A Close Encounter with... Kate Belle

The lovely and multi-talented Kate Belle has popped in today to give us some tips on rejection letters - the bane of every writer's existence, yet so important in helping us hone our craft.

Take it away, Kate!

Dear John...

...Thank you for submitting [insert title]. While your writing is [insert complimentary adjective] and the plot [insert alternative complimentary adjective], the piece lacked [insert hard won skill you thought you’d mastered]. Unfortunately we are unable to offer you a contract on this occassion, but encourage you to submit again and wish you the very best for the future.

Sound familiar?

After writing seriously for over five years I’m no stranger to rejection. I got my first one at age sixteen. At the time I was so devastated I didn’t write another thing for twenty years. On reflection, the rejection itself wasn’t that bad. I submitted two hand-written poems, filled with teenage angst, along with a hand-written submission letter (come on – it was the early eighties), to Deakin University literary magazine.

Yeah, it’s funny now, but at the time I had no idea how completely out of my depth I was. Their response was gentle enough – thanks for submitting, unfortunately it’s not right for our magazine, perhaps you should consider submitting to Dolly magazine. It was this last bit that really got me miffed. Didn’t they realise that these poems were far too deep for Dolly? I was a serious writer, not some producer of fluff (my, how times have changed!).

Tackling the inevitable, diabolical rejection letter is part of the rough road to publication. It’s a necessary rite of passage. It helps you grow the required rhino skin over your oh-so-sensitive creative soul. And believe me, as a writer, you’re going to need it once you’re published.

Rejection letters come in many forms and, in my experience, most of them these days break the news as gently as they can. Occasionally, when your manuscript catches a publisher on a bad day, it might come across as a little terse, but take heart. The best of the best have all suffered humiliating rejection letters from publishers who make no effort whatsoever to protect an author’s delicate sensibilities (see
Famous Author’s Harshest Rejection Letters if you want to see how bad it can get).

But ‘No’ is still ‘No’, and no matter how sweetly it’s said it still deflates you and drives you to the nearest drug of choice – chocolate, bourbon, shopping, voodoo. Most of the red wine hangover’s I’ve suffered in the past five years have been a direct result of rejection letters, because it just plain hurts when someone doesn’t love your baby as much as you do.

Everyone kept telling me that this was part of the writer’s journey and I wouldn’t be a proper writer if I hadn’t been rejected as often as biggies (800 times for CS Lewis!). In the end, and to save my liver, I had to change the way I viewed rejection. Instead of falling into a hopeless, weeping (and drunken) heap of self-loathing, I started to count each rejection as one step closer to publication. This attitude helped enourmously, because suddenly the rejections had a purpose in my journey (other than just making me feel like a failure).

After this mind-shift I noticed the rejections hurt less. Without realising it I was growing the much needed rhino skin every author needs once their work arrives in the public sphere. Needed because once you’re actually published the potential scale for rejection expands exponentially, and you have absolutely no control over it.

And the reality is that wading through all those rejections only makes the first publishing contract all the sweeter. Finding a publisher who loves your work, wants to share it with their audience, is like falling in love all over again. The grass is greener, the air is fresher and bright, bubbly champagne replaces the more reflective red wine binges.

So save those rejections in a little folder and count them as steps toward being published so when you’re famous you can look back and say that at least you got there faster than CS Lewis!
  
Breaking the Rules:

Grace is a beautiful woman in complete control of her world. A long time ago she chose a career over children and marriage, and has never regretted it. Then Ramon Mendez walks into her office. Ramon is about to commence his PhD, a work on erotic literature, and from the outset there is something about him that makes Grace’s blood run hot. Aware of the need to maintain her professional reputation, she rejects his advances, but he persists. And during their intimate supervision sessions, her defences start to crumble, for Ramon’s work is exposing desires within Grace she never knew existed.

Available Here: iTunes  Amazon 

Bloom:

Thirty-six-year-old Emma’s life looks as perfect as could be. She loves her solid, straight-laced husband Gary, who has given her three beautiful, if spoilt, children and a secure life. But something is missing. Gary hardly notices her anymore and she feels frumpy and invisible. Her friend, Lisa, talks her into joining a social boot camp class at the local gym. Emma immediately recognises their instructor as the gorgeous runner she sees each evening while walking her dog in the park. He introduces himself as Ramon Mendez. In spite of herself Emma is besotted.

Before long her mind is filled with guilty fantasies of him. One evening, when things at home have become too much to bear, she bumps into him alone in the park. An opportunity presents itself and no one need ever know. Ramon promises and delivers everything that’s missing from her marriage – passion, romance and excitement – but Emma must discover if they are the things she really wants.

                              Available Here: iTunes  Amazon 

Author Bio:

Kate Belle Kate is a woman of many passions who juggles her pens with the rest of her life. She holds a tertiary qualification in chemistry, half a diploma in naturopathy and a diploma in psychological astrology. Kate believes in living a passionate life and has ridden a camel through the Australian desert, fraternised with hippies in Nimbin, had a near birth experience and lived on nothing but porridge and a carrot for 3 days.

Kate lives, writes and loves in Melbourne, juggling her strange, secret affairs with her male characters with her much loved partner and daughter, and a menagerie of neurotic pets.

Where to chat with Kate: 

Blog/website  Facebook  Twitter

Thanks Imogene, it's great to be here and e-meet your lovely followers. The indomitable Ms Nix asked if I'd talk about rejection letters, something I've got years of experience with. So much so, I can write one with my eyes closed...

Thanks for joining us today Kate!  There is some very valid points that you have raised.

Imogene

Writing Believable Dialogue

Congratulations!  So now you have hunted and picked through your manuscript.  Found all those tricky nasty little commas and spelling errors that we talked about in the previous craft entry.  But Wait!  You’re still only part way to a completed manuscript.

Welcome to the world of dialogue and action – another essential part of a well rounded manuscript.

Before we begin, what exactly is a dialogue or action tag?  Great question, young Padawan.  A dialogue tag is she said, he murmured, she grunted...  Likewise an action tag is he laughed, she danced, he rode...

Dialogue tags (and action tags too) should only be used sparingly.  You can also find a wealth of different ways to share that information... she hissed, he yelled, she bellowed... don’t use said, said, said... it does become monotonous otherwise.

 

Image courtesy of [anankkml/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So dialogue... how do we present it? 

Dialogue is when we speak.  In Starburst, I have this piece of writing...

            “Is there something I can do for you, Meredith?”

Meredith’s eyes glazed with passion, and he watched, fascinated, as a red flush crept up her cheeks. She licked her lips, sending a surge of awareness through his body.

“I, um…I came to see how you were feeling.” Her eyes flicked nervously, as if she didn’t know where to look, and he smiled, feeling triumph roar through him. He had guessed—well, rather hoped—that she too felt that quick spark of lust. Yet his experience remained limited to vids and reading, so he hadn’t been totally sure. At least, not until now.

The dialogue is short and snappy without going on and on.  One thing new writers do is write long sections of dialogue without stopping or breaking it up somehow.  It does become tiring to read so remember to break it up with action.  But just remember the action must belong...

“I really like that bra you are wearing.”  He turned the music up in the club as everyone gyrated on the floor.  “I’d rather see it off you though.”

Sure I broke up the dialogue but the actions don’t match the words what was going on in the story (unless they are about to do something on the dance floor... uhh, maybe not, though.)

Dialogue that doesn’t fit the natural cadence of speech is another issue for young writers.  Do you know anyone who speaks like this?

                “I can not see how you will possibly take control of the ship.”

More likely the people you know would say: “I can’t see how you’ll take control of the ship.”  This dialogue is more believable, simply because saying ALL the words gives it a formality that we don’t use anymore.

There are times, when this rule doesn’t apply though.  If you are writing a character from another planet/time/culture then you need to be aware and careful of the cadence of their speech patterns.

All dialogue should be able to be attributed to a single speaker.  If you can’t then you may need to employ a dialogue tag (be careful there!) or give them an action (action tag) so we can tell who did or said what.

Keep the dialogue appropriate to the character being portrayed.  A young girl, for example, about to have her first sexual experience is unlikely to cry out...

                “I’m coming... Oh My God!”

In fact, this character is more likely to be unsure, and say something along the lines of...

               

                “I don’t... What’s... ohhh...”

When action takes over

Okay, I’m going to try to keep the action section brief.  Action is any act or movement undertaken by a character.  It must, at all times, be meaningful.    You also need to be aware that in most cases there is a natural progression to the actions.

You can’t have a character kissing the hero and sighing at the same time.  It isn’t physically possible.  So, you need to give the actions a progression.

He kissed her softly on the lips, then drew away.  She exhaled.  Nothing more than a sigh escaping her lips.

Alternative:

He kissed her.  The she sighed.

Two actions in natural progression. Believable.   In the alternative, it’s still there, a natural progression but with nothing to soften it or draw the reader in.  I know which I prefer...

Action should also be paced.  Slow, medium or fast.  Your use of a variety of verbs can help to set that pace effectively.  The Emotional Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi is a great title to help with setting the pace.

 Image courtesy of [Arvind Balaraman/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Imogene’s tips to dialogue and action:

·         Work out who your character is and then write the dialogue to match with their level of experience, age or even when or where they live.

·         Keep the dialogue and action tags to a minimum.

·         Break up your dialogue with appropriate actions.

·         Remember to look for the natural progression in the actions of the character, always remembering to ask can they do this while doing that?

·         Keep an eye on body parts that do actions without the rest of the body.

·         If you can’t easily work out who is speaking or acting, then you need to find another way to present that action or speech so the reader can work it out quickly.

Some Resources:

                The Everything Guide to Writing You First Novel – Hallie Ephron

                Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies – Leslie Wainger

A word from: Alysha Ellis

Dialogue tags are words like said, replied asked. There is nothing wrong with dialogue tags especially the word said, provided it is not over used, but active writing requires the use of action tags as well.

“I am angry,” he said.  There are several ways this can be made more active. The dialogue is in inverted commas so most of the time we know he said it. Already then, you are wasting your readers’ time telling them what they can figure out for themselves. He questioned or he asked are the same.

He said is also telling.  You could write he said angrily but adding an adverb is not advisable (see above). Even worse is the constant use of dialogue tags like he argued, he harangued, he warned, he lectured. These are called bookisms and are not well received (In spite of what elementary school teachers try to tell you.) One or two now and then might work, but not if they are too extreme. So what do you do? You use action tags. These have the advantage of being different and most of all they SHOW...always your first and most important aim.

“I am angry.” He punched his fist into the wall, and paced the room.

Or His cheeks turned flame red, and two line bracketed his narrowed lips. “I am angry.”

The skill is to get a balance, making sure nothing is overused and that you do not double up, using dialogue tags when you have a suitable action tag in place.

AUTHOR BIO& LINKS

 

I write stories your mother would never let you read, even now that you're all grown up - but what Mama don't know can't hurt her. Live on the wild side a little. Bad girls have all the fun!

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