Category: For Readers (Page 2 of 19)

Five Reasons Authors Love Orphans

October 4, 2023 / / 0 Comments

One of the fundamental aspects of writing a novel is developing a cast of characters to act out the story you want to tell. These characters will come from work/play relationships, hobby groups, proximity . . . and family. 

Since family is the first and most significant set of characters we encounter in real life, we would expect family to be paramount in the development of a story. Cinderella’s step-mother starts the ball rolling in that fairy tale. A foolish mother, a gaggle of sisters, and a negligent father create the impetus for Pride and Prejudice, while Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights is a terrible dad in all respects.

Yet, despite the seminal role of family in real life, in fiction, especially romantic fiction, the family is often absent. Why? I have a few suggestions.

  1.  A young woman without a family, is extra vulnerable.  This vulnerability opens up many avenues for story. She may be victim, heroine, fighter, or survivor. 
  2. The absent family may be the seed for a quest story. Our orphan sets out to discover her roots and perhaps some long-lost relatives. 
  3. An orphan is a perfect foil for a misfit story. She may be adopted into a family that exploits her, or tries to shape her in their own image. Modern history is full of tales of Indigenous children taken into non-indigenous families. No matter how well treated, the orphan knows she is “different.” Of course, if she is treated badly, that is a whole other story.
  4. The orphan’s tale may be a story of self-discovery. Who am I? Did my mother abandon me? Where is my self-worth?
  5. A character without a family becomes a story of survival. How does she earn her bread? Where can she live? What obstacles must she overcome to achieve happiness and security?

 

My list is not exhaustive nor immutable. Clever writers take those tropes and turn them upside down all the time. I’m reading a Jennifer Crusie book where the heroine not only has a family and a best friend, she goes home to mother when her love-life falls apart. The results are hilarious.

“Barbie” has no progenitors yet the movie maker gave her a great life, a journey or self-discovery and a good ending. 

Still, I’d bet most of us want to have a happy family, live in a comfortable home, and know where we came from. We want big family gatherings at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and birthdays, and summers at the lake. We’d like “Leave it to Beaver” and “The Waltons” as the backdrop of our daily lives. That’s why “fiction” is fiction. Given a choice, most of us don’t want to go hungry, or fall prey to criminals, or be homeless, or . . .  But fiction thrives on a host of calamities afflicting the main characters. At heart, readers are voyeurs. We peer in at the lives of others and thrill to their adventures, ache for their mistakes, long for them to find true love — all from the comfort of our armchairs. 

To all my friends in Canada, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving with wonderful family gatherings.

Views: 331

What I Did on Summer Vacation

September 6, 2023 / / 0 Comments

new school scribbler

Here we are in the first week of school already. How did that happen? Where did summer go? When I decided to take a little holiday from blogging I did not expect the break to be so long. So, since school is in, it’s appropriate to write an assignment on what did on my summer vacation?

A trip “home” to see my brothers and their families shaped summer for me. I have not travelled since before COVID and I haven’t seen my family for at least five years. As my generation is ageing, I knew it was time for an in-person visit. The travelling part of our trip did not go well. Planes were late. Our rental car was a wreck. Medications were lost along the way. We arrived at an unknown house in the middle of the night and the house number was invisible. By that time we were so tired we opened the unlocked door and climbed into the empty bed we could see from the hall. We hoped we were in the right house, but if we weren’t we had a “Goldilocks” story to tell in the morning. 

After that, things got better. I saw all of my brothers and many of my nieces, nephews and “greats” — two of whom I had never met. Then there was the thirteen year old I’d last seen as a toddler. What a surprise. Intellectually, I know the children have been growing older. I send them notes on every birthday and have their years of birth recorded so I can keep track. But memory plays tricks. Even though the calendar says ten-year-old, my mental image is of a little one taking her first steps.

At the other end of the scale are my siblings. I’m taken aback when I see the aches and pains of old age in my younger siblings. Even though they have changed, I’m certain I’m the same as ever — until I look in the mirror that is.  Then I’m convinced it is one of those trick mirrors from the circus and the image I see is not really what I look like. Delusion, denial and disbelief!

 Despite the outward changes, our affection for each other remains undiminished. Our family jokes still resonate. I see my father in my brothers’ faces and they see Mom in mine. It is reassuring to know that our essential selves are still there. Since I’m working on a story with an older heroine, I’ve made notes of my family reunion and called it research.

The rest of my summer was spent gardening, harvesting, and preserving. I made stuff to take to the Fall Fair. I won some ribbons and got shut out in zinnias. I hear the phrase “next year . . .” echoing in my mind and wonder when I’ll get too old for all this. OTOH, so long as I keep gardening, I’ll always look forward with hope. That’s not a bad ambition. 

 

Views: 95

20 Books that Mattered

June 14, 2023 / / 1 Comment

My book club is preparing for our last meeting before the summer break. As well as discussing this month’s book, we’ll be generating a list for next season’s reading. We have been doing this since 2000, with mostly the same members. Five of us could be considered charter members. We hover around nine members most years so over half of us have been there from the beginning and are still going strong. 

Just for fun, I looked back at our previous reading lists. The very first book we read was the best seller of the time, Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone.  I can’t say it was my favourite of all time, but I’m glad I read it just to know what all the fuss was about.

My favourites from over twenty years of book club include

  • The Celibate Season by Carol Shields and Blanche Howard
  • And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer
  • Parallel Lives  by Phyllis Rose
  • Coventry by Helen Humphreys
  • The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
  • The Amazing Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
  • The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
  • Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright
  • Miss Garnet’s Angel by Salley Vickers
  • Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer
  • God’s Secretaries by Adam Nicolson
  • Old Square Toes and His Lady by John Adams
  • The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
  • The Book that Matters Most by Ann Hood
  • A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
  • The Chilbury Ladies Choir by Jennifer Ryan
  • A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier
  • The Company we Keep by Frances Itani
  • The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
  • Dear Evelyn by Kathy Page

So, a list of 20 from over 200 books read. Ten percent.  It is not that I didn’t enjoy the other books we read. Maybe 10% of them didn’t suit my taste. Usually these were books from the best seller lists. 😕

My personal biases are showing here as many of the books on my list are historicals, or women’s fiction, or Canadian authors. The books listed above are not necessarily the “best” books from our reading list, or the most popular, or the ones destined to become classics. What these books did was make an impression on me. I admit, that when I read over the titles on  our old lists, some of the books I’d forgotten entirely, even though I enjoyed reading them at the time.

My list of twenty are books that became touchstones for me. Whenever I hear the word “Coventry” the story of its bombing during WWII instantly springs to mind. “Old Square Toes. . .” is about Sir James Douglas. I can’t drive down Douglas Street in Victoria, without remembering the book.  I cannot read Charles Dickens in the same way since I read Parallel Lives. That is how I created the list. If the story, or the writing, or the idea has stuck with me, then the book made my personal list.

My friend, Laura Langston, often blogs about the books she is reading, but she doesn’t say if they have become an integral part of her memory bank.

As my readers group considers our next set of books, I’d love to hear of any book you think should be on our list. A book that left a mark on your heart or your mind.  Please list it in the comments to this blog. 

Views: 179

If You Could Do It Over

May 31, 2023 / / 0 Comments

In its simplest terms, the premise of Matt Haig’s  The Midnight Library is the do-over. In the moment between death and eternity, our protagonist, and some others, have a chance to relive their lives, making different choices. They can undo their mistakes, to atone for harm they caused, see the world as a different person, be a different person. 

It’s an intriguing idea but I’m not inclined to spend much time applying it to my own life. Robert Frost wrote of “the road less travelled by” and the notion has teased the human imagination for years. But, in real life, we don’t get to back up and make another choice. In real life, we move forward, mistakes and all. Regret is a natural emotion, but wallowing in  past sorrows is a recipe for discontent in the present and despair for the future. 

But, while I reject the idea as a real person, as an author it fires my imagination. Every time I put pen to paper, (or fingers to keyboard) in my story, I’m making a choice for the characters–and for everything else, for that matter. 

If I set my story in a small town, I’ve given up the possibility of writing glitz and glamour.  If I set it on a ranch, I’d better be prepared to write about horses and cows and maybe sheep. If the heroine comes from a large family, the hero will have to win their approval. If she is an only child, or an orphan, she’ll be carrying that baggage and the love story will have to reflect that background.

But the real choices for an author come in the actions of my character. If she accepts a job in a foreign country, she will have a different story than if she takes one in the next town. When I decide which action she takes, I’m locking her into that life, even if it is fictional. There is no do-over for the book unless I toss what I’ve written and take a different course.

Authors like to play “what if.” For example, what if Scarlett O’Hara had loved Rhett Butler more than Tara? If she had had a chance for a do-over would she have acted differently? What would that have done to the story? Would you read it? 

In my own book, Her One True Love, the heroine has a choice between two men. That choice will determine the rest of her life. Does she choose to marry the Mountie?  She’ll have a life of adventure. She’ll have to follow him to postings all over the country. She’ll live with the knowledge that he is often in danger. She may become a bit of a sleuth herself helping him with his unsolved cases. Is that the life she wants?

Or, she can marry the preacher. She’ll have a settled life, near her sister. She’ll be the cynosure of the gossips for the rest of her life. She’ll play a major role in her husband’s ministry. She’ll be expected to teach Sunday School, and pour tea, and keep an immaculate house. Is that the life she wants?

As the main character of The Midnight Library discovers, no life is perfect.

But as readers or authors, we get to try out as many as our imaginations can conceive.

What about you, dear reader? Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you’d taken a different road?

Views: 112

Filling the Well

May 17, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Julia Cameron lists the “artist’s date” as a building block to nurturing the creative side of oneself. The idea is to “fill the well” or your artist’s soul by going on an excursion by yourself and taking in all the details of the moment. What do you see? What do your hear? What do you smell? What do you remember? All these minutia “fill the well,” supplying a rich source of inspiration for the writer. 

As an introverted-extrovert, or maybe an extroverted-introvert, I relate to the concept of the artist’s date. I thrive on company. I love chatting and learning from others. I also crave quiet and solitude to repair my mind and heart from information overload. 

Ms Cameron says these dates should be taken alone, but on this date, my husband went with me. I needed a driver!  I’d been given a book on “Pioneer Churches” in my area and decided Sunday was a good time to go and explore some of them. As usual, I was more drawn to the graveyards than the church buildings.   

One of the places we visited was a military chapel and graveyard. Some of the gravestones at this site pre-date Canada as a nation. We walked silently among these stones, hushed and reverend as we trod on “holy ground.” There were other visitors, equally respectful. A few had laid flowers–it was Mother’s Day. 

We visited three sites. I soaked up the balm and beauty of these places. The babble and strife of the day-to-day world receded.  I felt the well filling, imagination stirring. I came home with my mind at peace.

On Monday I read an article at Writer Unboxed that filled me with dismay. The writer, David Corbett, explored good intentions and The Road to Hell, a serious discussion of the culture wars happening in society in general and in publishing in particular. The topic is huge and amorphous and thorny and slippery. Thankfully, the comments were mostly thoughtful, with a minimum of snark — a rare event on social media. Still, I felt my peace slipping away. 

Then I read the next article on the same website, a report on the memorial service for Hilary Mantel at Sourthwark Cathedral. The author, Porter Anderson, spoke of how the architecture and the music eased him away from the hurly-burly of the London Book Fair. His words brought to mind my sojourn among the tombstones on a Sunday afternoon. My mind filled with images of bluebells growing wild, a rabbit nibbling on some grass, a family’s love for a departed parent. My anxiety eased.

The David Corbett article is important. The topic is life-changing for authors and readers. I don’t recommend avoiding the hard topics or hiding away from the issues of our day. There are forest fires raging in my country, there are bombs exploding in Europe and Africa. There are millions of hungry people around the globe. There are families in my home town resorting to food banks. These things are real, and writers need to write about them. It is our job to reflect the world we live in, to try to make sense of it and to point to hope.

The young seaman who died after falling from the rigging of a sailing ship in the 1850’s lived in a completely different world than mine, yet his shipmates erected a stone in his memory. The cared about him. They missed him. They honoured him. 

Love, compassion, connections–these are the stuff of humanity, regardless of the ages. They are also the seeds of story. 

As a writer, I’m glad I took time out to fill the well. That makes me a better writer, and a better contributor to my community. I am grateful to Julia Cameron for giving me “permission” to nurture my own self without feeling guilty or selfish.  I encourage others to do the same.

I admit to an affinity for graveyards, but I doubt many share that quirk. Where do you go to fill your well? What inspires your imagination? What brings peace to your soul?

 

Views: 97

Before and After

March 8, 2023 / / 2 Comments

 

The beauty industry is rife with before and after pictures. Their aim is to show potential customers the benefit of some product or treatment, hence the “after” picture is far more appealing than the “before” picture.

Lately, I’ve noticed conversations containing the before/after phrase,  not in regards to a beauty treatment, but in relation to COVID-19. The pandemic created a great slash through the normal progression of our lives. We have “before,” when families and friends gathered for celebration and sorrow. When the only consideration in creating a guest list was the size of the table. Babies were born and grandparents, aunts and uncles flocked to the nursery to greet the new arrival. In times of loss, the bereaved drew strength from the mourners who assembled to comfort them. We didn’t think twice about being present in a group.

COVID changed all that. Some grandparents didn’t cuddle a newborn until the babe had become a toddler. Families grieved in isolation, unable to hold the hand of a loved one as they passed from this life. Our new guest lists may exclude the unvaccinated. Remember when banks had signs outside requiring customers to remove sunglasses and caps before entering the building? Now we see a masked man in a bank and shrug.

Most pandemic related restrictions have been removed now, but our behaviour has not returned to the “before” times. I doubt it ever will. 

From a personal and social point of view the effects of the pandemic are significant, leaving us more cautious, suspicious of our fellowmen. We must navigate a new “normal” and the journey  is uncomfortable and awkward.

From a writer’s point of view, the experience of the pandemic gives us a whole range of new responses for character-building. If a good story starts at a turning point, we have loads of examples from our daily lives to show what happens when a character hits a crossroads. Does she defy the risks and go out and party with strangers? Does she withdraw into her cocoon and miss out on the rest of life? Does she feel her way back into the life she had before, or does she close the door on those times and start over?

In my wip, the heroine is a widow. She behaves like a new widow, even though she lost her husband five years before the story began. That is because she has decided to withdraw — from friends and neighbours, from community, from organizations — from everything that gave her life meaning before her sudden change in circumstances.

Since the pandemic, I can look around me and see that response in real life. I know people who have stopped coming to church, have stopped going to the grocery story, have given up on movies or concerts, have cut themselves off from personal contact with anyone outside their household. I can use my observation of these people to give more depth to my protagonist

In my story the heroine is jolted out of her half-life by events — it would be a boring story if she wasn’t — and I can witness the same thing around me as people venture into society once more.  Some are cautious, wearing masks in every indoor setting. Some are being social, but only with a few close friends. Some are racing full-throttle into crowds of strangers.  More grist for the story-teller’s mill.

Regardless of how people respond to the post-COVID world (actually, the virus is still around, it’s just the restrictions that have changed) no one has been untouched by it. We all have this wide chasm, an empty place in our lives, from when the pandemic was at it’s worst. We date our memories as pre-pandemic or after. It’s as though we have had two lives.

One ended in March of 2020. 

As writers, this is familiar ground. Our stories are about change.  Page one is “before,” and the end is “after.” We can give our characters successes and defeats. We can make them victims of circumstances, or we can make them masters of their own lives. In fiction, we can make it up as we go along. That’s the joy of writing, The question is, how will we manage in real life?

In March of 2023 we begin the second part of our own story.

Views: 116

Name that Character

February 22, 2023 / / 4 Comments

I’ve been wrestling with my wip lately and I think I’m losing. I started the story with such enthusiasm, I thought the words would just fly onto the page. You’d think by now I would know that never happens. 🙁

Part of my problem is the heroine’s name. I know, it’s just a name, get on and write the story. But names matter. If I don’t feel the name reflects the character’s personality, I can’t relate to her, even though she is my own creation. As I was struggling with my heroine’s name I came across a great article at Writer Unboxed, about the power of names. You can read the whole article here.

I had to chuckle at the writer’s aversion to certain names based on life experiences.  I was tormented in school by a fellow named Guy. I could never use that name for a hero in a book, although he could probably show up as a villain. 

Personal bias aside, I want my heroine to have a name that will resonate with readers. It needs to be unique but no so far out that no one will believe it on a fifty year old widow. I’m writing what I hope is a “seasoned” romance. This is a new genre for me and I’m still finding my way. My historical novels used lovely old-fashioned names like Emma, Louisa and Lottie. I connected with those characters immediately and their names fell upon them naturally. They fit so well with long skirts and sturdy boots, and strong-minded women.

I don’t want my heroine to sound as though she comes from another era. I don’t want her to sound too grandmotherly. I don’t want to attach too youthful a name to an older heroine. Of course, our reactions to names are purely subjective but there are guidelines. Jo Beverley used to advise using hard consonants in a hero’s name, to give the impression of strength. Jack, Devon, and Zeke are examples of strong names. Jo would also consider who the name looked on the page, choosing Karl instead of Carl, because the K had more presence.

The name needs to fit my character. When Raquel Welch died there were a number of news stories about her but the one that made me laugh was the tale of a movie mogul who thought her name too exotic and suggested she change it  – – – to Debbie. As Raquel told the story on late-night TV she pulled a face and said, “Do I look like a Debbie?” The answer was patently “no.” Ms Welch was marketed as a sex symbol, an exotic, someone with jungle – like appeal.Raquel suited that image perfectly.

My character is a middle-aged woman, wallowing in her widowhood, keeping the world at arm’s length. The reader must see her vulnerability beneath the “I’m fine,” mask. She is currently named Carrie. It’s a good name, popular at the time my heroine would have been born, but it sounds juvenile in my ear. Not only that, it is  the name Stephen King used for a very disturbed teenager! Not the association I want.

What about Karla? Or Kerry? Changing the C to K creates a whole other personality. I’ve just done a Google search and neither of those names pulls up a negative or famous connection. 

What do you think, dear reader. Is a fifty-year old market gardener named Kerry believable? Relatable?

Please share your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to read them.

 

 

 

Views: 112

Is It My Story to Tell?

February 8, 2023 / / 2 Comments

    My to-be-read pile has reached such towering proportions I’ve had to break it into two  edifices. The collection includes books I’ve chosen myself, books I received as gifts at Christmas, and books chosen by my book club. Topics range from the science of climate change to a Gothic fantasy to a YA mystery. That’s the joy of reading books others have chosen. I’m not a science geek so would have passed over the climate change book, yet I find it fascinating , and actually easy to read.

     Gothic and fantasy are not my first choices, but this gift introduced me to a writer of amazing skill and imagination. It opened my eyes to a subject I have long ignored.

     There is a lovely gentle read from an author I love. I’ve opened that one today and consider it my reward for persevering through the tough ones.

     One of my book club choices  provoked controversy upon its release over the question of cultural appropriation. Unless you’ve been living on a desert island with no internet, the topic of cultural appropriation has crossed your consciousness. I’ve heard people get really worked up about the topic but I could not understand what all the fuss was about. Isn’t fiction supposed to show us other cultures, other ways of being, other realities? Can’t a woman write from a male point of view? or a child’s or even a cat’s? It happens all the time.

     The argument that you don’t have to be a murderer to write a mystery seems obvious. I write historical fiction but I am not a pioneer. I’ve never lived without running water or electricity. Yet I feel I have every right to tell those stories. My forebears were pioneers. Their story is part of my history. It is their cultural legacy to me. I research the times and places to be as accurate as possible, but I believe these are my stories to tell.

     Wouldn’t the same research-based approach allow me to tell a story from another culture, another race?

     Now that I’ve read this controversial book, I can appreciate the furore.  Although the protagonist of the book in question is non-white, I never really identified her as such. As I read, I felt as though she was a middle-class, white woman looking through a picture window at a story unfolding before her. The protagonist was in peril but the narrator was safe.

     When I read Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale, I had a very different experience. I was terrified for every page of the book. If I read before bed, I’d have nightmares.  Hannah never lived in Nazi-occupied France, but she told an authentic story.

     Authenticity is, I believe, at the heart of the cultural appropriation debate.  For someone who has never been beset by bullies because of the colour of her skin, or her style of dress, to tell the story of someone who lives with that reality every day, is a herculean task. It may be possible, in the hands of a very skilled writer, dedicated to uncovering the nuances and subtleties of a different culture and layering them onto her characters. Such a book would be very hard to write. In the case of my book club choice, that author missed the mark.

     The variety in my “to-be-read” pile, is a gift. It demonstrates the wonder of books, how they stretch our minds, challenge our prejudices, and bring joy and comfort. Even when they fall short, they can teach valuable lessons.  The old adage of “write what you know,” I now understand can mean, “is this your story to tell?”

Views: 206

The Trouble with Tropes

January 25, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Cruising through the internet last week I came upon a conversation between highly successful romance authors looking for recommendations for romance novels. Many complained that they were bored with the same old tropes played over and over again. As readers, they wanted something  fresh to grab their attention and keep them turning pages past their bedtime.

There were many responses along a similar vein and the recommendations seemed to be for re-reading old favourites. As a romance author I found the discussion interesting and worrisome.

To trope or not to trope. Readers have certain expectations of romance novels. If an author doesn’t meet those expectations, the book is likely to flop. Yet meeting those expectations results in reruns of the same old themes — and bored and disgruntled readers. 

What is a writer to do?

Here are five top tropes in romance along with some suggestions for freshening them up.

  1. Spunky heroine.  The belief is no one wants to read about wimps. Heroine’s must be proactive, kick-ass, goal-oriented, tough . . . you get the picture. And yet, fairy tale heroines beloved of romance authors are often placid and reactive. Cinderella needs her fairy godmother to get her to the ball. She needs prince charming to rescue her after the ball. So, perhaps there is hope for a “non-spunky” main character. I read one book recently where the heroine irritated me no end because she wouldn’t stand up for herself, yet, in the end, she did grow and find love and she “rescued” herself. What kept me turning the pages was the author’s voice, the engaging cast of secondary characters, and the setting.  If you are really tired of writing about or reading about the perky, spunky female, you can go a different route, but you need skill to pull it off.                                                                                                                                                           
  2. Jilted at the altar. This one incorporates the “cute meet” beloved of romance readers too. Usually the bride, or groom, left standing alone meets the perfect mate while picking up the pieces of the disastrous day. I just read a book that began that way. I yawned, but kept reading. I liked the heroine’s voice. However, the book exceeded expectations as the story delved deeply into family relations, small town castes, and an old mystery. So the trope was useful to hook the reader, but it did not determine the entire story.                                                                                                                                                                        
  3. Proximity.  This is the one where the two main characters are snowed in by themselves in a remote cabin, or stranded on an island, or locked in an old castle. There are many variations but the point is they are together and cannot get away from each other. In the world of tropes this must lead to romance.  But what if it doesn’t? What if enforced proximity exposes a nose-picker, or a soup-slurper, or a bully, or a whiner? Perhaps this trope could be used to separate a couple who were romantically inclined at the beginning of the story and can’t put enough distance between themselves when they are finally able to escape? I haven’t read a book like this yet but there must be one out there somewhere. I think if would make a great comedy.                                                                                                                                                                     
  4. Marriage of Convenience.  I admit that this is one of my favourites, especially in historical romance and especially when handled deftly — witness Georgette Heyer. Inevitably the pretend couple ends by falling in love and turning their fake marriage into the real thing. What would happen if they didn’t? What if her old sweetheart, left for dead at Waterloo, returns, alive and well? How does she get out of her “convenient” marriage? Walking away is a possibility in contemporary romances, but for a regency lady to desert her husband and still have a happily-ever-after? Again, such a story would challenge the author but it might satisfy the reader who is tired of same-old, same-old.                                                                                                                                                                             
  5.    Billionaires/celebrity/royalty.  I don’t like this one very much. The characters are too unbelievable for me. The billionaire who never seems to work, the celebrity who misbehaves, the royal who doesn’t understand protocol . . . I’m apt to throw the book at the wall. But it is a trope that is adored by many readers. So, how to make it work?  Be realistic.  If you put a public figure in your story, give them something worthwhile to do. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, let me judge them by their character, not their bank account. Celebrities often spend a lot of time helping charities, or advocating for the poor or hungry or traumatised.  A person who expects adoration because of his wealth or social status isn’t “hero”material. If he loses all his money, will the reader still love him? I’d read that story.

So, dear reader, what are your favourite tropes? Can you recommend a romance that turns an old faithful on its head and sends that author to the top of your reading list? Please share in the comments section. (click the button under the post title.)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

 

 

 

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Christmas Short Story

December 7, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Christmas seemed a long way off in November, now it is rushing forward at breakneck speed. So, I’ve been working on my annual short story. After numerous re-writes, I thought I had the text ready to publish. My friend had told me about using the reading tool on microsoft so I thought I’d do one last check using that. I found one typo and one repeat word but listening to my words read by a computer voice was . . . an experience.

For some reason, the computer voice did not recognize the name of my heroine — even though a google search showed it does exist. The word the computer used was totally mangled. For those who may have received the story, the heroine’s name is Riona, pronounced ree-owe-na. 🙂

I live in Canada and have always referred to my mother’s mother as grandma. Pronounced grand-ma. The computer must have been programmed in the southern States because it pronounced my grandparent as grand-maw. I had a hard time picturing the woman I’d written about sipping tea from a china cup with “maw” at the end of her name.

Usually, I do a final proof by reading the work aloud, myself, but that can put a strain on the voice and I’ve got a cough, so the computer option seemed like a good idea. It certainly speeded up the process, and reminded me that readers will come from different regions and different backgrounds. 

I’ve had a trying day arguing with various templates on the computer, but my story is now written, edited, and published in my newsletter. If you want to read it, please join my newsletter   here.  

If you are frantically working on Christmas projects, take time to savour the moment. You’ve still got seventeen days. Put some carols on your sound system, bite into a piece of shortbread, and remember the reason for Christmas.

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