This photo is one of many showing the destruction of the deadly hurricane in Galveston Texas, September 8, 1900, a hundred fifteen years ago today. Winds raged at least 115 miles per hour and the hurricane was classified as a Category 4. The loss of life, 6,000 to 8,000 people is the worst weather-related disaster […]
Roles of Minor Characters in Fiction
Minor characters in fiction are supposed to complement the major characters and move the plot forward. A simple definition, but Orson Scott Card wrote an article for Writers Digest that explains other ways to use minor characters. Card describes the unimportant minor characters he calls “walk-ons” or placeholders. They are not important to the story […]
Dill Pickle Popcorn to Add to Story Lines
I shopped at Trader Joe’s today. The store featured dill pickle popcorn. The sample tasted good so I bought two bags since our college-aged daughter, Ariana, is living with us during her freshman and sophomore years. She has liked pickles since she was little. Of course, I checked the ingredients and the flavor is […]
Setting in a Novel
This week I finished chapters 18 and 19 in my romantic alternative reality novel, Norman in the Painting. Jill Steele, the protagonist, doesn’t like to visit Viv, her older sister in their family home. When their parents died, Viv inherited the house, which Jill didn’t want anyway. Living there in her childhood was not a […]
Jessica Barksdale Writing Retreat 2015
Last day of Jessica Barksdale’s writing retreat. I’m happy I found two Beta readers for Norman in the Painting. Kari Ann Flickinger and Gretchen Nordstrom. Now all I have to do is get the remaining one third of the book written, send it to them, make revisions from what they find is confusing, then send […]
Food in Writing
What does your story’s characters eat? Today at Jessica Barksdale’s retreat, she suggested we write about food for 20 minutes. In Norman in the Painting, Jill wants to stall before going to her sister’s house. Viv, who has had too much to drink, tells Jill that the body of her colleague was found by the […]
Norman in the Painting Art Gallery Excerpt
Norman in the Painting Chapter Four: Jill visits Maggie, her best friend who is confined to a wheelchair and owns the only art gallery in town. The next morning, Jill ran to the Apollo Gallery planning to arrive by 8:00 a.m. Maggie usually opened early, before Evelyn did. Several clients’ monthly bookkeeping had to be […]