WRITE THIS, NOT THAT! A short, pithy writing treatise by yours truly

Write This, Not That!

Write This, Not That! is the distillation of many hours at the computer, talking with critique partners, and absorbing the wisdom of better authors than I.

If you want to tighten your fiction writing, read this. It’s a CHEAP 99 cents and will be FREE February first and second. Get it here: http://www.tinyurl.com/SuzdeMelloWriteThis

Why should you read a writing manual authored by me? Well…a lot of people seem to think I know how to write. Others feel that this is a pretty good little book. And did I mention you can get it FOR FREE?

Still a doubter? Here’s a little info about me:

Sue Swift/Suz deMello

Best-selling, award-winning author Suz deMello, a.k.a Sue Swift, has written over sixteen romance novels in several subgenres, including erotica, comedy, historical, paranormal, mystery and suspense, plus a number of short stories and non-fiction articles on writing. A freelance editor, she’s worked for Total-E-Bound, Ai Press, and Liquid Silver Books. She also takes private clients.

Her books have been favorably reviewed in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus and Booklist, won a contest or two, attained the finals of the RITA and hit several bestseller lists.

A former trial attorney, her passion is world travel. She’s left the US over a dozen times, including lengthy stints working overseas. She’s now writing a vampire tale and planning her next trip.

Find her books at http://www.suzdemello.com

For editing services, email her at suzswift@yahoo.com

Befriend her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sueswift

She tweets her reading picks @ReadThis4fun

 

Happy Release Day!

Not one but TWO books are released today.

Available June 1 from Ellora’s Cave

Here’s the 4-1-1:

Re: Temptation in Tartan:

She had to marry a monster…

Rumors had followed the chieftains of Clan Kilborn for centuries. Said to be descended from the Viking Berserkers, they were ferocious in battle, known for tearing off the heads of their enemies and drinking their blood.

But English noblewoman Lydia Swann Williston would marry Kieran, Laird Kilborn, to bring peace to the Kilborn lands after the horror of Culloden and the brutal pacification. A widow, she also brought needed wealth to Clan Kilborn. For her part, eighteen-year-old Lydia wanted children. With her husband killed at Culloden, she would make a new life in the Highlands.

The old chieftain of Clan Kilborn also died in battle, and she hoped that the new young Laird would lack his ancestors’ ferocity.

She was wrong.

Buy the book at http://www.jasminejade.com/p-10121-temptation-in-tartan.aspx

Walk Like A Man

And there’s also Walk Like A Man:

Macho quarterback Jim Wellman meets his match in bright and sassy physical therapist Marti Solis, who goads him out of his wheelchair, pushing him to walk again. Unlike every other woman Jim has wanted, she refuses to jump into the sack with the celebrity athlete. Though attracted to his bedroom smile and rugged good looks, she’s intimidated by his fame and turned off by his arrogance.

Can Jim become the lover Marti needs? Can he learn to walk like a man?

Set in California’s beautiful Napa Valley, this multicultural romance delivers humor and pathos, sparkling dialogue, layered characters, a heroine to root for and a hero who’s pure fantasy.

 Buy the book at http://tinyurl.com/6mn6hr9

I hope you love my books!

**More about my lovely vamps**

I’m blogging again at Maria-Claire Payne’s–check it out:

http://maria-clairepayne.com/burning-cold-meet-suz-demellos-vampires

 

Enjoy!

**Hey writers! Your vampires should suck, not your dialog**

Today I am the guest of the marvelous Maria-claire Payne, who allows me to exhort my fellow writers on the extremely important subject of dialog, using an example from Highland Vampire–this is Maria-Claire’s Merry Month of May I suck your____ promo.

http://maria-clairepayne.com/your-vampires-should-suck-not-your-dialog-welcome-sue-swift

I’ll be back at her blog next week with more about writing, vampires, and other scary stuff.

 

Another taste of Sherry, Baby, romantic suspense from Sue Swift

Try it, you’ll like it

Of this romantic suspense story one top reviewer said, “fans will enjoy this fine, at-sea mystery.”

Here’s where you can get it:

http://www.amazon.com/Sherry-Baby-ebook/dp/B007ZS6VIA/ref=sr_1_21?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336144949&sr=1-21

Here’s what it’s about:

The cruise from hell…

Gen X meets Agatha Christie on the high seas of the Bermuda Triangle when Sherry Case, gofer for the battling bigwigs in the family-owned firm Genesplice, arranges for a team-building cruise aboard the yacht Swashbuckler. The mismatched group of passengers feuds even before the yacht has left the harbor.

A rogue wave, faltering navigational instruments and a trio of sharks continue to challenge Sherry and her new lover, the yacht’s Captain Freeman. But Free and Sherry aren’t fazed until a passenger turns up dead in her locked cabin. The vicious murder throws the ship, its crew and passengers into panic. Who could the killer be? Suspects and motives abound.

Ordinary twenty-somethings thrown into an extraordinary situation, Sherry and Free must solve the mystery, defeat the myriad dangers of the triangle, and reach land before the villain can kill them.

And here’s a snippet:

Prologue

He turned the tap counterclockwise. After waiting a couple of minutes for the water to heat, he stepped into the oversized shower. He admired its custom glass-block construction and four shower heads, which rinsed the blood from his body quickly and efficiently.

He preferred to kill naked. Blood-soaked garments were a disposal problem and, if found, easily traceable evidence. Though he avoided ruining good clothes, getting blood out from under his fingernails was a bitch.

 

***I’m taking the Lucky 7 Challenge!***

This is the Lucky 7 challenge according to author Julia Kavan:

Go to page 7 or 77 in your current manuscript
Go to line 7
Post on your blog the next 7 lines, or sentences, as they are – no cheating
Tag 7 other authors to do the same

Now, I don’t know why this is supposed to be lucky–the instructions didn’t come with those internet promises/threats like, “If you edo this in the next 7 minutes, a leprechaun will show up at your door with the proverbial pot of gold, but if you don’t, your hair will fall out, your face will sprout pustules and you’ll never get laid again.” But here goes:

***

When she’d seen the cave first, it had been strewn with garbage, old clothing, sea-wrack and the like. Now it was strewn with bodies.

Scattered bits—heads, arms and so forth—were tossed willy-nilly. Blood oozed, its stench mingling with the miasma of rotting seaweed. Bile rose in her throat and her body convulsed.

Dugald sprinted for the cave’s mouth. She heard the splash of water beneath his boots, heard the crash of waves. Turning her head away from him, she gulped in a deep breath of fresher air. Her muscles loosened as her body relaxed.

***

So what you think? Would you read this book? That’s the real question, hmm?

 

 

 

Guest Blogger Lois Winston on Storytelling

How Well Developed Are Your Storytelling Skills?
by Lois Winston

Without a good plot and well-developed characters, you don’t stand a chance of selling your manuscript, no matter how well you’ve honed your technical skills. You can have the most beautifully crafted sentences the publishing world has ever seen, but if your plot is mundane or your characters are cardboard, your chances of publication are nil.

 Plot is story, and story is about what happens in a book, specifically what happens to the characters who populate that book. Characterization is what drives the people who populate the story.

 Every scene in a book must do one of two things — either advance the story (plot) or tell the reader something essential that he or she needs to know about the characters (characterization) at that particular moment. If a scene does neither of these things, it’s filler and doesn’t belong in your book.

Plot and characterization go hand-in-hand. Even though some books are more plot driven and others more character driven, a good book needs both.

Both the plot and the main characters in a novel must feature growth of some sort. The story must have a beginning, middle, and resolution. That’s the plot arc.

When it comes to characters, a story that begins and ends with the main characters having the same attitudes and in the same place emotionally and psychologically (and sometimes even physically) is not a successful story. The main characters need to learn and grow from their experiences and the impact the other characters have had on them throughout the course of the story.

Another way to look at plot and characterization is to break them down in terms of the characters’ internal and external goals, motivations, and conflicts. Plot deals with the external GMC; characterization deals with the internal GMC. All characters in a novel, no matter the genre, must have both internal and external goals, motivation, and conflict. Without GMC you have melodrama, not drama.

 So ask yourself the following questions:

Who are the characters in your story?

What do they want?

Why do they want what they want?

What’s keeping them from getting what they want?

 

You must be able to answer these questions for all the major characters in your story, both the hero and heroine or protagonists, as well as any villains or antagonists. Once you break your story down in this way, you should be able to see if you’ve crafted a solid plot and characters that a reader will identify with on some level.

This doesn’t mean that all characters have to be likeable. If a character pushes a reader’s buttons, that’s a well-written character. You’ve successfully drawn the reader into the world you’ve created and made her have feelings about the character, even if it’s negative feelings.

If you can’t answer some of the above questions for some of the characters in your story, those are the areas of your manuscript that are weak and need work.

***

Here’s a little about Lois and and her books:

Death By Killer Mop Doll: 
Overdue bills and constant mother vs. mother-in-law battles at home are bad enough. But crafts editor Anastasia Pollack’s stress level is maxed out when she and her fellow American Woman editors get roped into unpaid gigs for a revamped morning TV show. Before the glue is dry on Anastasia’s mop dolls, morning TV turns crime drama when the studio is trashed and a member of the production team is murdered. Former co-hosts Vince and Monica—sleazy D-list celebrities—stand out among a lengthy lineup of suspects, all furious over the show’s new format. And Anastasia has no clue her snooping has landed her directly in the killer’s unforgiving spotlight.

 

Bio: Lois Winston is the author of the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries published by Midnight Ink. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist and has been nominated for a Readers Choice Award by the Salt Lake City Library System. The new year brings with it the release of Death By Killer Mop Doll, the second book in the series. Read an excerpt at http://www.loiswinston.com/excerptap2.html. Visit Lois at her website: http://www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. You can also follow Lois and Anastasia on Twitter @anasleuth.