What Makes a Book Good?

Have you ever read reviews or had people recommend books, and then you read them and can't understand what all the fuss is about? What works for one reader might not work for another. And there's nothing wrong with that—that's why there are so many different books!

While I was in Los Angeles, I had time to hook up with a friend from high school. We discussed reading and writing, and we got started discussing the male-female thing. He'd read books by a well-known female mystery author, and he said he rushed through all the "emotional" stuff because he wasn't interested in that. He wanted the "mystery" stuff, not all the "feeling" stuff.

I recently read two "out of my normal genre" books in anticipating of attending a book club meeting. I'll be interested in seeing how the book club works, especially since the woman who invited me stressed that they served a delicious breakfast rather than extolling the brilliance of the book discussions. I've never joined one before, since they remind me too much of assigned reading in high school.

One of the books I read would, by today's standards, probably be considered poor writing. But it was a memoir written by someone born just after the Civil War, who had very little formal education. The publisher had opted to leave the manuscript virtually intact rather than edit it for spelling or grammar.

Character Quirks

What I'm reading: Burn, by Nevada Barr

Thanks to Laurin for her excellent advice on making settings matter. Settings are excellent ways to show more about your characters.

My recent visit home triggered some thoughts about other ways to approach dealing with the characters who populate our novels. We've all met people with identifying characteristics. Sometimes it's physical appearance. Sometimes it's an unconscious gesture. Sometimes it's speech patterns.

All of the above are ways to help your reader see and understand your character. But what about some other idiosyncrasies? Does your character have an endearing habit? What about an annoying one? Is the character aware of how the habit might affect other characters on the page? Does he care?

You know those clever little magnets that you put on the dishwasher that say "clean" on one side and "dirty" on the other? In our house, they would have been a waste of money because my mother never left clean dishes in the dishwasher. As soon as it finished running, it was emptied. The one night she complained about how tired she was, but couldn't go to bed until the dishwasher finished, my dad told her she could do it in the morning. No go. We finally agreed to wait until the cycle was over, and one of us would empty it.

Setting: It's not just a place

Today my guest is Laurin Wittig, who writes historical romances set in the Scottish Highlands. She’s blogging today on how to make your settings do more than just be the backdrop to your story. And as a bonus, it's also my day over at The Blood Red Pencil.

When you create a story, does the setting matter to you? It should. The setting is an important backdrop for your story but it can be so much more than Aubusson carpets, castles or spaceships. If you can pick your story up and put it in another setting without changing it, then you are missing an opportunity to deepen both your story and your characters.

I was recently critiquing a story written in first person which included a lot of what I termed "reporter" mode whenever the protagonist went into a new environment/setting. The place and the things in it were described well enough that I could picture where she was, but it was flat and frankly a little boring. The setting didn't matter to the character, so it didn't matter to me. That's when I realized something I've intuitively known for a long time: it isn't the description of the setting that is important to the reader's experience, it's the point of view character's perception and emotional response to the setting that's important.

You know how writers are always spouting off about "show, don't tell"? This is a great example of why that is so important. Let me give you an example of reporting/telling about a setting:

To Hyphenate or Not To Hyphenate?

What I'm reading: Deadly Currents, by Beth Groundwater

I'm slowly reaching the end of my copy edits for ROOTED IN DANGER. As I mentioned, just because this is the second editorial pass doesn't mean all the errors have been caught, so I have been reading the whole book. She's caught things that weren't picked up on the first pass, but I've also caught a few glitches that nobody else did.

For the most part, the editor's suggestions have been painless, and I agree with most of them. There are a few places where she's changed sentence structure, and it didn't work for me.

My mom's first language was German, not English, and her sentence structure often followed the Germanic patterns. Our family favorite: "Look for me in the bottom drawer for the pound cake."  Of course, my brother and I opened the bottom drawer and said, "Mom! You're in here!"

In one case, I'd written: She went into the bedroom closet and dragged the cardboard carton she’d brought with her to the bedside. 

The editor preferred: She went into the bedroom closet and dragged to the bedside the cardboard carton she’d brought with her.

Which would you prefer?

Friday Field Trip - We Have Liftoff

Last week Jason traveled to Florida to observe the final space shuttle launch. He was fortunate that the launch went off on schedule; in all our years of living in Orlando, few of them did. I'm sure the photographs are all the more meaningful given that they were taken live.

There aren't as many pictures as I normally share--but he had a 40 second window before the shuttle disappeared into the clouds. Enjoy this historic occasion!

Atlantis on pad 39A before dawn.

STS-135 Atlantis clears pad 39A around 11:28am EDT on July 8th.

Don't forget to click to see the rest!

Another Day, Another Editor

What I'm reading: Still Life With Murder, by P. B. Ryan

If you haven't checked out WHEN DANGER CALLS as the Book of the Day featured at Ereader News Today, take a minute to pop over.

And thanks for all your comments and suggestions yesterday. I'll send a list to the editor, and will update you on our final answer.

Speaking of editors, I seem to be in editing mode these days. Just as I'm finishing up with edits on my short story, I get the copy edits for my next Blackthorne, Inc. story, ROOTED IN DANGER, which is due to be released next April. (Note: reminder to those who have been following my discussion of editorial preferences with my police procedural short story, this post is about a different story, a different publisher, and a different editor.)

I've already worked with the first round edits, where my editor and I worked with the manuscript I'd submitted to Five Star. We worked together to turn in the best possible product. But from there, it goes to their copy editing department, and they go over it carefully. Despite the efforts made to give them something perfect, they're probably going to find things that need attention.

Much as I dislike working with Track Changes, these edits come back in a pdf document, so you can't really make changes. Anything the editor changed will show up very much like it does in Track Changes, but there's no "accept/reject" option. Instead, you create a new document in Word, noting page numbers and paragraphs, and noting anything you disagree with. For the most part, changes are things to be sure the manuscript conforms to house style, and catching inconsistencies. For example, the heroine's family business is Epicurean Unlimited. However, in two places, I'd written Epicurean, Unlimited. Neither the first round editor nor I noticed it, but copy editors are alert to things like this.

Editing: Who's on the Page? 2

What I'm reading: Bound by the Heart, by Marsha Canham

What I read while away: My Sister's Keeper, by Jody Picault, Passions for the Dead, & Dying for Justice, by L.J. Sellers

Thanks to Cricket for her Jessica Fletcher Syndrome post yesterday. I know I live in a small town and have never tripped over a dead body the way they seem to turn up in Cabot Cove.

WHEN DANGER CALLS is Book of the Day at eReader News Today. I hope you'll send some traffic that way.

To continue with previous posts on when editorial input becomes editorial intrusion, I submitted my changes to the editor, and said I didn't like her changing "asshole" to "jerk."

As in any writing where we're striving to create conflict and tension, the character needs to have a question or a problem. He needs a goal. As the author, it's our job to stand in the way of that goal.

In essence, there are three outcomes to any of these conflicts we throw at our characters:

1. Yes
2. No
3. Yes, but …

Jessica Fletcher Syndrome

Today I welcome Cricket McRae to Terry's Place. Cricket’s interest in traditional colonial skills is reflected in her contemporary Home Crafting Mysteries featuring Sophie Mae Ambrose. She lives in northern Colorado and fits writing around soap making and food preservation, spinning and cheese making. Her books are set in a fictionalized Cadyville, Washington, which brings up the question of just how many murders you can get away with staging in one small town.

Thanks! I’m delighted to be a guest here at Terry’s Place.

According to the Urban Dictionary, Jessica Fletcher Syndrome is a:

“Condition of a place or person that seems to attract a large number of murders without having an active part in that crime. From the TV-show Murder She Wrote where every week a close friend or relative of Jessica Fletcher is either murdered or suspected of murder. Suspension of disbelief is stretched to the limit.”

That last is a consistent challenge for some mystery writers. Cozy authors in particular tend to set their stories in small towns where people know each other – perhaps a little too well. Here are a few things to keep in mind if you face the problem of JFS.

Roving Body Parts

Since my body parts are traveling today, and I recently read a blog with a very black and white view on how to deal with body parts, I thought I'd reprise this 2009 blog post. I don't have trouble with figures of speech, and if I'm reading that a character 'flew down the block to John's house' I don't see her mid-air. If someone writes "a lump of ice settled in her belly" I'm not seeing actual ice.


Do the eyes have it?



How do you react when you read things like this:

Their eyes met from across the room.

His eyes raked her body from head to toe.

There seem to be two schools of thought on this one. I'm on the side that doesn't mind. I understand that 'eye' can be used as a noun or a verb. "He eyed her" is acceptable. "He gave her the eye" is an idiom I have no trouble with. I don't see him extracting an eyeball and handing it to her. So if a characters eyes move, I don't get visions of eyeballs floating free.

Which side are you on? Would the following pull you out of the story?

Her blue eyes, enlarged by her wire-rimmed glasses, rambled from Colleen's head to her toes.

"What's wrong with my face?" Her fingers flew to her cheeks, and she pulled them away, studying them.


Yet there are those for whom those would be book-tossing offenses. Me, I see the eye movement in the first example, but the eyes remain firmly set in their sockets. In the second, my brain assumes the fingers are still attached to the hand, and I don't think about body parts floating in space.


If we took everything we read literally, a lot of the richness of the language would be lost. If his eyes are pools of molten chocolate, do we really think that he's got Godiva eyeballs? Or just deep brown eyes?

(That's a metaphor, I think – if his eyes look like pools of molten chocolate, that would be a simile, right?) I've never been good at remembering terminology. Metaphors, similes, idioms, hyperbole—they're things I use, but I don't worry about what they're called when I'm writing them.

At any rate, my editor said it's a house 'rule' to avoid using floating body parts. Apparently they want to avoid having books thrown across the room by readers in the 'I see eyeballs' group. I'm guessing they figure that those who don't mind won't notice. For me, however, substituting 'gaze' for 'eyes' in those situations gets tedious and repetitive. Which means I don't feel comfortable with a simple swap, and end up trying to rewrite the entire passage.

Chime in – what's your preference? Which group are you in?

Tomorrow, my guest is Cricket McRae who's talking about the Jessica Fletcher Syndrome. And I hope all my body parts will be home again.

Friday Field Trip - Oregon

Hubster went to Portland and Salem. First part business, second part to visit his sister. He's sharing some of his pictures today. Since I'm still out of town, if you want more details, ask in the comments and he should answer.