Writer Realization #1

So numbered in case of future, bloggable realizations. Not because it was the first ever.

Good Friday,

A very short piece of writerly advice for the weekend. I need to get back to the thesis. The countdown began a few weeks ago. Less than 200 days till deadline.

Filtering. My mentor hammered the ultimate filtering lesson home for me this week, and here I will try to convey it. Many things with writing, for me, have crested over my awareness like a wave. This was one of those things. It just hit me, and I got it.

Two types of filtering I already knew about.

-Sensory filters – sensory words that pull the reader away from the character
He saw/heard/felt/smelled/tasted

-Thought filters – thought-related words that pull the reader away from the character
He thought/imagined/remembered/believed/any variation of these

I’m going to call the new one I learned this week general filtering – sentence construction that takes the reader away from the character.

Sentence with filter: “He couldn’t understand it.”
Sentence without filter: “Understanding eluded him.”

Sentence with filter: “She would never get there in time.”
Sentence without filter: “There was no time.”

The non-filtered sentences aren’t the only possible rewrites. They’re just there to get the point across. Take filtering out of your pros, and the emotions come through a million times stronger.

Now, go forth and create noteworthy prose.

See you next week.

Mary
@desantismt on Twitter

WAKING UP DEAD by Margo Bond Collins

Good Monday,

I have a guest today. I’m pleased to welcome Margo Bond Collins and her paranormal mystery, WAKING UP DEAD, to the Lockbox.

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Hi, everyone! First I want to thank Mary for letting me take over the blog for today’s stop on my pre-release teaser tour. I’m discussing my new paranormal mystery Waking Up Dead. It’s forthcoming from Solstice Publishing and available via Amazon on October 8, and I’m pretty excited!

Be sure to add Waking Up Dead to your Goodreads bookshelves.

When Dallas resident Callie Taylor died young, she expected to go to Heaven, or maybe Hell. Instead, she met her fate early thanks to a creep with a knife and a mommy complex. Now she's witnessed another murder, and she's not about to let this one go. She's determined to help solve it before an innocent man goes to prison. And to answer the biggest question of all: why the hell did she wake up in Alabama?

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Excerpt

I needed someone I could talk to. If such a person even existed.

So I started looking.

Abramsville is a small town, but it still has roughly 15,000 people. Surely one of them had to be sensitive to ghosts. I didn’t, however, consider how long it would take to test that many people. Or even just the adults.

So I started with the ones that I already knew had some sensitivity. I made my way to their houses, stood in front of them, waved my arms, jumped up and down, and screamed until I would have turned blue in the face if I’d been alive.

Some of them jumped a little, startled by something they almost saw out of the corners of their eyes. Several of them shivered and turned up the thermostat or wrapped themselves in sweaters.

And the guy who had seen me behind him in the mirror? This time he really did pee himself. Desperate as I was, I decided that he was too easily spooked to help me. What policeman was going to believe some pee-soaked lunatic who came in blathering about the evidence a ghost had told him about? He’d probably get arrested himself. Anyway, I had absolutely no assurance that he actually heard me when I said, “Please. You have to help me.”

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About the Author

Margo Bond Collins lives in Texas with her husband, their daughter, several spoiled cats, and a ridiculous turtle. She teaches college-level English courses online, though writing fiction is her first love. She enjoys reading urban fantasy and paranormal fiction of any genre and spends most of her free time daydreaming about vampires, ghosts, zombies, werewolves, and other monsters. Waking Up Dead is her first published novel. Her second novel, Legally Undead, is an urban fantasy, forthcoming in 2014 from World Weaver Press.

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Connect with Margo

-MargoBondCollins@gmail.com
-Website
-Twitter
-Google Plus
-Goodreads Author Page
-Facebook Author Page
-Facebook Novel Page
-Tumblr
-Pinterest

And check out the Book Trailer.

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Be sure to enter the giveaway for a chance to win one of four copies of Waking Up Dead or a $10 Amazon card--and follow the tour or come back here once a day for even more chances to win!

Enter to Win