A Hook is like a Guard Dog

This week I’ve been working on a Christmas bonus story for my Deep Cover readers–a what are Rick and Ginny doing for Christmas kind of story.

Not sure if it will ever see the light of day, because the process has impressed upon me why romances end at “They lived happily ever after.”

Showing the happily ever after is boring. The fun is in the chase!

Of course, I like a challenge so I’m dreaming up ways to stir up some mischief. And the process got me thinking about hooks. 

A hook is like a guard dog. It either lures in the unwitting reader or sends her running.

A guard dog?

Yup, a great suspense is going to have a teeth-baring rottweiler guarding the house. Fierce enough to make you shake in your boots, but impressive enough to make you curious about what’s inside.

A light romance might have a tongue-lolling golden retriever sitting on the porch. Friendly enough to lure you to the step for a little pat and ready to win you over with a wet, sloppy kiss.

Then there’s the quirky, cozy mysteries…I’m picturing a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig as the guard dog.

Yes, a little pot-bellied pig sitting on someone’s porch is going to make you curious about what kind of character could possibly think the wee-little thing would scare anyone off the property. 

You’ll step closer.

It’ll puff itself up, taking it’s guarding duties very seriously. Snort. Snort.

Pot-belly pigs are intelligent. They’ll wait until you’re only a few feet away, laughing at them. And then…

Two-hundred-pound, Papa pig will lumber around the corner!
Gotcha ya.

Your turn: What kind of openings hook you into a story?

An International Feast

I was recently invited to join the International Christian Fiction Writers blog. Written by authors of Christian fiction representing a variety of rich cultural traditions from Canada to the UK to Tasmania to Brazil to Mozambique, it’s goal is to promote international Christian fiction.

In celebration of our second year of blogging, we’ve collaborated to create an International Recipe Ebook which we’re giving away as a free download to our readers.

Travel with us around the world as we sample delicacies that uniquely represent our home countries or the settings of our books.

Try our exciting selection of entrees, sides, mains, desserts and snacks:

• Peanut soup from Bolivia.
• Chicken croquettes from Brazil.
• Cornbread from Tennessee, USA.
• Cranberry salad from Australia.
• Bobotie and Cape Lamb Pie from South Africa.
• Mennonite stew from Canada.
• Passionfruit and coconut cake from Mozambique.
• Pavlova from New Zealand.
• Scones from England.

And many more! Over 40 recipes in all. 

Don’t miss… the hero of Deep Cover, Rick Gray’s delicious and oh-so-easy chili that he teaches the heroine’s little sister how to make. Click here to download the book. You can choose from a variety of formats that can be read online or on popular Ereaders, or as a pdf for printing. 


Your turn: What’s your favorite international food and why? 


P.S. Please take a moment to stop by the International Christian Fiction Writers blog and meet the authors. 


P.S.S. I’ll soon be giving away free downloads to another cool cookbook called Novel Morsels, which will feature favorite recipes of characters from books. Subscribe to my newsletter and/or Facebook page (links on the side bar) to be sure you don’t miss the announcement.

Get that Plank out of my Eye!

Since we talked about villains last week, these verses in Proverbs 24:17-18 caught my eye yesterday. “Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him.”

Isn’t that an eye-opener?

Yeah, the villain is a bad guy, but taking pleasure in his punishment isn’t good either.

So…at the end of the book when the bad guy gets his just desserts, my hero better not gloat, or the next thing he knows his author will have to help him confront his pride issues!!!

As a writer I spend a lot of time contemplating the truths my characters need to learn. My understanding of these truths, and my need to embrace them in my own life often grows as a result.

Oftentimes, their complexities don’t fully gel in my mind until I tackle crafting the study questions for the back of the book–like the ones we’ve been exploring here each Monday.

That’s where I’m at right now with the third book in my undercover cops series. Originally titled Dose of Deception, the book, at the spiritual level, explores many levels of deception, but most importantly how we deceive ourselves.

In a romance, someone who has been burned by love may say they’re not interested in dating again, but really they’re afraid of being hurt again. Deep down they know they will be…

Even deeper than that, they don’t trust God to be sufficient when the inevitable happens.

Your turn: Can you think of a time when you tried to convince yourself that you were doing the right thing and perhaps even offered noble reasons for your choice or decision, but deep down that choice was driven by fear?

No Toy Left Behind

After a computer villain launched a cyber plot to consume all my time yesterday in trying to get my guest post on the Craftie Ladies of Romance blog to render properly, I decided I’d had enough of villains for one week!

It’s Fun Friday. Time to smile! 

One thing that makes me smile every time I witness it is…

When we leave the house, we crate our eat-everything-in-sight pup, Bella. We always supply her with all her favorite toys and a chew bone.

What’s hilarious is that as soon as we let her out of the crate, she carries her toys one by one to the living room–far from view of that crate.

She’s a true marine. No toy shall be left behind!

Your turn: What made you smile this week? 

Join me…

I’m guest posting today on The Craftie Ladies of Romance blog (a blog of Love Inspired romance writers–suspense, contemporary, and historical) on…
Celebrating Christian Fiction Readers.

Interviewing a Villain

Since we talked about villains on Monday, I wanted to share here the interview Emile Laud did with blogger Suzanne Hartzman at the end of September. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed playing him. 
Visiting with us today is Emile Laud a character from Sandra Orchard’s debut novel Deep Cover. To help you better follow my interview with Emile, allow me to first share a brief description of the other main characters.

            Rick Gray (aka Duke Black) ~ Undercover cop working as a construction foreman on Emile Laud’s newest development—a group home for his mentally-challenged niece
            Ginny Bryson ~ A web copywriter and the PR person for her Uncle Emile’s construction project. When not trying to raise funds for the project, or writing copy for her uncle or other clients, she cares for her dying mother and coaches a T-ball team of special needs players, including her sister.
            Lori Bryson ~ Ginny’s eighteen year old sister who has a mental age of three to four and works in a supervised work placement during the day.
Suzanne: Your foreman Rick Gray, uh, I mean Duke, would have us believe you’re the villain of this story so I thought it only fair to give you a chance to defend yourself against these accusations. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Emile: I’d be happy to. I appreciate you having me here. I honestly have no idea why Duke would think such a thing of me, especially after I gave him a job. I’m a developer. I’ve done quite well over the years. I left Miller’s Bay almost twenty years ago, following the tragic death of my wife in a house fire. I simply couldn’t bear the reminders the town held of our happy years together. But I returned a few months back to re-establish my business in the community and to give back to the town that helped launch my career by building a group home for special needs adults.
Suzanne: Tell us a little more about the group home you’re building.
Emile: Foremost, the home is for my niece Lori. With her mother dying, it’s the least I can do to ensure she has a stable home in the future.
Suzanne: Tell us what your niece Ginny is doing to help with the group home.
Emile: Her assistance has been invaluable. Thanks to her tenacious fundraising efforts and government lobbying, grants and donations toward the construction are pouring in. She is such a lovely girl, always helpful, never questions my decisions. I try to help her out however I can. She has a lot on her plate holding the family together. Her mother, my dear departed wife’s sister, was an alcoholic you know. She’s quit now, they say. I suppose with the cancer making her so sick, she had no choice.
Suzanne: Oh, I didn’t know that. No wonder Ginny thinks the world of you. In fact, most people in Miller’s Bay seem to think highly of you. Why is that?
Emile: Why because money talks my dear. Show compassion to the less fortunate, donate to a worthy cause, build a home for the needy, and everyone thinks you’re honorable. If only the insurance company was so easily persuaded. If they paid the settlement on the townhouse fire instead of dragging on a fruitless investigation, I’d be able to move forward with construction much more quickly.
Suzanne: I’ve noticed you always dress in expensive three-piece suits and eat at the best restaurants and even own a yacht. Appearances seem very important to you. Why is that?
Emile: I was poor once. Bullied by kids at school. Mocked for my secondhand clothes. Ignored by the girls. I never intend to go back to that life.
Suzanne: I see. And why doesn’t Ginny’s mother, your sister-in-law, like you?
Emile: She blames me for her sister’s death I’m afraid. It’s understandable. I blame myself. If I’d been there that night instead of working late at the office, I might’ve been able to save her.
Suzanne: What evidence does Ri—uh Duke have to make him suspect that you torch some of your buildings to collect the insurance money?
Emile: Come now, you look like a woman of the world. You know how these rumors get started. I was working late the night my wife died. And yes, so was my secretary. But that didn’t mean I was having an affair. And yes, perhaps my business endeavors have been victimized by arson attacks more than most. But any evidence he believes he has is pure conjecture I’m sure. 
Suzanne: What threats are being leveled at Ginny?
Emile: < squirms, looking suddenly uncomfortable> There have been…shall we say, incidents. One nasty note she received said I know. And one way or the other, HE WILL PAY. Obviously, I’m concerned for her. Although it has occurred to me that Duke, not I, is the “he” to whom the note refers.
Suzanne: But—
Emile: I admit that a man doesn’t get to my position without creating a few enemies. That’s why I asked Duke to use his criminal connections to try to find out who’s behind the attacks on my dear niece and put a stop to them. Now, I ask you, if I were trying to hurt my niece, why would I ask Duke to protect her?
Suzanne: Hmm, good question. I guess I’ll have to read Deep Cover to find out who’s really telling the truth. 
Your turn: If you read Deep Cover, were you surprised at the end to discover who was trying to hurt Ginny?

A Word about posts on RSS feed

For those of you who subscribe to this blog via RSS feed, I apologize that about 25% of the time, the feed has shown nothing but formatting information. This happens when I copy and paste my post from a word document and don’t remember to backspace at the beginning of the post to delete formatting.

I went back and republished those posts today so that they should now render properly in the feed. And I’ve subscribed to my own feed so that I’ll catch it early if this happens again.

Fighting the Villain Inside

I love writing villains. 
Not the mustache-twirling villains of old that modern readers find laughable. Multi-faceted characters that I can exploit for good and evil, and in the process, surprise the reader. At his best, a villain will make the hero stop and take stock. 
If the reader does too, all the better.
One trick writing books suggest for humanizing villains is to look at them through the eyes of someone who loves them.
In Deep Cover, the reader sees Emile Laud through the hero’s eyes as someone who would torch buildings for the insurance money without concern for who might be hurt as a result. We also see Laud through his niece’s eyes as someone who is generous and supportive.
The reader, of course, is left wondering who is right.
Laud is driven by ambition. He wants people to believe he’s wealthy and altruistic so they’ll admire him, because as a child he was scoffed at for being poor and unpopular.
By the end of the book, we see the consequences of his obsession. (no spoiler!)
Witnessing firsthand the villain that lurks inside each of us, the hero finds himself evaluating his own decisions.
Your turn: Is ambition a bad thing? Why or why not?
Food for Thought: Do you unconsciously try to fill a deep-rooted need in ways that might lead to unwelcome consequences?

Fun Friday – My Hero… swoon

My husband is a real-life hero, and I’m not just saying that because I’m married to him and I’m a romance writer and that’s what romance writers tend to say about their hubbies. Mine really is! 

He proved it the day my daughter’s long-dreamed-of horse arrived at our home. She was older and bomb-proof…we were told. 

Well-trained, we were told. 

Gentle, we were told. 

Well, my daughter was suddenly a little shy about riding her so I volunteered to take the maiden voyage. 

Bareback.

Dearest hubby gave me a boost up and I held onto Dancer’s mane and urged her to walk on. 



Come to think of it, the horse’s name should’ve been the first clue that I was in trouble. 


She pranced a little jig and the next thing I knew she was bucking for joy. 


One… I bounced about a foot off her back. 


Two… I bounced a little higher. 


Three… I knew it was time to pull up my legs and bail. But I didn’t have to. Dancer sent me sailing through the air. 


Hero hubby saw it coming and caught me. Yes, caught me! Ahhh!


Is it any wonder I write romance? 


Your turn: What’s the most romantic or heroic or fun thing a guy has ever done for you? If you can’t think of one, what do you dream of “your hero” doing for you?

Vertigo…

Nope not the movie.

I’ve got the real thing. And wow, is it ever hard to get anything done. 


With less than six weeks until my book three deadline, I’m hoping this won’t last. Seems to be connected to a combination of sinus and ear issues. 


I’ve even tried the Epley maneuver, hoping for a quick fix. That’s a canalith repositioning procedure that works by moving rogue calcium crystals out of the sensing tubes and into another chamber of the inner ear, where they’re safely reabsorbed. 

 Jimmy Stewart seems to be trying it on his wife in the movie by the same name. Hmm… maybe there’s a book idea in this. 


I wish you all a happy Wednesday!

Your turn: Any ailments you’ve thought would be intriguing for an author to give a hero or heroine? Or one that an author has used that you thought interesting?