MAKE YOUR MANUSCRIPT SPARKLE WITH LIFE

Please welcome my guest blogger, Anne Greene, who will be visiting here through next Sunday. Anne will be giving away a copy of her new novel, Marriage By Arrangement. Please remember to leave your e-mail in this format: jill (at) jilliankent (dot) com. You can enter to win a copy of the book until midnight Pacific time on March 31st. Just tell us you're interested and if you have a question please ask. Anne loves to connect with others. The winner will be notified and posted on Monday, April 1st. Void where prohibited. Now please give Anne a warm welcome.

Anne Greene here. When I wrote my book, Masquerade Marriage, I discovered the secret to making each manuscript I write come alive to my readers. In the second book of my Scottish Marriage Series, Marriage By Arrangement, I honed that secret to a fine art.

I’m a great proponent of improving each manuscript I write. So, I’ve worked diligently to create a better book so readers will love, keep, and reread my books. My highest hope is for my readers to enter new worlds, meet fictional friends for life, and find a spiritual message to encourage and help them along through this life journey.

So I was excited when I discovered this secret.

During the writing of Masquerade Marriage, I thought I knew what being in deep point of view meant. I thought I wrote deep point of view. I knew I had to stay inside the character’s head. I lived inside the character’s skin. I showed nothing that the POV character couldn’t have seen. I showed only what the character saw, thought, and experienced in the moment.Yes, I did that. But that was not enough.While writing Marriage By Arrangement, I dove even further into deep point of view, dipping both feet into that other important realm in writing—show, don’t tell.

I discovered that in Very Deep POV, no thought or action is told. Everything is shown. So I couldn’t use words like wished, hoped, thought, felt, caused, watched, knew, wondered, realized, speculated, decided.

I couldn’t use wonderful verb phrases like happiness flashed through her, despair tugged at her, jealousy flattened her, love took her breath away.

I couldn’t write that she smiled with satisfaction, her skin prickled with fear, the explosion made her jump, the pollution caused her nose to itch, her heart beat fast with excitement.

No. Emotion by emotion, each has to be shown, not told. I’ll give just a few simple examples.

Which is better?

A - Happiness exploded inside her heart.   Or…

B – She couldn’t keep a grin, almost the size of Texas, from her face. If her sneakers trod on the polished gym floor, she didn’t know it. Life couldn’t get any better.

A - Despair ground into her heart.   Or…

B - She wilted at her desk, then dropped her forehead to her folded arms. There just wasn’t any point.

A - Hot jealousy burned a hole in her heart.   Or…

B - Her face burned all the way to her ears. She hid her head inside her Journalism book. If he could date someone else, maybe she needed to show him that she could too.

A - Fury hit him like a locomotive at full speed.   Or…

B - He slammed the door to her classroom behind him, tramped to where she sat, his shoes slapping the floor like bullets, and smacked a hand on her desk. This time, she wouldn’t get away with it.

All the As are telling. All the Bs are showing deep POV.

So, if you prefer the Bs to the As, never name the emotion. Let actions show the emotions. And add the thought inside the character’s head.

This type of Very Deep Point of View brings the book and characters to life. Do you already write Very Deep Point of View in your books? Do you enjoy reading Very Deep Point of View books. I’d love for you to comment.

Award winning author Anne Greene writes action-packed, historical fiction filled with heart-warming romance. You’ll fall in love with her wounded heroes and identify with her spunky heroines. Visit with her at http://www.AnneGreeneAuthor.com.

 

Okay everyone. Jill here again. This is a great topic to explore. Please feel free to jump in and comment or ask questions.
 

 

Winner of Moonlight Masquerade

The winner of Moonlight Masquerade is Ginger Solomon! 

Congratulations Ginger!

Ruth Axtell and Setting for a Story

Please welcome Ruth Axtell, an exquisite storyteller. I always learn something new from Ruth. I think you'll find this post and her new book enjoyable. And speaking of her new book, Ruth has kindly offered to give away a copy of Moonlight Masquerade. Please leave your e-mail in a spam safe format, ie., jill (at) jilliankent (dot) com. The cut off date for entries will be at midnight on March 24th, PST. I'll post the winner sometime on Monday the 25th. I love a masquerade and look forward to reading this book. Now, here's, Ruth.

How do we find settings for our regencies?

So much depends on our historical research. As a plot develops, many tidbits of information are uncovered in the research. For example, in my current romance, Moonlight Masquerade, most of the action takes place in the posh Mayfair mansion of my heroine, Lady Céline Wexham. However, I needed to get her out of town, preferably to a country estate, where she could have more encounters with her hero, a man posing as her butler. But I wanted her in a less formal setting, where their chance meetings would allow her to see him more as a man and less as a butler.

Since Lady Wexham is spying for the French, I ended up reading quite a bit about the exiled French community in England at the time, known as the émigrés. The most important was the Comte de Provence, one of Louis XVI’s younger brothers. Louis, as we all remember from history, was beheaded during the French Revolution, along with his wife, Marie Antoinette. His younger brother, the Count of Provence, escaped from France and claimed for himself the right of succession.

The count, or Comte de Provence, aka Louis Stanislas Xavier, spent several years in exile in various European countries, until the British government took pity on him and gave him a small allowance and a place to live.

Hartwell House/Wikipedia

Between 1809 and 1814 the Count of Provence resided at Hartwell House, a beautiful estate in Buckinghampshire, England, not too far from London. However, the impoverished count and his vast retinue soon turned the elegant country house into a mini Versailles with various farming enterprises going on upon its lead roofs and bakeries and small crafts shops established in the outbuildings.

For my story purposes, this house and its vast grounds sounded like the ideal place for my hero and heroine to go unnoticed a bit. It was also the perfect locale for a masquerade ball…and an unexpected encounter between my hero and heroine, hence the title “moonlight masquerade.”

I hope you’ll enjoy traveling back to the regency era, when England was at war with France. It’s a time of intrigue, but more importantly, my story centers around two people who find themselves attracted to each other at an inconvenient time and place but who find it impossible to resist the pull.

Ruth knew she wanted to be a writer ever since she wrote her first story—a spy thriller—at the age of twelve. She studied comparative literature at Smith College, spending her junior year at the Sorbonne in Paris. After college, she taught English in the Canary Islands then worked in international development in Miami, Florida, before moving to the Netherlands, where for the next several years, she juggled both writing and raising her three children.

In 1994, her second manuscript was a finalist in Romance Writers of America's Golden Heart competition. In 2002, her sixth manuscript took second place in the Laurie Contest of RWA's Smoky Mountain chapter. The final judge requested her full manuscript and this became her first published book, Winter Is Past, which was spotlighted in Christian Retailing magazine. Since then, Ruth has gone on to publish thirteen historical romances and one novella. Her books have been translated into Dutch, Italian, Polish and Afrikaans. Her second historical, Wild Rose, was chosen by Booklist as a "Top Ten Christian Fiction" selection in 2005.

Ruth lives on the coast of Maine where she enjoys gardening, walking, reading romances and gazing at the ocean plotting her next romance. You can read more about her at http://ruthaxtell.com and http://ruthaxtell.com/blog

Great Blog Posts

I've read some fascinating blog posts lately so I thought I'd share them with you this week.

1. Field Report From the E-Book Revolution #3: The New Equilibrium

                                                                                          

 I was all ready to lay down my binoculars high in my observation tower and note that a certain peace had settled upon the land of publishing. Battles fought a couple of years ago, full of fury and bile, seem largely to have quieted down to the level of a spirited discussion. Both sides, traditional and indie, had reached a tentative, though perhaps still wary, acceptance of each other's existence. And then came the Hydra's head.
James Scott Bell
                                                                                           

     2.  Author Rights and Responsibilities

                                  
 I believe that as an author, you can expect certain rights when it comes to dealing with agents and publishers. I also believe that rights come with responsibilities.  Rachelle Gardner
                                                                                                                      


      3.   10 Steps to Write and Publish Your Non-Fiction Book
                                                           
             Four years ago I wrote and published my first non-fiction book on Career Change (recently rewritten and updated). I learned so much during the process that I started this site and since then it has been my mission to help people release the book inside.  Joanna Penn
                                                                                                                 

     4.    Types of Serial Killers

              I'm honored to have licensed marriage and family therapist Jeannie Campbell at Redwood's today as we do a cross-blogging adventure. Jeannie does what I do only with matters of the mind so I hope you'll check out her blog (and become an enthusiastic follower) The Character Therapist. Jeannie also has a great book for writers called Breaking Character Stereotypes.   Jordyn Redwood
                                                                                                       

    5.    Medicine in Historical Novels

              Medicine and science meet on many levels, from the purely practical, through the adventurous, all the way to the stuff on the borders, and sometimes breaking them, into religion and morality.    Anne Perry               
                                                                                                        


Have you read a great post lately that you want to share and provide the link and name of the author?                                                                                                    

Christian Fiction Historical Society Winner!

 It's been wonderful having Debbie visit the blog this week. I think you now have a great idea of what will be offered at CFHS. I've also enjoyed seeing new visitors and followers. Thanks so much for taking the time to drop by. Now here's Debbie with a few parting thoughts and the winner of her awesome giveaway! Take it away, Debbie.

I had a fabulous time this week chatting with each of you. Thank you everyone who stopped by this week to say hello and encourage me with your kind words and enthusiasm. I hope each one of you who visits us at Christian Fiction Historical Society will enjoy the large variety of posts as much as we enjoy writing them. Each time you come by our desire is that you will take away some historical tidbit. We are looking forward to getting to know everyone who comes by and we hope you'll get to know a little more about. Don't forget that every day of March at CFHS we will be doing a different giveaway. And remember even if you don't win the daily your name goes into the hat for the Kindle and the $25 gift card!

Our winner of the basket and antique bracelet is LibertyLady, Janet E. Congratulations!
See you over at CFHS!

In His Love,
Debbie Lynne Costello

Christian Fiction Historical Society and Giveaway!

 

It is so exciting for me to have Debbie Lynne Costello here on the blog all this week to tell you about the awesome new Christian Fiction Historical Society blog where I will probably be spending a lot of my future time. If you love history and/or write during historical time periods this is going to be a favorite. I promise! Debbie collects antiques so I have spread her wealth of pictures throughout this post. Enjoy! Here's Debbie!

Thank you for having me on your blog, Jill. I am thrilled to be here!

You had asked me to tell you a little about our new Historical blog and why I started it. I’m one of those people who are always thinking about ways to reach readers. I’d been tossing around a third blog for a while. I have my personal blog (can you link personal blog to www.theswordandspirit.blogspot.com) which is dedicated to authors. My second blog ( can you link second blog to www.fictionaddictionfix.blogspot.com) is with Kathleen Maher, my crit partner, and it is dedicated just to giveaways. The idea behind it was that we would connect readers with blogs doing giveaways. We put links to book giveaways and readers can come by and easily find free books! But even with these two blogs I kept thinking we are writers we need to connect with our readers. I knew I couldn’t take on another full time blog and that was when the inspiration hit.

Authors have fans and followers. What if we took 31 authors and gave each of them one day a month to post. Readers could come to one blog and meet 31 different historical writers. So the frame work was in motion and I just had to tweak it a bit. I wanted a blog that would really reach out to readers of historical romance and allow the readers to get to know the authors they love. And that was my answer. I sent out a call to authors and gave a short summary of what the blog was all about. Within a few days I had all the slots filled.

CHRISTIAN FICTION HISTORICAL SOCIETY was born. The month of February we each took a day to introduce ourselves to our readers. CFHS blog will always leave the reader with some historical tidbit. Our authors will be posting anything from posts filled with all kinds of his historical information to posts about their hobbies, family, vacations, or who knows what. But no matter what we write on you will glean at least a nugget of history to take away with you. And we hope by posting about things we are interested in and about our lives that readers will get to know us better.

The other very cool thing about CFHS is that we cover all history. We have authors that write as far back as ancient times and as recent as WWII. And then of course we have everything in between which makes us different from most blogs. The authors of this blog are talented, dedicated writers who want to connect with the readers of their books. This gives them the opportunity to do so. If a reader would like to see a post on a certain subject they just need to ask and one of our 31 authors will be happy do a post on it. So in a nutshell that is what CHRISTIAN FICTION HISTORICAL SOCIETY is all about. I want to invite everyone to stop by everyday this month. Each day of March one of the blogs authors will be doing a giveaway on their day. Leave a comment to be entered. Your comment will also enter you in the grand prize of a Kindle and also a 2^nd place prize of a $25 Amazon gift card. If you comment on all 31 March posts you will receive 31 entries on top of being entered in each daily giveaway. So stop by www.christianfictionhistoricalsociety.blogspot.com for a chance to win over 33 prizes!

With starting another historical blog you can guess that my love lies in history. I do love anything historical, but my true love is in Charleston, SC in the late 19^th century with Savannah running a close second. I’ve finished 5 full length novels, 3 of which are set in Charleston, 1 in Savannah, and one in Europe. But I’ve plotted out over a dozen with the Charleston and Savannah settings. We don’t live far from Charleston and so I love to get down there whenever we can. The city has so much wonderful history and has truly retained much of what makes Charleston the intriguing city it has always been.


 

Of course to go along with my love of history is my love of antiques! If it’s old I probably will love it. I collect antique bibles and very old cookie jars. Half my house is antiques. I just bought an 1870 settee at an auction! The workmanship is just beautiful in older pieces. I also have a quilt that was made in the mid to late 1800’s. It was passed down to me from our pastor’s wife. It had been her grandmothers.

 
Thanks so much to everyone for stopping by. 
  
I’m giving away a gift basket with a handmade bracelet made from 19^th century silverware. Let me know what and when your favorite setting is or just leave me a comment to be entered. If you follow Jill’s blog and CFHS blog I’ll give you 2 more entries for a total of 3. 

And don’t forget to stop by daily at CFHS!
 
 

Debbie Lynne Costello is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency. She attended Heritage University, where she studied Journalism and worked in the editing department.

She has completed five full length novels set in the Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA area in the late 19th century and is now seeking homes for them.

She and her husband have four children, 2 dogs, a cat, a miniature donkey and an Arabian horse. They live in upstate South Carolina with their family. She spent thirteen years coaching cheerleading and trying to make a difference in young girls’ lives. Debbie Lynne has raised Shetland sheepdogs for seventeen years and occasionally shows them. In her spare time, she sews, paints, knits, camps (in a fifth wheel) and plays with the grandbaby.

Winners and Announcement!

The five lucky winners who will receive a copy of Mystery of the Heart are:

1) KATIE J. from Florida
2) AMBER S. from California
3)MICHELLE SUTTON from Arizona
4) LINDA MCFARLAND from Red Lion, Pa.
5) MAXIE from Texas

I will be in touch with all of you soon. Congratulations and thanks for playing the first sentence game. I'm grateful to all of you who stopped by and if you didn't win keep reading.

Now for those of you who are interested I have a very special guest tomorrow. Debbie Lynne Costello will be here to tell us all about the new Christian Fiction Historical Society blog and lots more opportunities to win here and there. Don't forget to check in tomorrow for more fun.