Ready to Test-Drive Your Query Letter? Check Out Evil Editor

By Debbie Maxwell Allen

After spending weeks (or months) tweaking your query letter to perfection, you may want to solicit some feedback before you send it out. Evil Editor is your guy. He'll post your query on his blog, often with tongue-in-cheek comments, where other writers can chime in with their own opinions.

But Evil Editor adds a twist. He posts the titles of the manuscripts the queries represent, and invites blog readers to guess the plot based upon the titles. The most interesting (and far-fetched) plot ideas get posted along with his query critique in his Face-Lift series.

Another feature on Evil Editor's blog is the New Beginning series. Writers submit the first 150 words of their manuscript, and blog readers show how they think the piece should continue. Evil Editor posts the most interesting continuation, and invites blog readers to give the original author feedback on how the opening captured their interest.

It's nice to find a site that gives good feedback with an element of fun. If humor is not something you want to mix with your fiction, you may want to stick to more "serious" sites.

Evil Editor conducts monthly book chats, where readers discuss recently published books. There's also a weekly contest for writers to contribute captions to a posted cartoon. The best captions get published on the blog. If you need a laugh to relieve your writer's block, check out Evil Editor's short films to give you some relief. And at regular intervals writing exercises are posted, with the best examples posted on the blog.

And during the month of May, Evil Editor has posted several items in Brenda Novak's Annual Online Auction for Diabetes Research.

Does humor help to relieve tension in your journey to publication?

About the Author: Debbie Maxwell Allen writes young adult historical fantasy in the Rocky Mountains. She blogs about free resources for writers at Writing While the Rice Boils. 

Sweet Success! Carol Berg

Prepared By DeAnna Knippling


Carol Berg's teen/adult fantasy novels Transformation, Revelation, Restoration, Son of Avonar, Guardians of the Keep, The Soul Weaver, Daughter of Ancients, Song of the Beast, Flesh and Spirit, and Breath and Bone were published as audiobooks by Audible.com during Spring 2013. Her website is at www.carolberg.com and you can find her on Facebook here. You can find her audiobooks at Audible.com.

Carol Berg is a software engineer who discovered writing was her true calling when she first visited the Pikes Peak Writers Conference. She now has thirteen fantasy novels in print and ebook (all from NAL/Roc Books), and now audio, and is just finishing up novel number fourteen. Her books have won national and international awards, including the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, the Prism Award, and multiple Colorado Book Awards.

On Accepting Advice

By Donnell Ann Bell

~ No enemy is worse than bad advice. ~~ Sophocles

Every once in a while, people offer advice that really works. E.g., Look both ways before crossing the street, read warning labels on products and exercise three to five times a week to maintain a healthy weight. Those kinds of input I can use and appreciate. But some of the advice I’ve received of late leaves me shaking my head.

Two weekends ago, I attended my local library’s workshop in which a marketing guru offered authors and aspiring authors advice for today’s market. She said the days that authors sit alone in their offices and devote long hours to writing are gone. As a matter of fact, she added, authors should be focused ten percent on writing the book and ninety percent to its marketing. Twenty-four/eight, she insisted. Market your book twenty-four/eight.

This weekend I attended the Pikes Peak Writers Conference where the age-old subject of prologues came up again. An editor told the audience how much he hates prologues and that he skips right over them. Once again people who had paid good money to attend wrote furiously in their notebooks, most likely taking this man’s words to heart and perpetuating this controversy further. While I was thinking of Sandra Brown’s Envy or Robert Crais’s Two Minute Rule and two of the best prologues I’ve ever read in commercial fiction.

There’s a lot of lousy, subjective advice floating around out there—what’s more the experts are touting it.

If I have to devote ninety percent to marketing my books, I might as well hang it up right now. I didn’t get into this writing gig to market my wares like a gypsy in a caravan; I got into writing to tell my stories—to sit in my office alone a lot more than ten percent of the time.

Robert Crais once told me, “Sure you can write a prologue, just don’t write a bad one.”  If a book needs a prologue, it needs a prologue, and how a few paragraphs at the start of a book can cause such a vitriolic response is beyond me.

So because there’s so much misinformation and bad advice out there coming from people I should otherwise respect and rely on, I’ve decided to break down the ways I will accept advice in the future. One, if it doesn’t make sense, I will completely disregard it. Two, if it doesn’t save my life, refer back to rule number one.

About the Author: Donnell Ann Bell is the author of The Past Came Hunting and newly released Deadly Recall from Bell Bridge Books. Both books were nominated for the prestigious Golden heart from Romance Writers of America. As published novels, both books became Amazon Kindle Bestsellers, The Past Came Hunting reaching #6 on the overall paid list, Deadly Recall reaching #1. Her website is www.donnellannbell.com.

Free PPW Events This Month

Don't forget tonight's Write Brain, presented by Page Lambert:

Manifestation of Yearning: The Flesh & Blood Factor of Good Storytelling

Speaker: Page Lambert, Author, Editor, Creative Coach, Retreat Director

When: Tuesday, May 21, 2013, 6:30 to 8:30 P.M.

Location: Penrose Library, Carnegie Room, 20 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, CO

Cost: ALWAYS FREE!

MANIFESTATION OF YEARNING: The Flesh & Blood Factor of Good Storytelling
Yearning: A longing. A desire. An unfulfilled wish. A questioning. A hunger to know more.

In Page Lambert's words: "First, enter the white-hot center of why you write. Second, enter the white-hot center of deep yearning...yours...your character's. Third, enter the place where you dream. Let your vision and words rise like smoke from the creative fire. But manifesting our stories takes more than illusive desires. Our characters interpret the world through their senses, but we create their world through physical detail. Yearning comes alive through detail." During the May Write Brain, Page will explore these ideas and more, helping us enter the white-hot center of detailed storytelling. "Whether you're writing fiction or memoir, the deep (and sometimes dark) motivations behind every action, beneath every word-what Robert Olen Butler calls the yearning factor-is how we manifest our stories."

About Page Lambert: Recipient of numerous writing awards, her books include the Rocky Mountain best-selling memoir In Search of Kinship and Mountains & Plains Best Novel finalistShifting Stars. Her essays, stories and poems appear in dozens of anthologies. Page has presented over 200 seminars and keynotes. She's been leading writing adventures for 17 years and Oprah's O magazine once featured her River Writing Journeys as "One of the top six great all-girl getaways of the year." She writes the popular blog, "All Things Literary. All Things Natural."www.pagelambert.com.

Note: Plenty of parking in both library lots and street-side. Parking is free at meters after 6:00 P.M.

This Wednesday, there's Open Critique:

Open Critique - FREE 

Third Wednesday of every month

6:00 - 8:30 p.m.

Cottonwood Center for the Arts
427 East Colorado Avenue
Colorado Springs, CO

This FREE program provides a critique experience for a small number of writers who seek feedback on manuscript pages and who want to learn how to have positive critique group experiences. 

PPW's Open Critique program is facilitated by Mary Karen Meredith, with regular critique guest Deb Courtney, host of PPW's "Writers' Night" monthly gatherings. During Open Critique, Deb and Mary Karen, or another experienced criticizer will provide comments, criticism and suggestions on participants' manuscript pages, as well as model positive behaviors, techniques and procedures for critiquing.

It is our hope that participants will not only receive valuable feedback on their writing, but will also learn how to create great critique groups of their own, or learn how to improve existing critique groups.

Each month Open Critique will accommodate up to eight participants with a maximum of eight manuscript pages (double spaced, one side) per person. Bring at least 8 copies. To request a slot to participate, email your request to pikespeakopencritique@hotmail.com. Slots are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis, and are only considered for the month in which they are received. Participants will receive confirmation and instructions via email.

PPW reserves the right to give priority to new participants over those who have attended multiple times.

Thank you!

Hope to see you there!

Mary Karen Meredith & Deb Courtney

And next Monday, we have Writer's Night at Lofty's:

6:30-8:30 PM

Lofty's
287 E Fountain Blvd, Suite 100
Colorado Springs, CO 80903


Free Wireless Internet!

Join fellow writers for PPW Night at Lofty's in the Historic Lowell School District of downtown Colorado Springs on the fourth Monday of every month.

PPW Night is two full hours of discussion, laughter, and fun with other local members of Pikes Peak Writers.

The direction of the meeting is decided by the participants and can include discussions about query letters, obtaining and working with an agent, writing conferences, or other specific points of the craft.  If nothing else, we talk about books! 

Feel free to bring a sample of your work-in-progress to share or discuss with others, if time permits.  NOTE: This is not a formal critique group or editing session.  Bringing your work with you does not guarantee it will be discussed.

If you have any questions, or if there is a specific topic you’d like to get on the agenda, send an e-mail to the host, Deb Courtney, or call her on her cell phone at 719-337-9049.

Meetings are scheduled to start at 6:30 and run until about 8:30.  These are drop-in meetings, so feel free to attend all or just part of them.

Lofty's offers a small selection of coffees, wine, beer and mixed libations, as well as a variety of juices and organic sodas. There is a small menu of mostly sandwich based items. Wi-fi is available.

See you soon!

Help an Author Out — Leave a Review, Please!

Five stars or no stars?

By Stacy S. Jensen

One of my goals after Pikes Peak Writers Conference is to write more. Not my own work really, but short snippets that are published almost instantly.

My declaration: I will write more book reviews.

Why? I know they make a difference, especially for indie authors. Several faculty and conference attendees emphasized this during the conference. I heard them.

If I get a referral for a book — by blog or by an online friend — I read the reviews. I decide my purchases with review, so I should participate in this process more. So, why have I not written more reviews recently?

A mental evaluation of my reading list points to one book. Several months ago, I saw an online friend’s request to read her new release and share a review.  “Certainly,” I thought as I grabbed a copy for my Kindle and began reading. The story fell flat. I didn’t like the characters. I couldn’t finish the book.

For this book, I looked up the reviews and found fellow reviewers had already shared my “problems” with the book. While the author honestly reviews books on her own blog, I didn’t write a review for her book. The main reason: I didn’t finish it.

Fortunately, I’ve found that to not be the norm of the books friends have suggested. As I write this, I have two books on my Kindle that deserve reviews. They are engaging, have unique characters, and a story that makes me read (even when I don’t have time for it).

I’ve heard many cons to writing reviews. If it’s a bad review, you may tick off an author or an agent. That’s fair. It’s important to remember that online reviews leave a digital trail of who you are, so you need to be fair, honest, and willing to live with what you say.

A personal pet peeve is a reviewer who trashes a book because the story wasn’t what he or she thought it was going to be. If you like sci-fi thrillers, don’t buy a romance book and then be angry it wasn’t a sci-fi thriller. You know you’ve seen those reviews.

So read more books and write more reviews. It will help an author out for print books, digital books and storybook apps.

What’s your philosophy on reading or writing reviews? Have you written one lately?

About the Author: Stacy S. Jensen worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for two decades. Today, she writes picture books and revises a memoir manuscript. She lives in Colorado Springs with her husband and toddler.

Blog: http://stacysjensen.blogspot.com Twitter: @StacySJensen

Quote of the Week, Week to Come & I Write Because...

"Write down the thoughts of the moment.  Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable." -Francis Bacon

This week on Writing From the Peak...

...Stacy S. Jensen lets you know how you can Help an Author Out by leaving a review.

...Our new columnist, Donnell Ann Bell, talks about Accepting Advice.

...And Debbie Maxwell Allen discusses query letters in Ready to Test-Drive Your Query Letter.

Also, don't forget the Write Brain this week! Page Lambert pays us a visit to discuss Manifestation of Yearning: The Flesh & Blood Factor of Storytelling. More information available on our website, the Event tab, and our Tuesday post.

Now we've got another installment of I Write Because..., provided by attendees of the 2013 Pikes Peak Writers Conference.

I Write Because...

...The stories are in me. They find their way out one way or another!

...Working fast food eats my soul.

...I am alive and human.

...Okay, so here's the thing...I loved playing "pretend" as a kid. Hours and hours of adventure & derring do, cops & robbers, cowboys & indians, mysteries to solve, treasures to find...And then I grew up. And nobody wanted to play pretend. But I still had all those adventures in my head, firing my imagination. So I wrote. I write. I keep writing. And now I've found friends who want to share my adventures. My readers.

...I have to. It fuels me to live the rest of my life happily. Without it, I am a shell of myself.

...It makes me happy and at peace.

...I can't stop!

...Everyone has a story to tell--and stories are what give life meaning. Plus, it's fun. :)

...Robot dinosaurs from Mars need a voice.

I Remember When: Effective Use of Backstory, Part I

By Karen Albright Lin

One of the trickiest challenges for writers is conveying backstory. We’re in the midst of dramatic action, enlightening narrative or compelling dialogue and, OH MY, we realize that we need to let our reader know something that happened in the past. Instinctually, we want to talk to our readers as we would over wine and cheese. “If he hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t be in the position he’s in.” Conversations in real life are often backstory: gossip, commiseration, bragging, praising, bitching, and so on. When writing our books, however, it’s wise to think twice before jumping back, leaving the current story, or confusing matters by turning your attention 180 degrees away from the peak of that hill you are climbing, thus diminishing momentum and some of the power of your strategically placed foretelling.

Most of us are familiar with the dreaded backstory that is the data dump we’re convinced must be given right up front in order to understand our characters’ coming adventures. How many times have we heard we should lop off that first chapter and begin with the inciting incident or even start just after the action that is essential for the story to exist? What we chop off is likely backstory.

Despite using the terms chop and lop, I don’t mean to make backstory sound like some evil craft error that writers must avoid at all cost. On the contrary, when used well it conveys important information that adds layers and texture to your current story. It can even support your theme and add subplots. 

My editing clients struggle with it more than almost any other aspect of their writing.

How do we offer important background? 

One way is to impart vital information from the past using FLASHBACKS (in which readers are thrust back into an actual scene – living it vividly). We can use NARRATIVE, internal commentary or a layer that allows the writer to become a subtle (or not so subtle) part of the story. We can also offer up knowledge about the past through DIALOGUE. Each has its pros and cons, its potential for brilliance and its risks of stepping into painful traps.

Backstory through CONVERSATION is best if indirect. On-the-nose dialogue will come off as plastic and an obvious info dump: “As you know, Beth, I spent three years in Japan.” Indirectly conveying that same information will get the idea across in a more organic manner and enlighten on character: “She won’t think I’m still that Ozark hick when she sees what three years of bowing, chopsticking, and Sumo diaper folding has done to me.”     

Using DRAMATIC NARRATIVE to enlighten on the past is not simply offering a list of facts. It’s an exciting and colorful summary that brings yesterday into the present: Someday he’d tell her what it was like to wrap thirty feet of cloth around four hundred-pound men with albacore breath. 

Note: any backstory imparted about our character’s time in Japan shouldn’t be just an interesting fact. It is there because it’s essential to the story in some way, informs what is happening now.

The trickiest form of backstory to pull off is the FLASHBACK. It recounts previous events by taking readers back in time to an actual scene. A none-too-subtle example is Harry Potter’s Pensieve (the stone basin that reviews memories).       

WHY WOULD A WRITER CHOOSE TO USE A FLASHBACK?

To add depth to a character: 

• To enlighten about relationships from the past and bring current ones into sharper focus
• To better understand personality and current motivations, fears, barriers to love, and to create sympathy or empathy. A character’s desperate goal keeps readers hooked.
• Seeing an important scene in real time offers us the opportunity to get two perspectives, that of your character and that of his younger self. Think of Forest Gump. 
• It helps describe a character before and after a trauma. In Nora Roberts’s Angels Fall her protagonist was witness to, and injured in, a mass murder changing her forever.

For the story’s sake:

• It fills in gaps with active scenes that engage.
• Introduces facts from the past that readers need in order to understand current events.
• If it is a framed story—like A Prayer for Owen Meany— one can begin the story after the action is over.
• It offers clarity about how the world works.
• Reveals obstacles
• Raises stakes. In The Fugitive Harrison Ford’s character’s freedom is at stake because he was accused of murder and is being chased by the law.
• It helps to make the stakes personal. Again in The Fugitive, Harrison Ford’s character saw his wife killed (through flashback).
• If the story takes place all over the temporal map, flashbacks may be essential. One could argue that The Time Traveler’s Wife is written entirely in flashbacks.
• They offer opportunities to create buttons that, if pushed, are obstacles to your character. Think of Marty McFly in Back to the Future and his aversion to being called a chicken.

For the writing sake:

• To show instead of tell backstory, creating a fully realized story world.
• To add dimension to the writing and create richer drama
• To add suspense. For example, in one of my books I add suspense by gradually unfolding important backstory: first showing that my character avoids the media, later we learn of her fear that her true identity will be discovered by the public, later we learn her mother disappeared when she was a young girl and that she blamed herself, later we learn that she was a witness protection kid and she has long believed that her mother was killed because she told a friend her real name, and now she fears exposure can make her own daughter vulnerable. Unraveling the past sheds light on the present.
• Flashbacks help contrast events, people or objects in fiction. In No One Asked the River, a screenplay I wrote with Janet Fogg, the archaeologist protagonist lost his son in an accident on a dig. He still blames himself. It affects him when another young boy dies on his watch. This contrasts this POV character before and after a traumatic experience. Contrast is a powerful tool.

Sometimes the benefits of using flashbacks outweigh the sacrifice of immediacy.

Next post, I’ll address when and how to most effectively use flashbacks.

Come back next month for Part II of Karen's Backstory series.

About the Writer:  Karen is an editor, ghostwriter, pitch coach, speaker and award-winning author of novels, cookbooks, and screenplays. She’s written over a dozen solo and collaborative scripts (with Janet Fogg, Christian Lyons and director Erich Toll); each has garnered international, national and regional recognition: Moondance Film Festival, BlueCat, All She Wrote, Lighthouse Writers, Boulder Asian Film Festival, SouthWest Writers Contest, and PPW Contest. Find out more at www.karenalbrightlin.com.