Mike Angley

Author Intrusion

by

Mary Deal

Author intrusion is something I saw a lot of in new writers’ manuscripts when I did a lot of editing.

A story is usually told through the mind of one or more characters. It’s known as the story’s point of view (POV). The reader is only allowed to know what the point of view character perceives and experiences.

Here’s a correct sentence written through a character’s mind, told in 3^rd Person POV:

“Sara watched with nerves on edge, unsure of what she was seeing.”

Now told using author intrusion:

“If we look at Sara, we see that she is hesitant about getting involved.”

In the 3^rd Person POV, we are in Sara’s mind experiencing hesitation with her.

In the author intrusion example, the author stopped the story to speak directly to the reader, telling the reader what Sara experiences, instead of letting the reader be Sara.

In the past, many stories were told in this manner. The author seemed to speak directly to the reader, as if the writer were addressing a group of people. This method of storytelling has become passé. Readers want to become their favorite characters and experience with them and not simply be told by a narrator.

Author intrusion is easily avoided if the writer stays in the mind of the point of view character. The character will not stop the story to speak to the readers.

Mary is the author of four suspense/thrillers. She can be contacted through her website writeranygenre.com

MA:  Today I have the pleasure of interviewing award-winning, best-selling author, Miss Mae.  Miss Mae holds a special place in my heart because she honored me with my first guest blog as a new author when I was trying to navigate the waters of marketing and promotion!

She has a long list of books that have earned awards and special accolades.  “Said the Spider to the Fly”, published by The Wild Rose Press, has consistently rated outstanding reviews and has won the esteemed title of Best Book of the Week for The Long and the Short of It Reviews and from The Romance Studio. It can be purchased both in digital format and in print directly from the publisher’s site. “When the Bough Breaks”, a young adult coming-of-age is the first from Whimsical Publications. Not only has this book generated top reviews, it’s also won a Best Cover of the Month award, and won the 2009 P & E Readers’ Poll in the YA category.

The highly acclaimed “It’s Elementary, My Dear Winifred” won a 2009 Top Ten Read at MyShelf.com. It’s slanted for a late summer re-release from Whimsical Publications, with the second in the “Dear Winifred” series planned to be finished late 2010.

She also enjoys writing humor and non-fiction articles. Besides her monthly contributions to the ezine American Chronicle, some of her publications can be found in The Front Porch Magazine, Good Old Days, and Writers Weekly.

Whew!  I could go on and on…Miss Mae, welcome to my blog.  It’s such an honor to have you guest with me.  It’s obvious you have a love for writing, so why novels in particular?

MM:  Because I love to read books, always have since a girl in grade school. As I read, my mind raced to create scenarios of how I’d made the characters do, say, and act. When I decided to actually try my hand at writing, I wanted to make a story of some of those creative tales I’d envisioned.

MA: My sixteen-year-old daughter enjoys reading young adult books at times.  Tell us about your YA novel, “When the Bough Breaks.”

MM:  Darlene Moore’s reason for shunning Parker Shane has nothing to do with his reputation of being a playboy. She even dates him before the death of her mother forces her to move away. After a two-year absence from Dalesville, she returns home to find Parker exchanging wedding vows with her sister. Two months later, her sister dies. Then Richard Ryan, head of Dalesville’s wealthy, prominent family, and Parker’s employer, goes missing. Could there be a connection to his disappearance and Parker’s unexpected promotion? Danger and questions a plenty barrage Darlene with the deadly speed of a six-shooter. Who called down a representative from a Washington agency? Who later assaulted him? Who attacked Darlene at her friend’s apartment? And will Parker’s scandalous brand of playboy be changed to one of murderous culprit? Or, in the moment of Darlene’s greatest need, might he become her rescuing knight?

This is a YA coming-of-age. Most folks think of YA at anywhere between the ages of twelve to maybe eighteen. With my heroine, Darlene, the story starts when she’s sixteen and continues for four years. Since the tale deals with such things as craving a boy to call her, breaking into mini-skirts and fishnet hose (the setting is the 1960’s), and all the excitement of a first crush and first date, my publisher decided its best niche was the YA category.

MA: That sounds intriguing!  Darlene sounds like the kind of plucky girl protagonist my daughter would like.  Describe her more…

MM:  She’s a redhead, younger of two children. Her mom is a single mother, with Darlene’s dad having deserted the family when the two girls were small. This fact broke Stella, the mother’s, heart so bad that she fears for her girls to be misled by smooth talking boys. She’s set the age of their first date to eighteen, not the normal sixteen. This embarrasses Darlene so much that she struggles to hide it from the school kids. When Parker Shane, newly returned from Vietnam, notices her and asks her out, it creates a dilemma for her to try to wriggle away without spilling the beans. He thinks she avoids him because of his reputation of ‘playboy’, and he sets out to prove her wrong.

MA: And what about Parker?  What are his strengths and weaknesses?

MM:  His weakness is that he doesn’t do much to decry the ‘bad boy’ reputation until it’s too late. This leads to a serious complication where he has to make a heart-wrenching decision. His strength is his love for Darlene, his commitment to righting a wrong, and enduring the tribulations confronting him as he fights to win her over.

MA: Is there a particular “bad boy” or “bad girl” antagonist determined to upset things?

MM:  Yes, there is one, and that’s all I’ll say for now. 

MA: Ahh, a woman of mystery!  Folks are just going to have to read the book to find out!  So what’s in your future?

MM:  I’ve just completed my fifth book, “Catch Me If You Can”. When I write up the synopsis, I’ll send this to my publisher. Late this summer, the first in my ‘Dear Winifred’ series, “It’s Elementary, My Dear Winifred” will be re-released from Whimsical Publications. I’ve received fantastic reviews on this book, and it won a 2009 Top Ten Read from MyShelf.com. Next, I plan a short story titled “Miss Penelope’s Letters” to go up at Smashwords. I also want to lengthen my first work, “See No Evil, My Pretty Lady” and submit it to WP. Then I’ll concentrate on writing the second book of ‘Dear Winifred’.

MA: What about “When the Bough Breaks?” Will it have a sequel or will the characters reappear in a future book?

MM:  “When the Bough Breaks” is a one-book story. There are no expectations of continuing the saga of Parker and Darlene. 

MA: Where can people go to find out more about you and your stories?

MM:  Please watch the wonderful MOVIE of this book (and of all of my books). Triad Film Productions did a fantastic job of bringing my characters to life. Here is the YouTube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drj3cxEgH58

Also, your readers can visit my website where I also blog: http://www.missmaesite.com.

MA: You heard it, everyone!  Please stop by and watch this great movie trailer and visit Miss Mae’s website and blog for more information.  Miss Mae, thanks again for stopping by the Child Finder Trilogy.

MA: My very special guest today is Dr. Ellen Kirschman of Redwood City, California. Dr. Kirschman is a licensed clinical psychologist who has specialized in police and public safety since 1978. She is the author of two books I Love a Cop: What Police Families Need To Know-Revised (Guilford, 2007) and I Love a Firefighter: What the Family Needs to Know (Guilford, 2004).

Dr. Kirschman is a member of the psychological services section of the International Association of Police Chiefs, the police, public safety subdivision of Division 18 of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology, the International Law Enforcement Trainers Association, the Public Safety Writers Association, and Mystery Writers of America. She has published more than a dozen articles and book chapters about police stress, the psychology of recovering from critical incidents, and strategies for consultation to organizational issues in law enforcement. Her essay “Bare Butts and Bare Souls” was included in the anthology What Would Sipowicz Do? Race, Rights and Redemption in NYPD Blue (Ben Bella, 2004). She and Dr. Lorraine Greene are co-developers of www.policefamilies.com, named web site of the month by the American Psychological Association.

She provides psychological consultation and peer support training to many local and federal public safety agencies, police, fire and probation. She was co-facilitator of the Trauma Team Training Institute for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) from1996-2008.

Dr. Kirschman has appeared on a number of national radio and television programs. She has been an invited guest at four national conferences on police psychology sponsored by the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit. She is listed in Who’s Who in American Women and was once named Woman of Distinction by the Police Chief’s Spouses Worldwide.

Dr. Kirschman currently devotes her time to training and public speaking, including guest lectures at the Hong Kong Police Department and the Singapore Police Force. She volunteers at the West Coast Post Trauma Retreat, a peer-driven, clinically guided retreat for first responders with PTSD.

You certainly have some extensive credentials with respect to the behavioral science aspects of the law enforcement community. I tend to focus my blog on fiction authors, and I understand you’ve got a novel WIP right now. But I’d like to hear more about your work with law enforcement and the non-fiction books you’ve authored.

EK: I’ve been a working police psychologist for most of my career – long before I had any gray hair. These days I spend my time giving workshops worldwide and locally, writing, and volunteering at the West Coast Post trauma Retreat for first responders with work related traumatic stress. I wrote I Love a Co because it was clear to me that officers and their families were unprepared for how much police work would spillover to their personal lives.

I wrote I Love a Fire Fighter and revised I Love a Cop after September 11th when the world changed dramatically for all of us, but especially for first responders. Writing self-help books is tough work involving a lot of research. The easy part was filling the book with real life stories from my files. The hard part was separating good science from junk science and condensing complex ideas into comprehensible, practical information. That’s when I became delusional and thought that making stuff up had to be easier. It isn’t. It’s taken me longer to write the first draft of my mystery than it did to write both books and the revision.

MA: Fiction can be tough! Tell us about your story.

EK: My mystery, working title Burying Ben, is still unpublished and in search of an agent. It features, Dr. Dot Meyerhoff, a police psychologist, whose job is a lot more dangerous than mine. Dot’s on the job one month when Ben Gomez, a rookie she is counseling, commits suicide and everyone blames her. At stake is her job, her reputation, her license to practice, and her already battered sense of self-worth. Refusing to be a scapegoat, she resolves to find out, not just what led this odd young man to commit suicide, but why her psychologist ex-husband, the man she most wants to avoid, recommended that he be hired in the first place. Ben’s surviving family and everyone else connected to him are just as determined to keep Ben’s story a secret, by any means necessary. As she pursues the truth, Dot discovers that no one is who they seem to be. Even Ben, from the grave, has secrets to keep.

MA: How did you develop your heroine’s character?

EK: Through trial and error. The more autobiographical I was, the harder it was to tell the story. I kept thinking “this wouldn’t have happened this way” or ” I would have reacted differently.” The transition from adhering to the truth as a non-fiction writer to creating a compelling story was a big shift for me.

MA: Tell us more about Dot’s personality and about the real “bad guys” in the story.

EK: She’s pretty funny and plenty gutsy, although her reckless pursuit of the truth gets her in big trouble.  She has several antagonists, including her ex-husband and his new wife. It’s hard for her to tell who’s on her side and who’s trying to destroy her.

MA: Considering your background, is there a little bit of your personal and/or professional life in the story?

EK: There are bits and pieces of my clients and colleagues in every character. Even my family pops up in surprising ways.

MA: Is this mystery going to be your only venture into fiction, and do you have any plans for more non-fiction works?

EK: I’m in discussion with my first publisher regarding another non-fiction book about treating police officers and their families. My files are full of amazing stories. Burying Ben is only the first in a series of Dot Meyerhoff mysteries. Some of the characters will migrate to future books, some will have dropped out of sight, and some will be lurking in the shadows.

MA: I love things that lurk in shadows – in the fictional world, of course.  Thanks for stopping by the Child Finder Trilogy. To learn more about Dr. Kirschman’s books and her workshops or to contact her, visit her website: www.ellenkirschman.com.

I’m honored to have been featured on two new fellow-writers’ blogs within the past couple of weeks.  My good friend and regular contributor to the Child Finder Trilogy, Mary Deal, ran a blurb about me on her blog, Write Any Genre (THANK YOU, MARY!).  Please visit Mary’s website where you will find all kinds of great articles with advice on writing, much like the wonderful articles she contributes to my blog on a regular basis.

Also, Sarah Cortez, a freelance editor, poet, and author, had me as a guest-blogger on her website, Creative Writing.  I really like how the interview came out, and I encourage all to visit Sarah’s website and read the interview as well as the other interviews and articles she has.  Great stuff!

I’m pleased to announce that my second novel, Child Finder: Resurrection, took an award in the Fiction category during the annual Public Safety Writers Association (PSWA) writing contest.  The PSWA held its 2010 conference in Las Vegas, NV from June 17 – 20, and the award winners were announced on Father’s Day.  I’m real thrilled by the honor and for the association I have with the PSWA. During the convention, I had the opportunity to sit on two panels: “How Much Truth is too Much Truth in Fiction?” and “Supernatural and Spooky Stuff.”

The PSWA was founded in 1997 as the Police Writers Club.  The Public Safety Writers Association is open to both new and experienced, published and not yet published writers.  Members include police officers, civilian police personnel, firefighters, fire support personnel, emergency personnel, security personnel and others in the public safety field.  Also represented are those who write about public safety including mystery writers, magazine writers, journalists and those who are simply interested in the genre.

I’ve put together a set of pictures from the event which follows — enjoy!

Clichés and Jargon

by

Mary Deal

Do you know how much of your day-to-day language contains clichés and jargon? The way you speak among your family and peers defines your roots and the person you are.  However, in writing, clichés make your story stale and jargon needs to suit the time period of the story.

If you are writing a story that takes place, perhaps in the 1930s or any older time period, you’ll need to capture the language of the day. Whether you have your characters speak these lines or your narrator uses them, similar phrases of the early Twentieth Century may be something like:

A penny for your thoughts

The pot calling the kettle black

Putting the horse before the cart

To include such phrases in a modern-day story tells of an elderly author who has not kept up with language changes, or tells of a younger author bound in family colloquialisms. With the exception of writing a story in a past time frame, the language you use must be the most up-to-date as possible.

You can free your muse to create lines all your own. Add humor. Be silly. You can even add wry humor into a thriller.

Remember what the police used to ask, perhaps at a stake out? “Did you spot him?” Today, the police say “Do you have an eyeball?”

Try this: “His voice squeaked like a fledgling choirboy.” Instead say, “His high pitched voice made him sound as if in a perpetual state of shock.”

When a person is fired from the job, you would no longer say “He got the boot.” You might say “He took it in the shorts.”

One such change I used in my novel, “River Bones,” was when referring to a person’s mind, I called it his attic. The lines I used were: “Crazy Ike never hurt anyone. He was just a little off-center in the attic.”

Depending on the overall “feel” of the book, you might choose to have your narrator use these phrases. The narrator may be an old-timer relating an experience. She or he can use old jargon along with the characters.

You may choose to have your narrator be a modern-day speaker relating a story about age old characters. They would be the only ones to speak the clichéd language to enhance their dialog and give the reader a sense of the characters’ personalities.

Writers need to have a library or resource at their fingertips. Many books have been published defining American colloquialisms, British colloquialisms, even police jargon. Books on worn out phrases have also been published. Lists can even be found on the Internet. Every author should have some of these on hand to help avoid worn out language. The overall intention is to give your stories a sense of freshness, to help your reader avoid feeling they’ve “read something like this before.”

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre.

MA: W.S. Gager has lived in West Michigan for most of her life except for stints early in her career as a newspaper reporter and editor. Now she enjoys creating villains instead of crossing police lines to get the story. She teaches English at a local college and is a soccer chauffeur for her children. During her driving time she spins webs of intrigue for Mitch Malone’s next crime-solving adventure. Her second book in the Mitch Malone Mystery Series has a working title of A Case of the Accidental Intersection and is due out this month.

I understand you’ve been involved with writing professionally for a long time.  Tell us more about that.

WSG: I have always been making a living from writing. I went to Central Michigan University and walked away with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. From there I worked at a half dozen newspapers for a decade, then came children whose schedule didn’t allow me to chase ambulances anymore. I moved into more public relations writing where I could control the schedule. Crime reporting always happened at the most inconvenient of times. During that time I also wrote speeches and that really helped me with dialogue. Getting into people’s heads and figuring out how they would word things. Four years ago I was recuperating from surgery and started on a book. This time I told myself I was going to finish it. I did and the characters in my head have never let me rest since!

MA: You’ve certainly dipped your toes in a few areas involving writing, but mostly non-fiction.  What brought you to write a novel?

WSG:  For as long as I can remember I have been a voracious reader. At many times I have started books and then life got in the way and I put them aside. It wasn’t so much as me choosing to write a novel, it was that I couldn’t not write a novel. Now the ideas just come. I could happily write 24/7. Then I would have to edit which I don’t find so much fun!

MA: It may sound crazy, but I actually enjoy the editing process.  I like to think of my initial draft manuscript as a simple black and white sketch, but it’s during the editing process that I add color and dimension.  Are your mysteries hard-boiled?

WSG: My stories are fun reads similar to a cozy mystery with an amateur sleuth named Mitch Malone. He has some issues and gets himself into trouble in my first book, A Case of Infatuation. Crime Beat Reporter Mitch Malone’s rules are simple: He never lets the blood and guts he covers bother him. He always works alone. And he hates kids. Mitch breaks all three rules when he unwittingly agrees to smuggle a potential witness out of a suburban Michigan home while police investigate a mob-style hit that’s left two dead bodies. Mitch sends his intern (a real hottie, but nonetheless an interloper) to interview neighbors, hoping to throw her off, but when he finds the pint-sized survivor the killer overlooked, he decides she might be helpful. When the FBI accuses him of the murder, Mitch goes into hiding with the bombshell intern who doesn’t talk and the precocious preschooler. Mitch works his contacts to regain his freedom from his roommates only to find they each hold keys to a bizarre story of disappearances, terrorists and the perfect hamburger recipe.

MA: (chuckling) I like Mitch and the story already…terrorists and hamburgers…I’m going to have to read it!  Where did your hero come from?

WSG:  Mitch came to me in a dream. I woke up with Mitch’s story buzzing in my head. I got up and six hours later I had half the rough draft done. Originally I thought the female in the book, Patrenka, would be the main character but Mitch just wouldn’t leave me alone and he took over the book.

MA: I know how a character can take control!  What makes Mitch tick, besides trying to avoid kids?

WSG: Mitch likes to think of himself as a real loner. He doesn’t need anybody. He’s a bit full of himself. In A Case of Infatuation, he has a major character change in that he stops going for the story to doing what is best for his source and realizes he can care about somebody. In the second book with a working title of A Case of the Accidental Intersection, Mitch again gets involved in one of his stories and an accident victim propels him to dig deeper. Even though Mitch is learning to care about other people, his “it’s all about me” attitude does get him into some funny situations.

MA: With a character as colorful as Mitch, does he have an evil doppelganger nemesis of some kind?

WSG:  There isn’t a reoccurring bad guy. In each of the books, the good guy (Mitch) wins and the bad guys go to jail. In book three, which is only in a rough draft phase, his love interest in the first book, Patrenka, returns. She is one woman who knows how to push all his buttons and walk away unscathed. Mitch struggles with trust issues and if he is ready for a full relationship. Every time he thinks he has her figured out, she throws him a curve and leaves him questioning what he wants.

MA: Does art imitate life in your stories?

WSG: Mitch is a crime beat reporter like I was for several years. Much of the background for Mitch came from my reporting days. Also some of the things he encounters are things I ran across while reporting. The beauty of fiction is I can take a kernel of truth and spin it to fit my purposes or make it worse than it was.

MA:  It sounds like your writing has kept you busy.  Are you writing more stories?

WSG: I plan on producing at least a book a year as long as I can get them published. I have a second mystery series featuring a female protagonist set in the nonprofit world that I will be marketing to agents and publishers shortly. I also have a great idea for a standalone book that isn’t a mystery. That one is just in the idea and notes phase but has really captured my interest.

MA: Will Mitch stick around and resurface in some of these new stories?

WSG: Mitch will stay in his own series I think and I have ideas for at least three more. In the second series that I call the Back Room Babes Books, each book will feature a different executive director from a different nonprofit organization and a major crisis and mystery for them to solve. Each book will have characters from the previous books in them. The stand alone book will not have any characters from previous books.

MA: What do you tell people about yourself and your writing, and what do you hope people gain from reading your stories?

WSG: In my writing, I try to not take it very seriously. That isn’t to say I’m not a dedicated writer but I like to keep my characters human. I want to provide a great story that you can’t put down but I also want to generate smiles and laughter with some of my character’s antics. My books are about dead bodies and mysteries that need to be solved but with unique characters that provide levity as well. I want people to be entertained when they read my books and walk away smiling.

MA: W.S., thanks for swinging by and guest-blogging today.  I encourage people to visit W.S. Gager’s website, and that of her publisher: www.wsgager.com, and www.oaktreebooks.com.

MA: Today’s guest-blogger is Richard Brawer, a multi-published mystery-thriller author.  After graduating the University of Florida and a stint in the National Guard, Richard worked for 35 years in the textile industry.  He spends his retirement years writing novels, sailing and gardening.  He has two married daughters and lives in New Jersey with his wife.  Beyond Guilty is his fourth published novel.

Welcome, Richard!  How did you go from the textile industry to writing?  Is there some connection to or inspiration from your years in the textile business to your fiction?

RB: I started writing as something to do in retirement.  But as friends and family said I should try to get them published, I became serious about writing.  Did my professional career inspire my writing?  Absolutely.  My novel, Silk Legacy, is set in early twentieth century Paterson, NJ in the height of the silk era which Paterson was famous for.  My grandfather started a silk business in 1904.  It is very, very loosely based on vignettes about his early years in the silk business.   And of course my years in the textile business helped me as I knew about weaving and selling textiles. If you go to my website www.silklegacy.com and click on the silk legacy tab you will see all the great reviews it has received.  Silk Legacy was the book published just before Beyond Guilty, my latest book.

MA: Tell us about your latest novel and some of its characters.

RB: Beyond Guilty is a high concept thriller where a wrongly convicted woman escapes from death row and fights to prove her innocence, and the development of the latest nanotech drug that has the potential to virtually wipe out all disease.  Again if you go to my website you can read reviews and more about the book.

Characters for Beyond Guilty?  This is really an interesting question.  My daughter is a lawyer at NBC/Universal in California.  She also writes scripts.  One of her scripts, Beyond the Evidence, (note similarity in the title) won a number of awards plus $1000.00 in a writer’s digest contest.  Despite her contacts she could not find a movie company to produce the movie.  The screen play has an African-American male as the protagonist.  I said let me write it as a book with an African-American female protagonist as there are many African-American actresses, but very few have leading roles.  Most are supporting characters.  So I did, but the book took on a life of its own.  There is no nanomedicine (see website) or island in her story (click on scenes from the book at the top of the home page in the website.)  She has now written a second screen play from the book and is showing it around.  The heroine’s strength is her strong female character, but causing the deaths of her sisters continues to torment her.

MA: It sounds like you’ve got a good corporate-conspiracy type of thriller, can I assume there’s a greedy tycoon antagonist of some sort?

RB: Yes, the CEO of the drug company that kidnapped her to experiment on her and others.  Also his henchman who chases her after she escapes the island. Both are antognists.

MA: Since you came from the textile industry, and draw inspiration at least from it and your knowledge of the silk industry in New Jersey, did any of your real-life experiences help fill in the plot?

RB: The only real life experience in the plot is the nanomedicine which is real.  See my website for Robert A. Freitas, Jr. who edited the references to nanomedicine and wrote an essay at the end of the novel explaining where the research on nanomedicine is today.

MA: What comes next for you?

RB: I have just finished another suspense novel about a conspiracy with the military/industrial complex.  I am now working on a conspiracy story involving Japan.  Although in my early writing career I wrote a series of three mysteries with the same detective set at the Jersey Shore, two of which were published by small presses, none of the characters in my latest novels will appear in future novels.

MA: Thanks for stopping by The Child Finder Trilogy today!  Folks, read more about Richard Brawer and his stories at his website: www.silklegacy.com.

Choosing a Publisher

by

Mary Deal

As an author with four books published, I am often approached by people who have started their own publishing companies. They offer comments and kudos from lots of people trying to show they are reputable. They also offer that others have signed up to have their books published by the new company. Too, the cover art on the books they publish is anything from exquisite to questionable.

I do not mean to belittle anyone brave enough to start a publishing company. However, several reasons exist that must be considered before choosing a start-up company.

1 – Who is the founder or CEO?

2 – What is their history with their own books?

3 – Are they successful authors themselves?

4 – Is that person merely a frustrated writer with no real business acumen?

5 – Do they accept anyone who wishes to publish a book?

6 – Are they selective in whom they take on as an author?

7 – In which genre do they specialize?

8 – Will they publish your book if not in their genre of choice?

9 – Do they charge exorbitant fees?

10 – Do they charge fees at all?

11 – What advertising and promotion do they offer?

12 – Are they successful in promotion, especially with their own books?

Some of the questions above can produce startling responses. The ones to pay the most attention to are #3, #6, #9, #11 and #12.

If a start-up company charges exorbitant fees and takes on ALL new clients, most likely they are trying to raise capital to keep their company afloat.  While your book may be a means for them to raise capital, their first concern is staying afloat.

A person successful as a publicist will be able to promote your book. In the least, they will offer programs and aid to help you promote your book. If the company offers no help in promotion, don’t walk, run away! They are nothing more than a start-up vanity publisher.

Even a start-up company can be successful if they are selective about which genre they specialize, or in the very least, about which authors they select in multiple genres.  Again, if they must sign on everyone who comes their way, they need money to stay afloat.

Mostly all publishing companies charge fees unless an author is lucky enough to get picked up by one of the Big 5 publishing companies. Always, decide if what they offer for any fees charged is worth spending money which might be best spent by you doing promotion yourself.

All these major points should be addressed when choosing a publisher. The very bottom line is that a publishing company should do lots of promotion for you and help you with promotion you do yourself. If they do not offer this, consider looking elsewhere.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre.

MA: Born a Military Brat, Marilyn Morris attended schools overseas, in Seoul Korea (1946-47) and Linz, Austria (1949-1952) and various schools stateside.  From this background, she has crafted her autobiographical Once a Brat, relating her travels with her army officer father from her birth in 1938 to his retirement in 1958.

Her first novel, Sabbath’s Room, was published in 2001, followed by Diagnosis: Lupus:  The Intimate Journal of a Lupus. More novels quickly followed:  The Women of Camp Sobingo; Forces of Nature; Sabbath’s Gift; and Sabbath’s House. Additionally, she has published a collection of humor/human interest articles written for a newspaper over a 10-year period, titled: My Ashes of Dead Lovers Garage Sale.

She has taught creative writing at Tarrant County College, Fort Worth TX and survived numerous book signings and speaking engagements.  She is a member of the North Texas Chapter of the Lupus Foundation of America.

When not writing or editing emerging writers’ manuscripts, she enjoys her family and friends worldwide and near her home in Fort Worth TX. True to her Brat heritage, she has a suitcase packed under the bed, ready to travel at a moment’s notice.

I have to thank you for your service as a military brat!  I’ve got three of them myself, and they were real troopers each time we moved.  We also served in Korea, and believe it or not, it’s one of the places my kids loved the most.  It was the hardest place for us to leave.

You began writing as a young girl, as I recall you mentioning to me earlier.

MM: I think I was born with a pencil in my hand.  All my family read voraciously, and when I was in kindergarten, I figured out that the squiggles the teacher made on the blackboard were letters, and letters made words, and words made stories.  My mother says I was “writing” stories from age three on.  In school, I wrote for the school newspaper.  I didn’t start writing “for real” until I was about 50; I was divorced, my children were grown and I had the time to do what I really wanted to do.

MA: So why choose fiction over non-fiction?  It would seem with your background, you could produce some great real-life stories for a compelling book.

MM: A vivid imagination.  Writing non-fiction, such as articles where accuracy is required, intimidates me.  I would much rather write imaginatively, than be bored with dry facts.  I’ve read that the definition of a novelist is “Telling lies for fun and profit.”  So far, lots of fun; very little profit.  But I wouldn’t trade fiction writing for anything.

MA: I’d have to second that! I spent a quarter of a century of my adult life writing non-fiction…reports of investigation, intelligence reports, analytical pieces, and so forth.  It was dry and boring.  I like the escape that fiction gives me. Tell us about your novels.

MM: My Sabbath books — two are published, one more is coming soon — could be described as paranormal, or supernatural mystery.  My first novel with Vanilla Heart Publishing is The Women of Camp Sobingo. This novel is based on my mother’s experiences as an army wife in the post-WWII years in a remote military compound outside Seoul, Korea.

Forces of Nature came from a thought while shopping in a suburban shopping mall:  What if one of the Air Force bombers from the base nearby would crash into the mall?  Add to that, what if the plane would be blown into the mall by a fierce tornado?  Who would live and who would die?

Sabbath’s Gift is a reprint of my first novel, Sabbath’s Room, and deals with a black cat who “once belonged to a witch” who is witness to a double murder and provides answers to the mystery of whatever happened to the couple who lived in the remote farmhouse?

Sabbath’s House is the second in the Sabbath Trilogy, and deals with the beleaguered Elliott family who trade one haunted house for another in the Texas Hill Country.

I also have a collection of humor/human interest columns written for a suburban newspaper over a ten year period, titled: My Ashes of Dead Lovers Garage Sale (and other stories from a single woman of a certain age) and two non-fiction books that arose from my own experiences:

Once a Brat arose from a request by the president of The American Overseas Schools Historical Society for me to please document my experiences as having been one of the first military brats to be deployed overseas after WWII with my army officer father.  I gladly complied, and he then urged me to have the ms. published. The original ms. is in the archives in the museum in Wichita KS.   I am currently writing a sequel that will feature contributions from other military brats.

The second non-fiction book is Diagnosis: Lupus: The Intimate Journal of a Lupus Patient where I took pages from three years of journaling about finding a diagnosis and treatment of this puzzling disease.  It has received the designation of Recommended Reading by the Education Committee of The Lupus Foundation of America.  As with my army brat book, I am also writing a second book about lupus; while the first is from my own personal perspective, the sequel will feature contributions from other lupus sufferers.

MA: You have unique protagonists.  Tell us about them.

MM: I think with all my novels, all the protagonists are strong women.  In my upcoming historical romance, The Unexplored Heart, the heroine is a strong young woman who strikes out on her own in Victorian England.  The heroes and heroines in my novels have flexibility that enables them to take unorthodox paths to attain their goals.  And, conversely, it turns out that in many instances, that very strength turns out to be one of their weaknesses.  My characters are always surprising me.

MA: What kinds of antagonists do you manage to insert into your stories to wreak havoc on the heroines?

MM: I think circumstances in which the characters find themselves is the “bad guy”, be it the isolation of a remote military compound or confronting a natural force like a tornado and surviving.  It’s an interesting thought…..my characters must search deep inside themselves to not only solve the problem, mystery, or isolation thrust on them, but to survive.

MA: I know many of your own real-life experiences influenced your writing.  Can you elaborate more on that?

MM: Oh, yes.  I tell people my first novel was written in revenge.  I had gone through a terrible, protracted divorce, and no doubt took out my frustrations on my soon-to-be ex husband….the bodies in the cellar could certainly have had his face on them!  While it was my mother who had the true-life experiences portrayed in The Women of Camp Sobingo, I also felt the impact of that unusual life, even as an eight and nine year old girl.

MA: What are you working on now, and will you migrate any of your current characters to future stories?

MM: Oh, yes.  The protagonist in The Women of Camp Sobingo, Trudy Cavanaugh, who suffered a tragedy while she was in Korea as an army wife, will get her very own sequel, to be called, That Cavanaugh Woman. This will show how her innate strength carries her from her years as an army wife to her world-wide fame as the CEO of a publishing empire in an environment and era where she made her own path.  Other characters from the original book will make appearances to test her mind and spirit.  I can’t wait to get this book under way!

MA: I know you are also involved in some wonderful programs to support the troops.  Tell us about that.

MM: All my books from Vanilla Publishing are available in eBook format.  Recently, through the wonder of the Internet, I was asked to participate in Operation eBook Drop, through a partnership between Smashwords and Vanilla Heart Publishing, It will enable our deployed military personnel to gain access to my books through any of their reading devices.  Free.  Absolutely free.  As many books as they would like.  My late father, RM Morris, US Army Artillery during the WWII and Cold War eras, would be so pleased I’m able to participate and support our troops.

MA:  Thanks, Marilyn, for being my special guest today, for your service, and for your continued support to the troops.  Folks, check out Marilyn’s blog: http://mcmauthor.wordpress.com/ as well as her author’s page on the Vanilla Heart Publishing website: http://www.vanillaheartbooksandauthors.com/Marilyn_Morris.html