New Release: Home at Last Chance by Hope Ramsay

The agency is excited to announce that Home at Last Chance, the sequel to the bestselling romance novel Welcome to Last Chance, is now available. Author Hope Ramsay brings the small southern town of Last Chance to life with her wonderful cast of characters once again:

Dear Reader,

You won't believe what's happened. My son Tulane has come back home! You remember Tulane? He'd set out to find fame and fortune in the big, wide world outside of Last Chance, and I'm mighty proud. But that's not the half of it-Tulane isn't only back, he's brought a young lady with him.

Now Sarah-she does PR for Tulane's stock-car team-she's from Boston, but she's just about the sweetest girl you could meet. I think she's meant to keep Tulane out of trouble after that story in the papers, but he doesn't want to talk about it. Anyhow, the Ladies Auxiliary can't wait to start matchmaking and introduce Sarah to our Reverend Ellis. But mark my words, Sarah is tired of being a good girl. And no one is better at breaking the rules and raising Cain than my son . . .

Listen to me going on and keeping customeres waiting. I best get back to work, but you come round again. The Cut 'n' Curl's got hot rollers, free coffee, and the best gossip in town.

See you real soon,

Ruby Rhodes

Be sure to pick up your copy today!

I see, you see, we all see...

Okay, that title wasn't particularly clever, as it doesn't include third person and it's not even the right words, but hey. I though using "scream" might imply something slightly different than the actual topic, which is:

Point of View!

Let’s talk about this. This is one of those things that, when you think about it, is generally pretty common sense. The problem is, I think people get so caught up in telling their stories and trying to get all the information out there, they don’t always think about it.

Some people have only a little trouble with this- a couple slips here and there, just something to keep an eye on. Some people have no trouble. Some people have lots of trouble.

The easiest place, in my experience, to have no trouble, is when you’re telling something from a first person POV. Because in first person, it’s pretty easy to tell what belongs and what doesn’t. Even when you’re not thinking about it, when you’re writing you generally know you can’t switch to someone else’s thoughts if your narrator doesn’t know them, unless your narrator is psychic. I think even if you weren’t paying terribly close attention, you wouldn’t make a mistake like:

“I was sitting at a booth and watching the bar door when my dad strolled in. He saw me and grinned.

‘Hey, Elsie!’

‘Hey dad!” I gestured for him to sit down.

Behind Elsie, Frank watched jealously, sipping his coke and thinking of the best way to get her alone.”

First person is probably (certainly?) the easiest way to get close to your main character. It gives them a very distinct voice that builds their character, instead of just basing it on their actions. But of course, it can be very limiting, because you know your narrator so much better than anyone else (unless you play around with how you use the first person. See: Sherlock Holmes, for example (but really, see them. The real, Conan Doyle stories, I mean. They’re amazing). Watson is the first person narrator, but the stories are, of course, actually about Holmes).

Third person is where it gets tricky, because there are so many ways to do it, and people try to combine them. Pick one.

Some people opt for omniscient third person, where the narrator sees and knows everything about everyone. This is easy because it lets you tell anything you want about what anyone is doing. It’s difficult because it distances you from your characters a bit more, so you’ll have to work on revealing their inner thoughts and desires without doing too much telling. And if your narrator is really going to be omniscient, you can’t get too close to one person for too long, because that’s more…

Close third person. Close third person is a favorite, and probably where I see the most mistakes. In close third person, you pick one character- your main character, almost always- and the third person narrator doesn't leave their side. Or their head, since you can usually see what they’re thinking, as well. The narrator is not an actor in the story any more than the omniscient narrator is, but they only know what the character they are close to knows. Thus, the narrator (and the reader) can’t know what other people are thinking or doing unless the main character knows, too.

An example: The Harry Potter series, with a couple of exceptions (generally one chapter in the beginning of the book that shows what Voldemort’s up to) is told in close third person, close to Harry. We don’t know anything until Harry does (well, we might figure stuff out faster than he does, but only based on the information he knows). The story does not, all of a sudden, follow Hermione for a day or an hour, even if what happened to her was important. We have to wait until she tells Harry about this. This is a drawback of close third-person (it would be really convenient if the narrator could just show/tell us what Hermione did), but it’s necessary. By not leaving the one character’s side (and mind), we know them intimately fairly quickly. It’s similar to first-person in this way; it’s an excellent way to really develop your main character. Of course, it’s also more of an effort to develop the characters you’re not close to. But (clearly) every POV is a give and take.

I've seen more problems with this than one might expect. A close third person narration will suddenly switch to a different character, which is horribly disorienting.

Don’t get me wrong: you’re allowed to switch viewpoints. Quite a lot of books do it. But it has to be at regular, set intervals- chapters, for instance. This is Jeff’s chapter, now Christine’s. It has to be obvious. The POV can’t switch in the middle of, say, a phone call. If the character on the phone is not the character we’re close to, we do not know what the person on the other end of the line is saying. We just don’t. Maybe they’ll tell us in a minute; but until then, we don’t know. A couple of other interns have written about changing POV, however (one about a year ago, and one in March), so I won’t go into too much detail about that. I do recommend those posts if you need help on that though.

To sum up, don’t stray. Switch, coherently, if you’d like, but don’t stray. Pick a point of view and be true to it, even when you’d like to let us know a bit of information that’s going to be hard to work in. It can be frustrating, but it’s worth it for a polished, coherent, smooth read.

This is more a call to double check your work than anything. I know that most writers know the differences between POVs. But like I said, sometimes it’s one sentence of slip-up, or just a switch that’s a bit disorienting. Make sure you know exactly where you’re going with your narrator’s voice, and make sure everything fits.

Hope this can help, live long and prosper and all that,

-Katie

New Release: Just One Touch by Celeste O. Norfleet

Happy Monday! If this summer isn't hot enough for you already, our authors are ready to help you turn up the heat. Today's release is another steamy romance from the prolific Celeste O. Norfleet:

Her bottom line:

Journalist Tatiana Coles is famous for doing anything for a story--including putting herself in harm's way. Now, on vacation in Martha's Vineyard, she faces her greatest challenge: getting an exclusive on reclusive media mogul Spencer Cage. Putting his words to her paper will fast-track her career. But it also means facing the man she loved and lost.

Their work stays on the page...

Spencer plays by nobody's rules but his own. Three years ago, he and Tatiana were inseparable. Which made her betrayal all the more unforgivable. Now the self-made entrepreneur intends to have his sweet revenge: a summer the traitorous news correspondent will never forget.

...not in the bed

All it takes is one kiss to reignite desire. But how can he avoid putting his own heart on the line? Because now Spencer and Tatiana are playing for the highest stakes of all--a second chance at love...

Be sure to pick up or download your copy today!

New Release: "Talbot's Ace" by Diane Whiteside in Improper Gentlemen

Good news, Diane Whiteside fans: Improper Gentlemen, a collection of three historical romance short stories, is now available! The anthology includesTalbot's Ace, a new, steamy, old-west story by Diane Whiteside.

He rules Colorado's most glittering, anything-goes gambling palace. And Just Talbot never does something for nothing. But if daring Boston aristocrat Charlotte Morland needs his protection from a dangerous enemy, he'll have no choice but to make her business his pleasure...

Pick up or download a copy today!

Finding Themselves

I want to talk about characters today. Another intern wrote a post on characters a few months ago, and I agree with everything she said, but I want to talk a little bit more specifically about developing characters. For me, the characters are the most important part of the story (of course, different people have different opinions, but this is mine). A plot can be mediocre (I’d rather it not be, of course, but it can be forgiven) if the characters are excellent. When I write, I almost always start a story because I have a new character I want to write about, and then the plot develops around them (plotting is generally my least favorite part of writing). This is largely why dialogue is something I harp on so much, because the way someone talks is so integral to who they are.

For example, in my recent blog post on dialogue, I wrote up a couple of short example conversations between the characters David, Jane and Jared. These conversations were completely random and on-the-spot, and the names were just the first that popped into my head. But since then, I’ve found myself thinking about them more than I expected to. Just based on those conversations, I already know that the three of them are deep into something, probably trying to scam someone (for some reason what I’m picturing is something about an inheritance, but I also don’t think the three are siblings). It’s also clear that David and Jane are doing something behind Jared’s back. Part of me keeps wondering what the story is, because I’ve inadvertently created characters that interest me.

You should know your characters intimately, in and out of the situations of the story. You should know all sorts of random details that may never actually come into play in your actual story, because the more you know (even random, apparently pointless things) the better you will be able to predict what your character would do in a certain situation. As the other intern mentioned, you should know what you characters were like as children, what they think about before going to sleep, etc.

A good number of you probably already do stuff like this, but for those of you who have trouble breaking away from the plot, here’s my advice. I like to do character development exercises—my favorites are the ones that are lists of questions. You can find any number of these online. They ask things like “What does your character wish for when they blow out their birthday candles?” “What are three bad habits your character has?” and “What is your character’s worst fear?” (I had no idea one of my characters was deathly afraid of fire until I came across that question. Once I realized it (and realized that, being who he was, he would never admit it to anyone), my storyline opened up considerably). Sometimes you have to modify the questions to make them fit your character (if you have a character that’s an orphan living in the woods in a fantasy world (like me), clearly she never blew out birthday candles. But if she could wish for something, what would it be?). But that’s okay, that’s just more information to work with. Also, sometimes the questions just make you go “of course!” even if you already know your character really well. For instance, the bad habits question: “he smokes- it’s the twenties!” It was so obvious, but it’s not necessarily something I would have thought about enough to include, and it can make all the difference. It’s the little details that make a scene. And a character.

My favorite question is “What is your character’s worst nightmare?” Whenever I answer this question, I answer it literally. I write out the actual nightmare, from the first-person point of view of that character (even if the manuscript itself isn’t from that character’s point of view—it’s helpful to get into each character’s head a bit). Of course, everyone has their own methods, but I’ve had quite a lot of fun with that question, and learned quite a bit about my own characters at the same time.

Sometimes helping a character find themselves is more important than you realize. Maybe a minor character isn’t so minor after all (I would recommend doing these types of exercises for lots of characters, not just the main ones). Maybe a piece of your main character’s past is going to change the whole story. When it comes down to it, I think the main message is don’t be so glued to your plot that you suffocate your characters. If you let them be themselves, chances are your story will improve.

All for now!

-Katie