A Dash of Words with Loleta Abi Romance Author

Three Links 5/22/2020

Loleta Abi

Writing:

1. https://annerallen.com/2020/05/too-many-characters/ “One of my personal writing issues is I tend to pack my books and stories with way too many characters. If a fascinating person walks into one of my stories, I feel it would be rude not to let them join the party. I suppose my inner Manners Doctor takes over. 🙂 

This drives my editors batty. They think confusing the reader is worse than being rude to fictional people. And of course they’re right. They usually tell me I need to consolidate minor characters or eliminate them altogether. Someone even told me there’s a “rule” that a novel should have seven characters or less.

I’ve always been annoyed by all this. But this week I saw a thread in a readers’ Facebook group that helped me see the reader’s point of view.

Someone had put up a post saying they hate “when there are a million characters in books and it’s hard to keep track.” I usually run the error of too many characters though I’m learning to cut down some. I also think it depends on the genre. Fantasy is going to take more.

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Research & Fun Bits:

1. https://coldhandboyack.wordpress.com/2020/05/17/gotta-write-something/ “It was a busy week at work. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it. When you combine that with my short weekend, I didn’t get a damned thing accomplished on the writing front.

Next week is looking like it’s going to be just as busy, but I have a three day weekend at the far end.

I managed to dabble a bit, but it doesn’t amount to anything I can see. I marked up some work for a critique partner. I’ve been sitting on my own critiques for a week and finally addressed those. Then I sent out another section, but I wrote that two weeks ago.

I also hacked out my next Story Empire post, but it needs some work. Beyond that, I added a few words to my Jason Fogg short story in the evenings, and that’s it. This stuff counts, and it has to be done, but it isn’t the same as one of my 3000 word writing sessions.” The life of a writer.

2. https://firefly465.wordpress.com/2020/05/16/the-small-dog-gets-busted/

3. https://marciamearawrites.com/2020/05/16/smorgasbord-blog-magazine-weekly-round-up-10th-16th-may-2020-relationships-abba-ink-fish-italian-tomato-sauce-books-and-laughter/ “Yes, it’s time for another wonderful Weekly Round-Up from Sally Cronin at Smorgasbord blog! This one is really jam-packed with good stuff and friends old and new. And whatever you do, be sure to check out the videos! The one with the dogs and the baby kitten is amazing! Once you’ve enjoyed everything included this week, be sure to pass it along so others can as well, thanks. And thanks to Sally yet again for another super week full of goodies! (Should I say it, folks? Oh, why not! Sally, you ROCK!) 😀 ❤”

Some Things More Serious:

1. https://stevelaube.com/how-to-find-the-right-books-for-the-comparables-section-of-a-proposal/ “Recently I received thoughtful questions from a writer about how to find the right comparable titles. Today I will offer my insights. Please note that my examples use classic novels. I recommend comparing your book to current offerings, preferably those released within the past two to three years.

The writer asked:

Could you elaborate on what types of similarities or level of similarities are important?

Is it about:

Plot? Yes. Offer a brief plot summary of your compared title, then show how yours is different. For example, if you are comparing your book to Gone with the Wind, you might say that while GWTW is about a woman sacrificing everything to keep her home during and after the Civil War, your plot focuses on a woman forfeiting everything to save her condo building in contemporary Manhattan from destruction.

Characters? Yes. For instance, you might say, And Ladies of the Club follows two women in Ohio after the Civil War; but your book follows two members of a women’s garden club in Savannah, Georgia, in the 1940s.”

2. https://stevelaube.com/how-to-crowdfund-a-novel-on-kickstarter/

3. https://wordpress.com/blog/2020/05/21/seo-content-marketing-webinar/ “You’ve launched your website or started a blog. Congratulations! Now it’s time to attract an audience. You built a website to reach people with your art, ideas, or products and services. We’ve created a free online session to help you do just that. 

Register for our next 60-minute webinar, Traffic Control: How to Find and Grow an Audience for your Website, to get advice and guidance on attracting the right people to your site.

Date: May 27, 2020
Time: 10:00 a.m. PDT | 11:00 a.m. MDT | 12:00 p.m. CDT | 1:00 p.m. EDT | 17:00 UTC
Cost: Free | Register now
Who’s invited: Content creators, online publishers, and small businesses looking for the best ways to build an audience of loyal customers and dedicated readers.”

Teaser Fiction & Poetry:

1. https://kblog.blog/2020/05/16/in-the-middle-of-the-night/

2. https://ronovanwrites.com/2020/05/16/to-smile-to-live-a-haiku/

3. https://colleenchesebro.com/2020/05/22/the-new-moon-gogyohka/

Book Reviews, Cover Reveals, & Author Interviews:

1. http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2020/05/22/eliot-peper-five-things-i-learned-writing-veil/ “W hen her mother dies in a heat wave that kills twenty million, Zia León abandons a promising diplomatic career to lead humanitarian aid missions to regions ravaged by drought, wildfires, and sea level rise.

What Zia doesn’t know is that clandestine forces are gathering around her in pursuit of a colossal secret: someone has hijacked the climate, and the future of human civilization is at stake.

To avoid a world war that appears more inevitable every day, Zia must build a coalition of the powerless and attempt the impossible. But success depends on facing the grief that has come to define her life, and rediscovering friendship, family, and what it means to be true to yourself while everything falls apart.”

2. https://robertawrites235681907.wordpress.com/2020/05/20/bookreview-classicchallenge-the-great-divorce-by-c-s-lewis/ “A stunning new edition of this timeless allegory of heaven and hell, repackaged and rebranded as part of the C.S. Lewis Signature Classics range. C.S. Lewis’s dazzling allegory about heaven and hell and the chasm fixed between them, is one of his most brilliantly imaginative tales which will appeal to readers of all ages. Lewis communicates deep spiritual truths through the sheer power of the fantastic. In The Great Divorce the writer in a dream boards a bus on a drizzly afternoon and embarks on an incredible voyage through Heaven and Hell. He meets a host of supernatural beings far removed from his expectations and comes to significant realisations about the ultimate consequences of everyday behaviour. This is the starting point for a profound meditation upon good and evil. “If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.”

3. https://marciamearawrites.com/2020/05/21/sharing-an-excerpt-0-99c-sale-the-princes-man-by-deborah-jay/ “Rustam Chalice, dance tutor, gigolo and spy, loves his life just the way it is. So when the kingdom he serves is threatened from within, he leaps into action. Only trouble is, the spy master, Prince Hal, teams him up with an untouchable aristocratic assassin who despises him. And to make matters worse, she’s the most beautiful woman in the Five Kingdoms.
Plunged into a desperate journey over the mountains, the mismatched pair struggle to survive deadly wildlife, the machinations of a spiteful god – and each other.
They must also keep alive a sickly elf they need as a political pawn. But when the elf reveals that Rustam has magic of his own, he is forced to question his identity, his sanity and worst, his loyalty to his prince.
For in Tyr-en, all magic users are put to death.
Award winning novel, THE PRINCE’S MAN is a sweeping tale of spies and deadly politics, inter-species mistrust and magic phobia, with an underlying thread of romance.”