly Chosen for a Kindle Daily Deal on Thursday, 12/3.

Get it as a stocking stuffer or treat yourself. At 99¢ at most retailers, you can't go wrong with this ebook.

Logan’s muscular, graceful, and deadly, and his arrival at my Blood Center may put me out of a job. None of that seems to matter when his kisses and bites take me to heaven (bites, which if I weren’t grounded in science, would make me think ampire-Vay).

 

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

3T Writing Tidbit

Again taking a sidestep from strict craft into promotion.

Many authors are introverts. They'd have to be, to get energy from such an intensely alone profession. Because we're introverts, we think about things, deeply. And some of us...overthink things.

My stories are my own reaction to vanilla romance and vanilla paranormal romance. I like just a little ghost pepper in my romance, you see. And some people have my same taste.

Some, obviously, don't care for spice in their vanilla romance, and that's okay. Until I started thinking about that, worrying about how the stories would be disappointing for those readers. I started worrying about that when I did my ads and promotions and so pulled back on what made them special. I forgot how much of a kick they are for readers who like a little pepper.

Authors! Don't worry about how your book might disappoint a set of readers. Revel instead in how it excites your readers; how it enhances your readers' lives.

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits.

2T Repeat Performance - Big Heart = Baking a Bigger Pie (chocolate silk?)

I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published March 13, 2010 for ARRA

Hello, ARRA! Thanks for inviting me to guest blog today, and huge thanks for Bite My Fire’s nomination, an honor and thrill.

What a lovely blog and website you have! I admit to a special delight in the ARRA logo. The way the Rs combine to make a heart really tickled my fancy…and inspired this blog.

ARRA. Australian Romance Readers Association. Well, I’m a US gal but my hubby has relatives in Australia, and I studied conducting under Geoffrey Simon—can that count for a bit of a connection? I’m certainly a reader of romance. Great swaths of it, Sherrilyn Kenyon, JD Robb, Anne Stuart and now Stephanie Laurens to name a few.

So many romances, so little time! (Ninety award finalists alone, all amazing authors.) And yet we find time, don’t we? Time to read, to water the seeds of love in our hearts, our lives. Despite our busy days and nights, we somehow find time to absorb stories of the sweet joining of two people in heart, body and soul.

ARRA nurtures that love, and not just through reading.

When Maggie notified me that Bite My Fire was a finalist in the Favourite Erotic Romance category, she also mentioned an opportunity to guest blog.  I emailed my interest, thinking that with all those finalists (did I mention there were ninety?) I might get a spot sometime in 2011. Instead Debbie mailed me back that extra blogging spots would be opened up during voting.  That’s plain exceptional.

See, there’s a lot of competition out there. A lot of writers, a lot of great books. As an author it’s easy to feel lost in the sheer volume of spines on the shelf.  Easy to feel you have to scrabble and grab for your little slice of the pie (mmm, lemon meringue).

But ARRA demonstrates the secret of love in action. When faced with feeding the multitude, instead of diminishing the portions, ARRA just baked a bigger pie. (Maybe pecan.)

I have to admit—I still scrabble and have to work hard not to grab. It’s fellow Samhain Publishing author, the awesome Vivi Andrews, who taught me what a big heart is. Just walking among the stars expands me. Makes my pie a little bigger.  (Strawberry-rhubarb. Or maybe chocolate silk after all.)

Thank you, Gentle Readers, for nominating Bite My Fire for Favourite Erotic Romance—for allowing me to walk among your author stars. It is an honor I hold to my heart, which is just a bit bigger today.

Please visit me at Mary Hughes Books!

3T Writing Tidbit

This is a slight step away from strictly writing into the marvelous, frightening world of book marketing.

One of the things I used to wonder is why there are all these articles on Steps to Follow to Promote Your Book, and they'd usually consist of things like

• Grow your newsletter to sell more 
• Offer free books to grow your newsletter 
• Offer free books to get more reviews to sell more
• Make sure there's a call to action! (or trigger)

In other words, how to increase your reach.

Now don't get me wrong, these are good and valid recommendations. But even following them, you won't sell much better unless you have a good book that people want to read.

In other words, how to increase your appeal.

Who writes articles about that? Who writes articles about the surefire way to write a blurb to get those one-clicks? Yes, the trigger is important, but so too are desire and ability. Few people write articles about how to stoke the desire to buy your books (at least, not in a step-by-step version).

Promotion is both about the books' appeal and their reach. But it's easier to quantify reach, and that's why there are more articles and posts about it.

I challenge bloggers to help authors increase their stories' appeal. How do we create the perfect blurb for our book? How do we look into our story and extract the marrow of what will appeal to readers? What if our book isn't anything like the bestsellers in the genre--and that's why we're writing, because we're tired of same-old, same-old?

So many articles on "promotion" are really on reach. Even when there are articles on appeal, it's how to promise to the broadest audience via stereotypes (dark, brooding vampires).

How do we appeal to our readers?

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits.

2T Research Tidbit

So now that I've run out of repeat performances, I thought I'd try something completely different. I do quite a bit of research in preparation and during the writing process, even and especially for the paranormal. As they occur to me, I thought I'd share some with you.

As of this writing (February, 2018) I'm doing research on Romania for Night's Kiss. Specifically, I'm putting together facts for my bad-guy vamp's hideaway castle. So I thought, why not check out Dracula's, the foremost bad-guy vamp there is?

Googling Dracula's Castle gets you Bram's Castle in Romania. But further research indicates Stoker (who wrote Dracula) didn't know anything about this castle. The two more likely contenders are castles Vlad III (the model for Dracula). Castelul Corvinilor and Poenari Kalesi (both in Romania) are linked to the Dracula legend. Not that either of these are Vlad's full-time castle. So I dug a little deeper.

And here, things got weird.

Turns out, there's a guy who did research into Stoker's notes (with the heir's help). According to Wikipedia, " Dutch author Hans Corneel de Roos,^[1] proposes as location for Castle Dracula an empty mountain top, Mount Izvorul Călimanului, 2,033 metres (6,670 ft) high, located in the Călimani Alps near the former border with Moldavia."

But when I actually searched for Mount Izvorul? The only references are repeats of this particular fact. No independent corroboration.

Cue the X-Files music.

So I looked at the Calimani Mountains, hoping to identify the peak by height. Here's another quote from Wikipedia: "Maximum height is reached in Pietrosul Călimanilor Peak, at 2,102 m. Other significant peaks include: Bistriciorul (1,990 m), Stuniorul (1,885 m), Gruiului (1,913 m), Negoiul Unguresc (2,084 m), Rețițiș (2,021 m), Bradul Ciont (1,899 m), Iezerul Călimanilor (2,023 m)."

There is NO mountain peak of exactly 2033 meters!!

(There IS a Mount Izvor, but it's in Antarctica.)

So the apparent fact of Stoker's notes seems to be only a ghost of a fact. Anybody who has independent confirmation of Mount Izvor, get in touch!!