Lori Devoti, paranormal romance and urban fantasy author

I’m rehitting the dedication theme, mainly because I have a bunch stored in my inbox and really need to clear it out. :)

If you happen to see a copy of Love is All Around setting on a store shelf, I really recommend you pick it up and at least read my dedication. Apparently, it was almost my father’s undoing - in a good way. It is dedicated to his grandmother, who, I think I explained before, got married at the age of 11 and had her first child at 12. Yes, this is completely true. She was one amazing woman.

Now for others’ dedications, we are going with the husband theme today.

My friend Jessica Trapp, whose debut novel is coming out in June, has one of the sweetest explanations for her dedication. “I dedicated my book to Joe who is my support, my cheerleader, my inspiration, my crutch and my kick-in-the butt. It read ‘I am yours and you are mine. You are ever and always my hero.’ He does laundry, he organizes promo stuff, he does my website, he believes in me even when I don’t. My dreams would be lost without him.” Wow, she knows how to hit you in the heart, doesn’t she?

Sandy Blair also dedicated hers to her husband, “To my very own tall and beautiful Highlander for being my touch stone in the real world and my muse through my imaginary one.”

Paula Reed is another author who chose her significant other, “I dedicated book one to my husband, who has been my rock in some very choppy seas and who really pushed me to write, and to my best friend Beth. She’s a terrific sailor and kept me from making a nautical fool of myself. ” Paula writes high seas historicals in case you wondered about the nautical references. :)

Sophia Johnson picked her husband because he ” has been such a patient man. He cooks dinner, and sometimes he has to call me twice because I’ll be so engrossed I won’t hear him the first time. ” She also dedicated it to her mother.

I guess my hubby got completely ripped off. Of course, he doesn’t do laundry unless it is under complete protest or cook dinner (course neither do I ). But he does mail my 500 pounds worth of arcs, bookmarks and prizes. His reward is I have agreed to write a Siberian husky into one of my books. He was all shades of annoyed that in my three completed manuscripts there isn’t a Sibe anywhere. There is a malamute, a pug, a mutt and (adding insult to injury) a pig. I tried to explain Sibes just aren’t funny, at least in the written form, but he isn’t buying it. So look for an obnoxious, pushy, woo-woo-wooing critter in a future book. :)

Okay, there are books out there I really want to like. Usually this is because for whatever reason I have a really good impression of the author. It is hard to explain, but there is a “feel” you get from roaming the Internet (a habit I am trying to cut back on). Some authors give me a positive energy “good” feel and others, well, don’t. I want to read and love those feel good authors.

Am I weird? Do you try and read books by people you feel good about? How about those authors with a less than positive vibe? Do you read them anyway. What would put you off from buying someone’s book? Arrogance? Putting down other people? Being personally rude at a conference?

I haven’t decided yet for myself. I have a friend who is also an Internet surfer and in on all the “web” gossip. She says there are too many books out there to support someone she doesn’t/wouldn’t like. I already know I have broken this rule. From what I have heard Asimov was pretty darn arrogant, but let’s face it the man was a freaking genius. And basically, like the attitude or not everyone (IMHO) should read his books. But an author I’ve never read before? That is a much tougher call. But maybe I am following my friend’s example by first searching out books by people with the good vibe. Happily, there are enough of them to keep me busy reading for a long, long time. :)

So, a friend just emailed me that my book is in our local Borders. I guess that makes it official - it is definitely out there.

Here is my question of the day, when you read a book, do you ever confuse fiction with fact? How much do you think is true and how much made up? This came to mind when a woman who was reading one of my sample chapter booklets told me she had a hard time separating me from the book.

This really set me back. I mean, I am sure little pieces of me leaked into the characters, but in no way am I the herione. Did not even occur to me. Have you ever read a book by someone you know and put that person in the book?

It then occured to me others might see themselves in the book, simply because I wrote it and I know them. Well, not to burst any bubbles, but no one I know is in this book. That isn’t to say that there wasn’t some inspiration. One of, what seems to be, the favorite characters in the book, Aunt Tilde, has some things in common with my great aunts, but she is not any one person and lots of her are totally made up. Yes, I made things up. Remember when that was a bad thing?

Oh, and in case anyone wonders, the town is also fictional. It is geographically located near where I grew up, but it isn’t my home town. The streets don’t exist. I don’t know these people. And as far as I know, no town is experiencing the issues at this moment in time that Daisy Creek experienced.

Now me back to being Patsy Lee, hmm. When I become a twenty-something blonde who has snagged an ex-dotcom rich boy and managed to save everthing she holds dear, I’ll let you know. :)

Still chatting about Donald Maass and Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. Thought I forgot, didn’t you?

This week it’s multi-dimensional characters. Maass uses the Artemis Fowl novels to illustrate his point. Even though I haven’t read the books, I can see where this is an excellent example. The character certainly sounds like one that could easily have been a stereotypical villan, but instead has endeared himself to tons of kids. Why is this?

According to Maass, Fowl is multi-dimensional. Sure he is smart and has a diabolical goal, but he also shows a soft side that surprises even the character himself.

To achieve this, Maass suggests you first nail down your character’s “defining quality.” If you use Plot Doctor or similar plotting tools, you have probably already done this. It’s the one thing that would first pop to mind when describing this character. Second, identify the opposite of the quality. To add a dimension, simply write a scene where he/she exhibits this opposite quality. To add more dimensions keep going. Pick a secondary quailty then the opposite of it and so on, and so on.

If you try this let me know how it works for you. I haven’t ever sat down and purposely added something like this, but I do think a lot of my characters exhibit conflicting characteristics. I don’t always feel good about it either. It makes the little devils harder to control.

Keep writing. :)

At a Wal-Mart in Mississippi and a Books-a-Million in Florida! Thanks for letting me know, everybody. :)

Since it is getting closer to time for my book to actually be roaming the streets, and people who have actually read it might stumble across my blog, I thought I’d start adding bits of interest to readers here. :)

As you can guess from the title, I’m starting with dedications. I think some writers have their dedications planned long before they sell their book. I didn’t. It just came to me at some point (about the time it was due to Kensington) that I had to dedicate this book to my great grandmother. I think it is because I realized how important the women characters are in my book. And, honestly, they are based on women in my family. Not exact descriptions, just the overall feel. Anyway, that’s why I chose my great grandmother. Another time I’ll tell you more about her as a woman.

Today I’m going to list how a few other authors I know chose their dedications.

Kate Rothwell, dedicated her book to the woman who first told her she could and should write, along with her sister and a friend.

Laura Drewry said this about her dedication, “I dedicated my first book to my friend, Wendy, who insisted I take an online romance writing course with her about 7 years ago. She’s always been there for me, cheering, supporting and yelling at me when I needed it. It’s also dedicated to the DH, who never complains about how much time I spend on this stupid computer “writing” (or playing MahJong which I tell him clears my mind to write – HA!) ”

Flo Fitzpatrick chose her husband because “when I get stuck for a plot twist I just ask him and he goes off into tangents that are insane and I try and grab one of the tangents before it goes TOOOO far!” and the actor who actually haunted the Waco Theatre for many years. (Flo’s book is set in a theatre and features a ghost/actor. :))

Who would you dedicate your book to? Why?

More dedications to come…have a great Sunday. Maybe with that special person you would dedicate your book too. Give them a hug for me. :)

Trying to get my 5 pages in for the day, but a friend emailed me this link and I thought you might be interested too. It’s an article on Michelle Grajkowsy of 3 Seas Literary Agency.
She’s going to be at the Write Touch Conference too. :)
Lori

So, I was scanning the list of bestsellers today and realized I really haven’t read many of them. And I don’t even mean the books - I mean anything by the authors.

Who I have read: Rebecca Wells (read the original Ya Yas book), John Grisham (who hasn’t?), Mary Higgins Clark (a few), Iris Johansen (LOVED her romances, her romantic suspense are great, but I’m just not much of a RS person), Sue Grafton (used to be a real follower of the series, but got lost somewhere along the way.), Jonathan Kellerman (read everything he wrote up to a couple years ago, excellent author), Jane Feather (loved her earlier romances, have a couple more recent ones on my TBR stack), Amanda Quick (again someone I used to read), Catherine Coulter (another romance author who moved to RS and I didn’t follow. But this woman has a major talent for transporting you to another world. wow), Julie Garwood (again haven’t read anything recently, but used to read everything), Christina Dodd (I see a pattern…used to read…), Shannon Drake (won’t even say it…), Nevada Barr (excellent writer, my mother loves her, even went to see her at a book signing, but just not my cup of tea). And that’s it. Jonathon Kellerman, Sue Grafton and Jane Feather are probably the only ones I’ve read in two years. Why is that?

hmmm. A lot of the romance authors moved on without me, but the others? Who knows? Maybe I am just strange. Now I seem to read books like I used to listen to music. You know how some people are FANS major killer fans for one or two groups and know everything about them? I was always moving on to something else. I had some favorite albums, but I didn’t search out everything they did.

Now I used to search out backlist for many of these authors, but I don’t seem to do that anymore. There is always somebody new to try. Not to say I don’t buy more than one book written by the same author. I do. But it isn’t with the intensity I used to have. Why is that?

Anyway, how ’bout you? Do you follow a few authors with intensity or read a wide variety? How many bestsellers do you read? You might notice a couple of really big names are missing from my list - no reason, just haven’t felt the burning desire to pick up the books.

busy, busy day at the Devoti household, but also from now on when I am going to TRY to post a writing article or thought each week. I thought we’d start with Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. I’m part of a Yahoo group called Plotspot. We try to have a discussion topic every week and this is the book we’re going to start going through. (If you’d like to join Plotspot, go to my web site and send me an email. I’ll get you an invite.)

Maass starts the Workbook with characters. I agree with him that characters are very important. What I’m not sure of is if you can use techniques to build really great characters. Character building seems harder to nail down to me than say plotting, but maybe that’s just because I have no real technique for it myself. It is one of the things I do organically. My characters just are. How’s that for a tip? Guess that’s why we’re going through Maass’ book.

Turning your protagonist into hero. Maass says as a literary agent one of the many problems he sees in submissions are manuscripts where you don’t care about the protagonist from page one. Yeah, we all know you are going to show “change” and “growth”, etc. But I think his point is very valid. No matter how flawed a character you want to have (and flaws are necessary) he/she has to give us some little reason for us to care. And this needs to be there from our very first introduction to that character.

To find a quality such as this for your protagonist, Maass suggests you think of people you admire and make a list of why. What makes them heroic? This doesn’t have to be something grand. It can be simple like a sense of humor or a love of small animals. Just give us something.

Then show us in some small way this trait in the very beginning of your book. Make sure you show not tell. So, if he loves small animals don’t tell us “Even though Hansel loved to shove toddlers into his granny’s oven, he also saved baby squirrels from the cold of winter.” Show us Hansel leaving his favorite hobby to pick up a baby squirrel wrap it in his latest victim’s blankey and cuddle the creature to his chest. :)

Oh, then keep showing this trait throughout the book. Maass suggests adding six more instances, but I doubt this is a magic number. Do what feels good.

Next week Multidimensional Characters. Should be interesting, although I think our litte hero Hansel is plenty multidimensional - or is that multi-dementable?