An Unexpected Location Photo-op by Alison Henderson

As some of you know, I recently had a nasty little surprise when I decided to be a responsible homeowner and have our septic tank proactively pumped. The crew discovered the 45-year-old concrete tank was cracked and full of tree roots and had to be replaced. A few-hundred-dollar job instantly morphed into many, many thousands. I cried a little, sighed a little, forked over my deposit, and waited.

After four months, I started pestering the company and was told they were out of tanks but expected a shipment the following week. They would call to make an appointment. When the phone rang at 7:55 AM five days later, I thought they were ready to schedule. Oh, no. They would be there in an hour. Yikes! OG and I took very speedy showers and stuffed down our breakfast. Once they started digging, all the plumbing would be off-limits for the duration of the day until the new tank was installed, so we decided to take a road trip.

After a brief debate re: north vs. south, we hopped into the car and headed south down scenic Highway 1 toward Big Sur. Our plan was to have lunch at the iconic Nepenthe Restaurant. We'd driven by, but never stopped there, and it's been on my bucket list for years.

A plus to this plan was that I'm setting my next series, tentatively subtitled Cypress Coast Mysteries, in and around coastal Monterey County. Setting is very important to me, so I grabbed my camera to take a few location shots to remind me of the details. The drive took us across grassy meadows that sloped into the sea and through towering redwood forests. This photo marks the entrance to Los Padres National Forest.

In the first book, Second Wind, the heroine is a kinetic sculptor who lives next to the family's vegetarian restaurant in Big Sur. I had long thought Nepenthe would make the perfect prototype, and was I ever right! It's a glass and redwood structure situated on an oak-studded cliff with stunning views down the coast. Here's the view from our table.

On the way back, I managed to get a great shot of the iconic Bixby Bridge. Amazingly, it's almost the exact view I've been planning to use for the cover. Here's my photo:

And here's the stock photo for the cover:

Any way you look at it, it was a great way to spend what would otherwise have been a very stressful day.

Alison
www.alisonhenderson.com 

How #Setting Tugs at a #Reader By C. Hope Clark

Roses and Readers, please welcome C. Hope Clark today as our guest. She's talking settings...one of my favorite topics. Enjoy!

My fiction carries a strong sense of place. I prefer reading books where place impacts plot and characterization. Most readers, in my humble opinion, want setting to be a solid piece of the composition, where they feel they’ve left the world they live in and have completely immersed themselves into another, regardless the genre.

When you consider place, note that people as a whole usually fall into one category or another. They either love their home and the comfort of roots, or they dream of travel. Any book needs to accommodate one feeling or the other, if not both.

This blog tour I’m on of late, is in honor of my latest release Newberry Sin, the fourth in the Carolina Slade Mysteries. Setting sucked me into this story. My tales are usually grounded in real places. Towns, beaches, rural areas more than urban. Newberry Sin takes place in a real community named Newberry. Why? Because I can so see myself living there. It reminds me of age-old roots I wish still existed.

Small town Southern beckons me. I was born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi and spent summers on my grandparents’ cotton farm. Grandpa was a farmer who donned a wilted fedora even in the fields with Grandma wearing a farmer’s wife dress and proverbial apron that could carry three dozen eggs from the coop back to the house. I climbed pear trees and chased feral kittens amongst the hay bales in the barn. Took my summer afternoon naps on an eight-inch-deep quilt spread across a four-poster bed. My grandmother’s rooster and Billy goat chased my sister, but loved me. I collected eggs but could not watch a hen prepped for dinner.

I played in the hollowness under a wisteria bush and tried to remember not to let the screen door slam on my way out. Biscuits were homemade every morning, served with real butter and maple syrup with my record being twelve biscuits at one sitting. For the longest time, the only phone was a party line that I would sneak and eavesdrop on when nobody looked.

Carolina Slade, the protagonist in this series, loves the country, has a degree in agricultural,

and lives to right the wrongs in what most people think is homespun rural Americana. But where there’s money, frankly, where there’s humanity of any kind, there’s corruption and a pecking order of the haves and have-nots. Slade traverses that world trying to maintain that country setting stereotype and rid the world of the ill-doers for the betterment of all. She’s an old soul in a forty-year-old body whom you might fool once, but never twice. And family means everything to her.This Newberry setting appeals to my roots. However, it appeals to an amazing number who’ve never spent a night on a farm, too. We’ve reached an era where our grandparents were more likely urban than rural, and so many wish they could’ve experienced what that was like.Which means in these days when we can travel so easily, the ruralness of Newberry Sin and the other Slade books beckons to the traveler. They can envision themselves transported to barns, fields, rivers, and general stores, and if only for the length of a story, belong to a different life.

Setting is a powerful tool. Its foundation helps mold the personality, mission, and emotional substance of a character. It’s why authors owe readers the purest delivery of that sense of place that they can. Because to refine your players, they have to be home to understand what to defend, or be away from home to have something to miss. Some piece of place grounds them, or leaves them restless. They pine for what they don’t have, or they find themselves unable to  leave it.

After WKDK-AM Radio in Newberry invited me five years ago to talk about Carolina Slade’s first escapades on the air, I was invited to one book club, then another. Each person, each setting, made me fall in love with all things Newberry. I joined the Friends of the Library, a strong contingency fighting illiteracy in Newberry County, and soon found myself at their annual, old-fashioned luncheon of chicken salad, fruit salad, and a take-away Dixie cup filled with a potted vinca or begonia for each person to take home and plant.

This was what I wanted in my Slade books. Five years after that introduction, Slade finally tackles a mystery in Newberry, South Carolina. The town is thrilled. Heck, the neighboring towns are thrilled. I’m beyond thrilled, because as I stated, everyone either feels at home, or wishes they could be there, while at the same time journeying through a mystery where the clues make everyone sure they can figure it out, because it’s all so familiar.

BUY LINKS:

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BYD5T4P/

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/newberry-sin 

B&N https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/newberry-sin-c-hope-clark/1128369562 

Google https://play.google.com/store/books/details/C_Hope_Clark_Newberry_Sin

Apple https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/newberry-sin/

Review (Amazon) https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/ref=?ie=UTF8&asin=B07BYD5T4P# 

Book Trailer: https://animoto.com/play/xiGEHQRZLWWcrpPgHQgP4w

BIO: C. Hope Clark’s latest is Newberry Sin, her eighth mystery. Hope is also founder of FundsforWriters, and her newsletters reach 34,000 readers each Friday. Her novels have won several awards, for content and covers, and Writer’s Digest selected FundsforWriters for its 101 Best Websites for Writers for the last 17 years. www.chopeclark.com

Setting is More Than Another Character By Karen McCullough

Please welcome Karen McCullough to The Roses of Prose.

A few weeks ago, I was told by a reader that I had “really brought the mountains to life” in my most recent romantic suspense novel, Hunter’s Quest. I felt that was high praise indeed. The mountains in question are the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina and I tried hard to work them in as a necessary part of the story. 

I don’t necessarily subscribe to the dictum that setting is another character in a book because that underrates the power that setting has in itself. Setting is more than a character. It’s the backdrop for everything. When done right, it informs all the characters and their behavior, becomes a part of each scene, and adds to the challenges facing the protagonist(s). It’s the world the characters operate in. 

These are the first two paragraphs of Hunter’s Quest: 

The sudden, sharp crack of a rifle shot, way too close, shattered the peace of a lovely June day. 

Moments before, Kristie Sandford had been driving sedately and musing on camera angles and light as she reveled in the sun-drenched beauty of a back road in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Pink and blue wildflowers grew along the verge, just in front of shrubs in varying shades of green. The scent of honeysuckle drifted in the open window of the car. 

I tried to pick out the details that would draw the reader into the mountain setting – the colorful wildflowers and variety of green shrubs growing nearby. Then the scent of honeysuckle teases at a different sense-smell. But the details do more than just tell the reader what our protagonist is seeing. Blooming plants show that the season is either late spring or summer, and their presence in profusion on the road suggests a rural area. The weather is beautiful. The fact that Kristie notices those facts reinforces that she’s a photographer with an artistic bent. 

And then there’s the detail in the first sentence that changes everything. The “sudden, sharp crack of a rifle shot.” 

Anyone who’s spent much time in the mountains knows that the sound of gunfire isn’t all that unusual there. But Kristie is a city girl and the shot isn’t a distant one. It’s close, so close in fact, that the intended target runs out in front of her car and she nearly hits him. 

There wasn't enough room left to stop. If she swerved sharply enough to miss him, she'd induce a skid that might take her off the road. The agonized squeal of tires on asphalt scraped her nerves raw. Her pulse hammered in her ears,

At the last possible second, he jumped out of the way, diving to the side. 

A skid would be super-dangerous here because these are narrow roads with little leeway. I go with sounds in this case to show her response to the situation. The tires squeal and her pulse hammers in her ears. 

The man in question slides across the gravel until he hits a tree. Kristie stops to check if he’s injured, and here’s where she realizes some of the additional challenges and dangers the setting provides. 

Her stomach clenched tighter when she surveyed the area around him. The tree he'd hit had saved him from a worse fate. A few feet beyond it, the ground dropped off sharply, diving into a ravine some forty feet down. If he'd gone over the edge he would have been seriously injured or killed. She couldn’t even think about what would’ve happened if she’d swerved too much to avoid him. 

And then another two men show up, obviously locals, and obviously not friends to the man Kristie stopped to help. In fact, one of them is holding a rifle… 

This is just the beginning of Kristie and Jason Hunter’s adventures in the mountains, searching for a missing man.  

Aspects of plot and characters are all influenced by the mostly rural mountain setting. But my two protagonists are both city people and have fears that the setting will challenge before the story is resolved. Solving the interlocking mysteries of unexplained fires and a missing person will require they gain some understanding of how small towns, somewhat isolated from urban areas, operate and the effects on their inhabitants. 

Blurb: Kristie Sandford's vacation is interrupted when a man jumps out in front of her car. She avoids hitting him, but when she stops to see if he's hurt, he demands she help him escape from the people chasing him. Kristie has an odd "gift" - she occasionally gets warning messages, and she gets one saying he needs her help or he'll die. Jason Hunter is an NC SBI (North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation) agent working on his own time searching for a friend, an investigative reporter who disappeared while tracking down rumors of corruption in the bureaucracy of a small mountain town. Jason is grateful to Kristie for rescuing him, but dubious when she insists she has to continue helping him. Kristie is attracted to Jason, but the edge of danger she senses in him reminds her too much of the abusive family she escaped as soon as she could. 

Still, the message said he'd die if she didn't help him, and the messages have been right before. 

• Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X3Z8VLB
• Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hunters-quest-karen-mccullough/1125808779?ean=2940157500979
• Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/705030  

Karen McCullough is the author of more than a dozen published novels in the mystery, romantic suspense, and fantasy genres and has won numerous awards, including an Eppie Award for fantasy. She’s also been a four-time Eppie finalist, and a finalist in the Prism, Dream Realm, Rising Star, Lories, Scarlett Letter, and Vixen Awards contests. Her short fiction has appeared in several anthologies and numerous small press publications in the fantasy, science fiction, and romance genres. She has three children, three grandchildren and lives in Greensboro, NC, with her husband of many years. 

Author’s links:

Website: http://www.kmccullough.com

Blog: http://www.kmccullough.com/kblog

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kgmccullough

Exploring Setting

Most of my books take place in New England. I’ve called that area home for the past forty-one years so I know it well. Describing it is easy and comfortable. I can focus more on the characters and the storyline because the setting is on auto-pilot.

But is that getting old? Is it boring?

I’m trying to branch out in exploring setting. I won’t stop writing about New England, but there’s room for other places too. The following is a list of The Top Five Settings I’d Like to Try. See what you think.

1. Australia – I’ve been fascinated by the wildlife found on this continent for eons. It’s time to work it into a story. I’d love to visit there for real sometime, but can probably satiate myself on some virtual vacationing via internet first.
2. Hawaii – I’m due for a nice Hawaiian romance novel where the hero and heroine lounge on gorgeous beaches and explore volcanoes together. Yeah. Got to do it.
3. Medieval Times – So here I’m talking about the “when” of setting. I mostly write contemporary romances, but would absolutely love to dip into the time of knights and castles and royalty. There’s so much there to work with that would produce a rich and interesting story.
4. Another Planet/Galaxy – Something a little intergalactic might be fun. Earth can be rather limiting at times. It could be nice to step outside the Milky Way and toy with a love that makes its home in another galaxy.
5. Texas – Cowboys. Reason enough, no?

I don’t have storylines or characters for any of these settings yet, but I’m sure some will come along. All my books have started with a character voice whispering in my head. I’ll bet now that I’ve put these settings down in black and white, interested characters will come knocking soon. Better have my writing notebook handy.

If you’re an author, what settings do you want to write about that you haven’t explored yet? If you’re a reader, what settings do you like to read about? What settings would you definitely NOT want to read about?

Toodles,

Chris

The Maple Leaf Series, Books One to Five, available now. Book One, More Than Pancakes, is always FREE.

www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com 

It's All in the Setting! by Jannine Gallant

I don’t know about you, but for me, the setting just might sell the book. If I read a back-cover blurb and am intrigued by a unique setting, I’m more likely to give a new author a try than if the story takes place somewhere that doesn’t resonate with me. Some locales—like Hawaii—just shout romance. I immediately picture long walks on moonlit beaches, swimming with turtles, hot guys surfing… You get the picture! But sometimes Romance is more fun when you find it in unusual places.

For suspense books, readers may expect something a little grittier. A place with a darker side… But, I’m not a big city girl. I live in the woods…okay maybe not the way a bear does, but they are right outside my door in Lake Tahoe. I like to make my characters rough it a little. Every Step She Takes contains a little of both worlds. My heroine is from San Francisco. She covets five star accommodations and well-equipped gyms for exercise. I pulled her out of her element and tossed her down in the wilds of Alaska. The following excerpt is an example of what she has to deal with...

One foot in front of the other. Stumbling down the trail in the semi-dark a short time later, she repeated the mantra through clenched teeth. Ahead of her, Travis walked with a jaunty step. Obviously he was one of those disgusting morning people. Another thing they didn’t have in common.

“How’re you doing?” He called over his shoulder without having the decency to turn around.

“Peachy.”

“We can take a break and have something to eat once we get off the main trail.”

The amusement in his voice found a home on her third nerve. “Wylie can have my share. I’m not hungry.”

“How long are you going to sulk?”

A yawn nearly cracked her jaw. “Not sure. Maybe another hour or so.”

“Good to know. I’ll set my watch and check back with you then.”

Grinning, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her bad mood evaporated as the sun rose, shining golden through the trees. With each passing mile, the forest thinned, turning to a stretch of rugged grassland.

“Damn.”

“What’s wrong?” Her voice croaked from disuse. She cleared it.

“Without cover, it’s easy to spot someone in this terrain with a pair of binoculars. Forget what I said about taking a break. We need to run instead.”

“How am I supposed to do that carrying a backpack?”

He stopped abruptly. “Hot damn, that must be the secondary trail. See those scuffmarks. I’m guessing Sutton dropped his pack there, maybe to pull out a map or food.”

Grace stared at the ground and blinked. Dirt and rocks, a few bent grass stems... Wylie sniffed the area before wandering off.

Turning, Travis faced her. Worry lines fanned out from his eyes. “I really want to lose the guy tailing us. See the trees up there near the base of the mountain. We can rest when we get to them.”

Her skill at judging distance without convenient street blocks was sadly lacking, but she guessed it was at least a couple of miles. “I suppose I can run that far. Let’s do it.”

His eyes warmed. “You’re a good sport.” Bending, he brushed away the prints in the dirt. “Not much I can do about the grass. Try to stay on the rocks until we get a few yards away. This isn’t much of a trail, and I’m hoping the man following us will pass by without noticing it.”

Stepping carefully, she followed Travis across the uneven ground. Wylie tore through the grass, ears flapping as a big jack rabbit bounded before him. After a couple of minutes, he returned, a disappointed look in his eyes.

“Sorry, buddy.” She gasped for air. Running with the pack was an effort. It thumped painfully against her tailbone, but she didn’t dare stop to adjust the straps. The distance between her and Travis increased gradually. She forced herself to run faster.

Reaching the trees took an eternity. Focused on the blur of green, it slowly morphed into individual, towering spruce and hemlocks. The rising sun filtered through the branches, and a bed of needles padded the ground beneath her aching feet.

“We can stop now.”

Grace slid the pack from her shoulders and let it fall with a thump. She dropped next to it, her chest rising and falling with her labored breathing. Rivulets of sweat soaked her shirt, and needles clung to damp skin. With tongue hanging and sides heaving, Wylie flopped down a short distance away.

“You okay?”

Letting out a long breath, she closed her eyes. “Yeah.”

“I’m unbelievably impressed.”

Grace opened one eye, squinting against the light angling down on her face. Travis stood next to her. His thigh muscles bunched beneath soft cotton sweatpants when he squatted beside his pack.

“By what, my graceful collapse or sweat drenched hair?”

“Good God, Grace, half the Navy SEALS I trained with couldn’t have maintained that pace. You’re an animal.”

“A compliment guaranteed to put a smile on any woman’s face.”

So, what are your favorite settings? Do you prefer country or city? A tropical beach or a snowbound cabin? How about my Alaskan wilderness? Is my sweat-drenched heroine destined for romance?

Every Step She Takes is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo. For info on my other books, check out my Website.

Lead the Way - A Post about Beginnings

Happy 2013, Everyone!

This month’s theme is about new beginnings, so I thought I’d talk about the beginnings of stories, referred to as “leads” or “hooks.” When I teach this concept to my fifth grade writing students, I break leads up into seven categories as follows:

1.       Description of Setting: A great way to start a tale is to set the stage for the main events. A well-described setting can put your reader exactly where your characters are and that’s always a good thing. You want your readers to feel as if they have left wherever they are and have been transported to a new time and/or place.

2.       Description of Character: Your reader is going to be traveling with your character throughout the story, so showing what that main character looks like, sounds like, thinks about will help your reader connect with your hero/heroine. That connection is important to establish as soon as possible.

3.       Dialogue: Readers immediately get sucked into conversation between characters even if they aren’t sure what it’s about initially. Writing dialogue that sounds real and draws the reader in can be a wonderful way to begin a story. It helps readers feel as if they’ve been hanging around these characters for a while already and establishes a sense of familiarity. Dialogue can also arouse curiosity so readers will keep reading to see where the conversation ends up.

4.       Onomatopoeia: One of my favorite words! This refers to sound words such as crash, bang, and boom. Using onomatopoeia appeals to the reader’s sense of hearing, which can often be neglected when it comes to including sensory details in a piece of writing. I always like trying to come up with unique spellings to sounds like schlup, schlup, schlup for the noise of my dog drinking from his water bowl.

5.       Thoughts and Feelings: This is a great one especially if you like to write from first person point of view. Getting readers instantly into the heads and hearts of your characters always creates a strong lead that will carry the readers throughout the story. It’s especially fun if you have a sarcastic character who can’t always say what they are thinking aloud. With this lead style, you can provide the reader a glimpse into what the character wants to say, which can often be hilarious.

6.       Question: Beginning a story with a question automatically hooks a reader, because he/she will have to read on to see what the answer is.

7.       Interesting Fact: This is a good one for writing nonfiction, but I have seen it used in fiction too. Here, a writer chooses a relevant and true fact to begin his/her story. For example, 99% of humans cannot lick their own elbows. Interested in more? I’ll bet you are! And wouldn’t this be a great beginning for an erotic novel? Hmmm…I think my Muse just woke up.

While there is nothing overly complex or magical about these lead techniques, I think it helps to be reminded of them if you are a writer and to be aware of them if you are a reader. Writers can try to diversify their opening lines of their books, and readers can better understand the “how to” of what writers are doing in their novels.

Check out my books at www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com and see what lead techniques I use!

Toodles,
Chris

The Master Plan and Kisses to Remember Giveaway!

I’m a plotter. I like an outline of where I’m headed. I need a calendar of events. This holds true in my writing as well…most of the time.

When I’m working on a full-length novel, I absolutely must have a solid idea of what’s going to happen when, where it’ll happen, who will be there when it does happen, and how it all gets resolved. I start by making some lists. First is a character list where I name them, describe their physical appearances, their personalities, what they want, their motivations, and what stands in the way. I usually look for pictures online that match what I envision in my head. I also jot down what kind of house they live in, what their job is, if they have any pets, family, friends. I basically create a profile of each major character so I can go back to it and remember where exactly I put that scar or tattoo.

Next up is notes on setting. I sometimes consider setting to be an additional character in the story, so I pay special attention to collecting pictures of a place, gathering information on climate, land features, and points of interest. If I can virtually tour a setting, great! If I can go there or have already been there, even better! I frequent travel sites to get a flavor of a place and see how others have described it.

Now, it’s time for plot development. This usually comes in the form of a very, very, very sloppy calendar that I handwrite in my writer’s notebook. I easily lose track of time in a story, so I literally make a Sunday through Saturday calendar of events, adding in however many weeks I’ll need. The events are usually just quick notes on scenes, but they include whose point of view readers will get in the scene and the basic action. Sometimes I also include snippets of dialogue that come to me when I’m in this planning phase. This calendar can take a few days to unfold with me working on it even when I’m not physically writing on it. Ideas pop into my head while I’m driving, eating, exercising, meditating, food shopping. You name the place and I’ve had ideas present themselves. Trust me. I just make sure that at some point it all gets onto the plot calendar.

Once this calendar is filled in and is a sturdy skeleton, I begin the first draft. I usually try for at least four full pages per writing session (I do have a day job), and here’s the crazy part. After all that planning in the calendar…I don’t always stick to the master plan! Sometimes the characters make decisions I hadn’t anticipated. Sometimes new characters show up and want a piece of the action.

Sometimes a character dies and I had no idea he/she/it was going to.

But this is what makes writing such an adventure! Even the best developed plans need to be flexible. Out of that willingness to follow the story and the characters wherever they may lead comes true entertainment. These surprises keep the writer writing and ultimately, the reader reading.

So, yes, I plot, but I don’t let that chain me. I run free when the Muse says we must.

For writers, do you plot or make it all up on the fly? For readers, can you tell which method a writer has used when you read his/her work? What are the signs?

I'm giving away one free e-copy of Kisses to Remember to one lucky reader today. Leave a comment to be entered to win. Winner must supply email address.

Toodles,

Chris

www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com

www.nighteternal.weebly.com