Monday, January 31, 2011

The Prison Chronicles by @janayablack Now Available on Various Mobile Downloads!



As Told By the Other Woman
Ebook Price: $0.99 USD. 32460 words. Fiction by Janaya Black on January 31, 2011
Vanessa Jackson is on the job again for the Women’s Lib Magazine at the Wayne County Women’s Correctional Facility, and this time it's to interview Timberlyn Crawford, a woman sentenced to life for cold-blooded murder. What would drive a young girl to commit such a heinous crime? Lust and lies are the underlying forces that drove this seemingly harmless girl to do the unthinkable.
CLICK HERE TO BUY
Beautiful Rage: The Break of Dawn
Ebook Price: $3.99 USD. 39590 words. Fiction by Janaya Black on January 31, 2011
Vanessa Jackson is back on the job and this time she has been assigned to interview Dawn Langston, a woman turned vigilante after the brutal kidnap and murder of her sister. The violently cold-blooded and savage nature of the crime leads Vanessa to question her ability to execute her assignment successfully without losing herself completely.
CLICK HERE TO BUY
The Breaking Point
Ebook Price: $0.99 USD. 37670 words. Fiction by Janaya Black on January 30, 2011
The Breaking Point is the powerful story of a woman’s imprisonment for the brutal murder of her husband. You will fall whole-heartedly into this roller-coaster journey through the life of a woman who has seen every kind of hardship life could have to offer.
CLICK HERE TO BUY


You can still purchase these books on Kindle or Paperback at Amazon.com, by clicking here or the book covers below: 
Beautiful Rage: The Break of DawnThe Breaking PointAs Told by the Other Woman


Part IX Suspense - Backstory

Backstory is the part of a character’s life that has passed before the story begins. As in all fiction, backstory motivates action, emotion, and attitudes of the character based on past experiences. In suspense, the character’s past sets up ways he thinks and responds whether he is the protagonist, victim or antagonist in the story.

When creating backstory, create a life for your major characters back to their childhood--family discipline, birth order, family dysfunction, family social status, education and experiences, successes, failtures, romantic experience, family health, personal health, career choice, regional influences, religion, hobbies, traits, and everything else that might be important. Then use this information to build who your character is today and how it affects him in the suspense situation.

In suspense, do not neglect the antagonist. What happened in the life of the villain to make him who he is today and why he functions as he does. Follow the same procedures for developing his characterization. The villain will be covered more fully in an upcoming blog.

In suspense, backstory can provide details that explain specific character elements needed in the novel .
• ability in solving puzzles
• determination to succeed or win
• ability to manipulate or camouflage
• reasons for revenge
• unique talents or traits vital to the plot
• emphasis phobias or fears
• reveal reaction patterns
• can foreshadow experiences that parallel future or present event

Besides dialogue, suspense often provides backstory elements in flashbacks or detailed memories to set up past experiences in vivid detail so the reader can understand the motivation for the crime and the character’s motivation and goals to commit or resolve the crime.

Some basic rules to keep in mind is use backstory:
• On a need to know basis to reveal characterization or provide tension.
• To arouse a readers curiosity
• In small portions through introspection
• For the most part, in active delivery through dialogue or action.

The next blog will cover goals and motivation as related to suspense.

About Me

My Photo
Multi-award-winning author, Gail Gaymer Martin writes Christian fiction for Steeple Hill and Barbour Publishing. She has forty-seven contracted novels with over three million books in print. Gail is the author of Writers Digiest’s Writing the Christian Romance. Gail is a co-founder of American Christian Fiction Writers, a keynote speaker at churches, libraries and civic organizations  and presents workshops at conference across the US. Gail live in the Detroit area.

Writing the Christian RomanceGroom in Training (Love Inspired)Dad in Training (Thorndike Press Large Print Christian Fiction)Bride in Training (Love Inspired)In His Dreams (Michigan Island, Book 3) (Love Inspired #407)Loving Treasures (Loving Series #1) (Love Inspired #177)Loving Hearts (Loving Series #2) (Love Inspired #199)In His Eyes (Michigan Island, Book 1) (Love Inspired #361)Family in His Heart (Michigan Island, Book 4) (Love Inspired #427)Loving Care (Loving Series #4) (Love Inspired #239)Through The Eyes Of A ChildLoving Ways (Loving Series #3) (Love Inspired #231)The Christmas Kite (Steeple Hill Women's Fiction #2)Loving Feelings (Loving Series #6) (Love Inspired #303)And Baby Makes Five (Monterey Peninsula Series #1) (Heartsong Presents #770)

www.gailmartin.com
www.gailmartin.blogspot.com 
www.writingright-martin.blogspot.com 

A Dad Of His Own - Coming March 2011
Dad In Training, Groom in Training, Bride in Training - Steeple Hill Love Inspired
Monterey Memories - Barbour Publishing
Writing The Christian Romance - Writers Digest 

Monday, January 24, 2011

Part VIII - Suspense and Point of View

The rules for point of view follows the same criteria as it does for most fiction. Point of view is the character through which the scene is viewed. The scene can only offer the sights, sounds, tastes, touches and smells that can be provided by the POV character. It is that character’s perceptions and attitudes that are reflected throughout that scene. The POV character can only assume what another character is feeling or thinking.

The POV character’s thoughts, the introspection, can provide a depth into the POV character’s struggles, goals, and motivation, but as in real life, the POV characters’ can skew their thinking at times. They think it’s real but it’s a deep cover for the true emotion they’re dealing with. Perhaps they know the truth, but they won’t admit it to themselves.

The most common POV for suspense in popular fiction is third person, past tense. He ducked into the dark room. And most often this POV includes multiple third person. This allows a voice for the criminal or antagonist as well as the protagonist. If the story has romance, it also opens the door for the opposite sex main character.

First person narrows the scope and adds intimacy to the story line since the reader focuses on one person. For detective stories, first person POV is a common choice. I ducked into the dark room, my hand on my pistol. This means that the story is told totally through the eyes of the detective. We see his personal life as well as his life solving crimes. This allows us to focus on his flaws and weaknesses which adds tension to the novel when we realize that he could fail in his attempts to catch the perpetrator as well as to resolve home issues because he cannot control his flaws or rise above his weakness. This adds a distinctiveness to the story because we cannot guess what others are thinking. We only see them through the detective’s eyes.

The novel Wait Until Dark by Karen Robards, also a movie and stage play, is a suspense written in first person POV. The story involves a blind woman and takes place solely in her apartment where she is terrorized by a group of criminals who believe she has hidden a doll used by them to smuggle heroin into the country. Unbeknownst to her, the doll is in her apartment brought in as a favor to a woman her husband met in the airport. This amazing story is totally through Suzie’s blind eyes.

To decide which POV is best for your novel, ask yourself who needs to relate the story for the greatest suspense impact. Does the story need multiple POV to show the total scheme of drama to the reader? Does more than one have the most at stake in various scenes? Will your antagonist have a POV? Is he or she known to the reader or do you prefer to have an unknown force behind the suspense issues? Your decision will come after much thought and weighing what is best for your novel. Remember first person is most intimate and only that character’s eyes will share the entire story. Third person limited can provide an intimate feeling, a story using he or she but again focusing on one character only. Or in third person multiple, a variety of characters can own their individual scenes as the plot line focuses on their concerns and issues in which they have the most at stake. This allows the antagonist to have his voice in the story.

About Me

My Photo
Multi-award-winning author, Gail Gaymer Martin writes Christian fiction for Steeple Hill and Barbour Publishing. She has forty-seven contracted novels with over three million books in print. Gail is the author of Writers Digiest’s Writing the Christian Romance. Gail is a co-founder of American Christian Fiction Writers, a keynote speaker at churches, libraries and civic organizations  and presents workshops at conference across the US. Gail live in the Detroit area.

Writing the Christian RomanceGroom in Training (Love Inspired)Dad in Training (Thorndike Press Large Print Christian Fiction)Bride in Training (Love Inspired)In His Dreams (Michigan Island, Book 3) (Love Inspired #407)Loving Treasures (Loving Series #1) (Love Inspired #177)Loving Hearts (Loving Series #2) (Love Inspired #199)In His Eyes (Michigan Island, Book 1) (Love Inspired #361)Family in His Heart (Michigan Island, Book 4) (Love Inspired #427)Loving Care (Loving Series #4) (Love Inspired #239)Through The Eyes Of A ChildLoving Ways (Loving Series #3) (Love Inspired #231)The Christmas Kite (Steeple Hill Women's Fiction #2)Loving Feelings (Loving Series #6) (Love Inspired #303)And Baby Makes Five (Monterey Peninsula Series #1) (Heartsong Presents #770)

www.gailmartin.com
www.gailmartin.blogspot.com 
www.writingright-martin.blogspot.com 

A Dad Of His Own - Coming March 2011
Dad In Training, Groom in Training, Bride in Training - Steeple Hill Love Inspired
Monterey Memories - Barbour Publishing
Writing The Christian Romance - Writers Digest
email motownwriters@Yahoo.com if you would like to be a blogger here. email to list books in our amazon store