Recap of April: Busy!

Posted on by May 7, 2009

The first two weeks of April, I took Laurie Schnebly
Campbell's online course on writing query letters. This was my third
online course this year — part of my personal commitment to expand my
knowledge about the business and craft of writing, improve my own skills, and
not grow complacent, just because I'm published and have an award. During this
course, we tackled exercises designed to develop the different parts of a
query. The most insightful piece for me was the exercise of packaging what my
novel is about in twenty-five words or less. To successfully accomplish that
goal, a writer must be clear on the dramatic conflicts that power her book. The
more conflict you can squeeze into twenty-five words, the better.

Friday 10 April, I was the guest speaker for the Stamp
Defiance chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in
Wilmington, NC. I talked about my adventures as a reenactor and why I write
about the Southern theater of the war. The ladies of this chapter have been
doing their local research, and a number of them were keenly interested in the
Wilmington setting for A Deadly Occupation. They were also interested,
even enthusiastic, that I planned to explore the British occupation of
Wilmington in 1781 from the eyes of a redcoat. Looking at matters from the
other point of view makes for great discussion. Thanks to Martha Poole and the
chapter for such a fun day.

I gave my presentation "Plotting with the Hero's
Journey" for my editor's screenwriting class on 22 April. The students had
lots of intelligent questions. I don't think I've ever had so many questions
after a presentation. My hat's off to the discipline of screenwriters. If they
want a script to be accepted, they must adhere to a strict upper limit on the
page count. On the other hand, novelists can write 1000-page tomes, and if
they're bestsellers, their editors and publishers might not balk at the page
count. Thanks to Mike Everette and the students who attended.

The rest of April was jam-packed with editing the fourth
draft — and what I hope is the final major rewrite — of A Deadly
Occupation. The manuscript is out now to reviewers, and I'm regrouping for
a few days before I dust off my half-finished first draft of Regulated for
Murder. End of this month, I return to Summerville, SC, and the Lowcountry
Romance Writers of America, this time to present on the Hero's Journey.

The Carolina Writers Conference

Posted on by April 5, 2009

The Anson County Writers' Club, South Piedmont
Community College, and the Carolina Romance Writers teamed up to
present the Carolina Writers' Conference on Saturday 4 April at the
Lockhart-Taylor Center in Wadesboro, NC. For their first conference, they did a
good job of pulling in authors and attendees.

AnsoniaExterior01small
I stayed in town Friday night at the home of
Catherine Crandell. She heads the town Arts Council and is also on the
conference's oversight committee. When I present at a conference out of town, I
enjoy staying with folks on conference committees because I get to know
individuals, share a meal with them. Catherine took me on the grand tour of
Wadesboro. The industry in this town was textiles, so it's received the
economic one-two punch recently. But Catherine is spearheading an exciting
project: renovation of an old town theater that dates from the Vaudeville era.
Check out the marquee of this place. Personality and romance, yes? The grand
opening, set for 2010, will give Wadesboro residents their own performing arts
stage.

First thing Saturday morning, bestselling Southern author
Robert Inman kicked off the conference with his keynote theme, "Who
are your people?" This question resides at the heart of all the poking and
prodding small-town Southerners do when they assess someone who is new in town.
Inman, a native of Alabama, assured the audience that it's the Southerners'
attempts at establishing a connection between themselves and others.

That explains why I get approached at so many events by
folks with the last name of Adair. They're hoping I'm their people. (It really
is too bad that I'm an Adair in pen name only. Otherwise, I'd have made the
acquaintance of kissin' cousins all over the South.) Inman develops his stories
by asking his characters, "Who are your people?" That echoes
something Mary Buckham told me several years ago: "Keep talking to
your characters." To develop your characters beyond two-dimension, you
must engage in ongoing conversations with them. Ask them questions like,
"Why did you do this?" and "How would you react to this?"

TempletonInman01
Inman, pictured here with graphic artist Lillie
Templeton during lunch, mentioned that his mother read to him when he was very
young. I did this with my sons, and the impact it makes on children later is
incredible. Both of my sons love to read. They'll read a variety of material,
not just graphic novels. Neither is afraid of writing. They do well at writing
in school, and they often entertain themselves at home by writing stories. Now
that they're older, I don't read as much to them; however, the three of us
often read the same book separately. Then we get together and talk about the
book: its characters, plot, merits, flaws. In effect, my sons have become
discerning book editors. That ability extends to what they see in movies and TV
shows. They have also become the tough first readers for my manuscripts. Trust
me, teenaged boys don't have the attention spans to tolerate slack in a plot or
characters acting out of character. In essence, when I started reading to my
sons over a decade ago, I made investments in their future as well as mine.

Okay, back to the Carolina Writers Conference. Romance
author Judi McCoy, military fiction author Robert Macomber, and
poet Glenis Redmond led solo sessions, and throughout the day, there
were simultaneous sessions on the craft and business of writing. I attended
Leigh Greenwood's session on romance because I have an idea for a
paranormal erotica novel (or maybe it’s a series), and I'm at the stage of
information collection: getting an idea of where the industry is headed with
this fairly new sub-genre and who's doing what with it.

My session on plotting with the Hero's Journey was scheduled
for the afternoon, and it was well-attended. At the conference, I ran into
fellow mystery authors Joyce and Jim Lavene of the Carolina Conspiracy.
I also ran into a woman (Carole St-Laurent, I think!) who attended my pitch session
at Moonlight & Magnolias 2008. Small world, eh? In addition, I met a bunch
of romance writers that I might otherwise not have met, such as Virginia
Farmer, president of the RWA chapter in Charlotte.

GreenwoodMartinKnight01small
This picture is of Leigh Greenwood, author Gail Martin, and publisher Nancy Knight, with whom I chatted in the authors' lounge and
during lunch. Connecting with other authors, especially those from other genres
and other regions, was how I spent a good deal of my time at this conference. I
guess you might say it's one way of finding out "Who are my
people?"

Thanks to the conference committee for the opportunity to present yesterday!

Empowering Characters’ Emotions

Posted on by April 1, 2009

During March, I took an online course taught by Margie
Lawson. "Empowering Characters' Emotions" is designed to
help a writer add psychological power to her writing, improve the pacing, and
hook the reader viscerally. Here are the highlights:

  • Basics
    of writing the full range of body language:     the physiology of emotion,
    kinesics, facial expressions, proprioceptive stimuli (visceral), paralanguage
    (dialogue cues), haptics (touch), proxemics (spatial relations), nonverbal
    gender differences, communication accommodation, cross-cultural nonverbals,
    levels of intimacy, love signals, and how to convey primary emotions.
  • Levels
    of Powering Up Emotion:     writing basic, complex, empowered, and super-empowered
    levels of fresh emotion, escalating intensity, providing emotional
    authenticity, and creating complex emotional states.
  • Foundations
    of the EDITS System:     recognizing and analyzing dialogue and different parts of
    the narrative in your manuscript for patterns and voids, and improving your
    work.
  • Introduction to psychologically-anchored editing:
    backloading, emotional hits, cliché twists, backstory management, cadence,
    white space, projecting emotion for a non-POV character.

That's a load of stuff for one month. Margie teaches chunks
of it in workshops during conferences. I received a sampling of her EDITS system when I took her
abbreviated workshop at the Moonlight & Magnolias conference last
year. What I learned and was able to apply to my own writing, just from that
three-hour workshop, so impressed me that I decided to take this month-long
online course.

I planned to participate
fully in each class exercise last month by applying lessons to the completed
first draft of book five, Regulated For Murder. Great idea, right?
However, when the first day of class rolled around, I didn't have a completed
first draft for Regulated for Murder.

Grasshopper has learned another lesson this year. Taking
classes online while writing a first draft conflicts with writing! Duh!

So I continued writing the first draft, lurked in class,
absorbed the lessons, and applied concepts straight into my writing.

Caution #1: I don't recommend that you take this course
unless you can apply it to a completed manuscript. If you're a writer who never
finishes first drafts because you keep obsessing over what you've written in
the early chapters, this course will encourage your obsessions, feed your
insecurities. So buck up, complete your manuscript, then sign up for
Margie's course.

Caution #2: I don't recommend that you take this course
until you're prepared to dig in and apply the ideas to your work. I wasn't the only published author taking the course. No matter what
stage your writing is in, "Empowering Characters' Emotions" contains
concepts to help you polish your communication.

The greatest insight I learned from Margie is that there's a
huge difference between body language that carries an emotion, and
visceral/involuntary reactions to that emotion. One isn't a substitute for the
other. I also realized that I need to "people-watch" more and note
for myself the types of quirky, subconscious actions that they perform. And I
learned how to focus on my most basic, sometimes boring, sentences and, when
appropriate, hike up the intensity on them. All this has somehow freed my
imagination, such that in my first draft, I incorporate more lovely rhetorical
devices like alliterations and anaphoras that normally wouldn't show up until a
third draft.

Three cheers for Margie Lawson!

National Women’s History Month 2009

Posted on by March 31, 2009

March is National Women's History Month. Since 2007,
I have participated in the organization's mission to "…recognize and
celebrate the diverse and historic accomplishments of women by providing
information and educational materials and programs."

AdairHarrisonFosterEastRegional08Mar09Smaller
 From left to right in the picture, authors Suzanne Adair, Phyllis Harrison, and Sharon Ewell Foster at East
Regional Library in Knightdale on 8 March. Our panel had a small audience that
afternoon because we'd just been inflicted with the spring time change, and
everyone was running an hour behind schedule. But our discussion was
phenomenal. In one thread, we talked about the suppression of religion
experienced by various groups throughout history. For example, export a
captured Yoruban into slavery on Saint Domingue (Haiti), and force her to
listen to a Catholic priest, and the result is not the obliteration of
her native beliefs. Instead, those beliefs will be transformed into the
powerful religion of vodou. History provides us with other examples of
suppression being an ineffective tool for obliterating religion, government,
sexuality, etc. Reminds me of what Master Kan said to Grasshopper in the 1970s
TV show "Kung Fu:" "To suppress a truth is to give it force beyond
endurance." A timely message for National Women's History Month.

I presented on the topic of women as camp followers in the
Revolutionary War at the North Carolina Museum of History 11 March, the
museum's "History à la Carte" program. This continues to be a topic
of confusion, as most folks equate "camp follower" with
"prostitute." Technically, the term "camp follower" wasn't
yet used during the Revolution to describe those civilian artisans, sutlers,
and retainers, male and female, who traveled with an army. But even by the time
of the Civil War, when the term had entered the English language, prostitutes
comprised only a tiny segment of an army's non-combatants. So the first matter
I clarify for audiences is that not all women who followed an army were
prostitutes. What amazes me is that these women endured great deprivation and
occasionally found themselves in the middle of battles, just to stay near their
loved ones. It speaks to the innate courage of women and their ability throughout
time to do what needs to be done. Another timely message for the month.

Redcoats in Hillsborough, and a Recap of Kris Neri’s Class

Posted on by March 30, 2009

Here's a fun little slice of history. In early 1781, General
Nathanael Greene and his army retreated across the Dan River into Virginia
ahead of the pursuing Crown forces in North Carolina commanded by Charles, Lord
Cornwallis. The famous "Race to the Dan" was arduous for both British
and Continentals, with both sides making great concessions to achieve their
goals. For example, in effort to lighten his load and move more quickly so he
could overtake his opponent, Cornwallis ordered his baggage burned. (Ack! The
baggage contained supplies that made army life bearable, like booze!) All to no
avail. The swollen Dan River came between the exhausted Brits and their quarry.

The Earl Cornwallis, knowing that the soldiers and civilians
of his army needed R&R, found a little town to occupy: Hillsborough, North
Carolina. But his army only stayed in Hillsborough from February 20 – 26, 1781.
The British weren't greeted with great enthusiasm. Many residents of the area
were peace-loving Quakers or Moravians. And every time the redcoats left town
limits to forage for food, patriot snipers with excellent aim picked them off.

HillsboroughRedcoats21Feb09
Fast-forward more than two hundred years ahead.
Visit Hillsborough, where Cornwallis is now a celeb, and count how many places
in and around town are named after him. Every year, usually the third Saturday
of February, the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough celebrates the
British occupation with an all-day encampment on the grounds of the Orange
County Visitors Center, a.k.a. the Alexander Dickson House. Reenactors portray
soldiers of the 33rd Light Company, militiamen, and civilian camp followers.
It's a colorful, inexpensive, fun-for-the- family event where you can watch a
military drill or a demonstration of a colonial skill such as spinning, listen
to storytellers, taste the kind of food soldiers would have eaten, and tour the
colonial city. This year, 21 February, the event drew a big crowd of
spectators. I know, because I sold my books on the porch of the Visitors Center
all day. A big thank-you to Elizabeth Read, Virginia Smith, and the folks at
Historic Hillsborough for organizing such a fun day. And hey, don't those
redcoats look sharp?

Kris Neri's class on mystery and thriller structure ended in
February, and it was excellent. For me, the most useful piece of the course was
the exercise of writing out the villain's story. A number of students in the
class balked at this exercise. Think about it: you write the mystery/thriller
from the point of view of the detective/protagonist. Villains often possess
undesirable personality characteristics, so many writers don't want to spend
time inside the villain's head.

While I don't shirk the task of crawling inside the heads of
my villains, what I'd never done before this class was write out the whole
villain's story. This exercise does show you how much goes on in the
background. But telling the villain's story made me focus the villain's
energy in advance of writing most of the novel. I felt the full weight of the
villain's negative energy up-front, and it made me realize how hard my
protagonist, Lt. Michael Stoddard, would have to struggle to overcome that. I
will definitely apply this technique in future novels.

And I suspect that one reason why justice doesn't get served
often enough in real life is because the villain is good at keeping the full
impact of his/her negative energy unfocused, or maybe the good guys aren't able
to show the villain's negativity consolidated. Many thanks to Kris Neri for her
excellent teaching.

 

Mystery and Thriller Structure with Kris Neri, Week 2

Posted on by January 29, 2009

This week's assignment for Kris Neri's class is writing the
dust jacket blurb. In her lecture, Kris gives a number of examples and points
out that all good blurbs contain the following elements:

  • Introduction
  • Triggering action
  • Complication
  • Hook

Here's the dust jacket blurb that I wrote for Regulated
for Murder:

June 1771. Townsfolk of Hillsborough, North Carolina were
shaken by the executions of six men: ordinary citizens hanged by order of Royal
Governor Tryon for their participation in the Regulator Rebellion. When the
tumult settled, and the bodies were buried in a location known only to
officials, a young man and his sweetheart had vanished from town. Those who
knew the couple presumed that they'd eloped.

Bearing a dispatch from his commander in coastal Wilmington,
British Lieutenant Michael Stoddard arrives in heavily-Patriot Hillsborough in
early February 1781, his red coat swapped for civilian garb to conceal his
identity. He expects to hand the letter to a courier from Lord Cornwallis, then
head back to Wilmington the next day. Instead, he's greeted by the courier's
freshly murdered corpse, a chilling trail of clues that leads him back to the
Regulators' execution ten years earlier, and his nemesis, the brutal, cunning
Lieutenant Dunstan Fairfax, who suspects him of treason against King George the
Third.

Since I haven't yet started writing the first draft, I
cannot say for sure that the above reflects exactly what's going to happen.
Somewhere in the first quarter of the draft, my characters will take over; I'll
get out of the way so they can tell the story, and that always leads to
unforeseen but delightful plot twists. But fortunately, the blurb at this point
isn't set in stone. Its purpose is to give me a point on the horizon to head
for.

By the way, here's the root story from last week's
assignment. I forgot to post it in the flurry of snowflakes:

Will a villain who concealed evidence of his act of murder
among men executed by Royal Governor Tryon after the Regulator Rebellion ten
years earlier get away with his crime in the past as well as the murder of a
present-day message courier for General Cornwallis and Major Craig? Or will
Michael Stoddard, Major Craig's investigator in Wilmington, North Carolina,
recognize the connection between the murders in 1771 and 1781, uncover the
secret the villain is hiding, and bring him to justice?

Mystery and Thriller Structure with Kris Neri, Week 1

Posted on by January 21, 2009

Q1 2009, I'm writing the first draft of Regulated for
Murder, book five of my series. I'm also taking two online courses and
participating in the Chocolate Challenge.

Kris Neri's online course runs through the end of
February. "Mystery and Thriller Structure" provides a methodology for
a writer to focus the elements of novel development and advance her manuscript
from an idea to a fully-planned novel that's ready to write. Sounds good to me,
as long as I don't have to plot the whole novel in advance. I've never been
able to do that. As soon as I know where to start and end a novel, and I have
an idea of a few plot points that I must hit in between, I begin writing the
novel. I get out of the way and let my characters fill in the rest.

This week's assignment for Kris's class is writing the
"root story." As they say in screenwriting, "two dogs, one
bone." In other words, describe what the antagonist and the protagonist
want that puts them at odds with each other. While this may seem simple, after
a writer has been thinking about an unwritten story for awhile, all the
sub-plots start filling in, and the root story can get obscured. So stating the
root story up-front provides a destination and contributes clarity to the
process.

AdairAnnabelleSnow01
 I had some trouble
concentrating on the assignment yesterday, when we got nearly six inches of
snow in Raleigh. The magnificent sledding hill four blocks away called loud and
clear, and every kid in the neighborhood hit the double-slope. My beagle
Annabelle insisted on coming along and rode down the slope on the sled. (In the
arms of a human, of course.)

Happy Yule 2008!

Posted on by December 21, 2008

Today, 21 December, is Yule, and Lesa Holstine has posted a
lovely Yule-related message on her special Sunday Salon blog, along with a review
of Camp Follower. Camp Follower includes a depiction of a Yule
celebration during the Revolutionary War in backcountry South Carolina. No, our
founding mothers and founding fathers didn’t whoop it up on Christmas Day, as
we do now. Those who were Christians might have paid a somber visit to church
for a sermon that day, but the birth of Jesus was a low-key deal, because they
didn’t want it mistaken for the wild partying of people centuries earlier on
the winter solstice. Stop by Lesa’s blog and comment.

Regardless of what the different folks celebrated in
Revolutionary America, those winter holidays were mostly a time of ceased
hostilities, an opportunity to reflect over a year almost past. It’s a timely
message for those of us in the 21st century who are caught up in the
commercialism and rush of December — and also for people who have been slammed
around in this year’s economic woes. In my house on Yule, we deliberately slow
down and enjoy a meal together. We recap our accomplishments for the year, we
discuss why we are grateful, and we let go of something that holds us back.

AdairWatsonBarnett02smaller
 This holiday season has been my busiest ever for
book promotion. The day after Thanksgiving, I sold books at Books a Million in
Wilmington, NC, with my publisher. There, UNCW history expert and author
Dr. Alan Watson, with whom I’ve corresponded in email, absolutely made my day
by paying me a visit, so we got to meet in person! Doesn’t he look terrific in
this picture with Carl and me, holding Carl’s musket? On 7 December, I was at
Colonial Williamsburg in VA, selling books at the holiday Grand
Illumination. On 14 December, I attended the holiday open house at House in the
Horseshoe in Sanford, NC. And yesterday, 20 December, I was back at Books
a Million in Wilmington. Thanks to all for these opportunities.

Although I’m finished with the physical travel portion of my
holiday author tour, I do have one more stop to make: on Christmas Day. Between
4:15 and 4:30 p.m. EST, I’m a guest on Internet Voices Radio, where
I’ll talk about the themes in my series that power my books and relate to
people in the 21st century, and the importance of reenacting in my writing. My
teenage sons may even pop in to talk about the “family war.” So take a break from your
hectic day, and join me for a few minutes on the 25th.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Guest Blog on Archetypes and Stereotypes

Posted on by March 24, 2014

Murder By Four hosts my guest blog today, “Characterizations: Archetypes and Stereotypes.” I discuss how cardboard characters might sneak into the plots of novels and movies and what savvy writers do to prevent archetypal characters from descending into stereotypes. Drop by and leave me a comment.

Many thanks to Marta Stephens for the guest blog opportunity.

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Guest Blog on Non-Traditional Women of History

Posted on by November 20, 2008

Were women in history always the fragile damsels of fables? Today I’m a
guest blogger at Romance Novel TV, where I discuss what our “non-traditional”
foremothers were up to during the American War of Independence. Visit me and share your thoughts.

Last Thursday, 13 November, my family and I presented “The Family War” for the Raleigh chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution and their annual Veterans’ Day dinner. We gave this presentation again last Saturday, 15 November, at the New Hanover County Library in Wilmington. The latter appearance had been rescheduled from September, when it was canceled due to the passage of Tropical Storm Hanna.

Thanks to Marisa O’Neill, Glenn Sappie, and Dorothy Hodder for these wonderful opportunities.