Come Alive!!

Rose's Colored Glasses

May 2007 Newsletter

What's Inside?

Announcements!
Techie Corner
Body Language
Theme-Part One
Query - 1..2..3!
Dear Rose-Head Hopping

Announcements!

What's New in the World of the Roses?

Check out the workshops and
celebrate with our successes

Techie Corner
by Shayla Kersten

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet

Old Will sure knew his stuff. But does that apply to an email address? In today's technological world, electronic communication is almost mandatory within the writing world. As an author, my email address is not just a means of communication. It's part of my persona. Regardless of what I'm emailing, I want readers, editors, agents and other authors to recognize my name when they see it.

toohotforyou @ hotmail.com

If my email address was "toohotforyou @ hotmail.com", I don't think people would take me as serious as "shayla @ shaylakersten.com". The second email buys me name recognition and the domain shows a serious commitment to my writing career. If you are just starting out and haven't settled on a domain name yet, then "shaylakersten @ yahoo.com" works as well. Many ISP providers allow you more than one email address so you could also use your penname with their domain at no extra cost.

Some writers, especially futuristic or science fiction authors, use an email or domain associated with the world they created. This is a great way to promote a series.

domain addresses vs yahoo addresses

I use two main email addresses. My domain address is for professional groups such as Romance Writers of America. I also use it for communication with my editors and any emailed inquiries or submissions. My Yahoo address is primarily used with email loops for readers, writers and reviewers. Separate accounts help keep me organized.

So pick an email address that people will associate with you or your writing. It's never too early to promote yourself.

When a Look Isn't Enough
Body Language Revealed, Part 1
By Layla Chase

When creating first drafts, I often have characters 'look' or 'gaze' at each other, knowing I will substitute more descriptive words in revision. Through the use of precise words, I control the depiction of a character's emotion or the mood of the scene.

Naturalist Charles Darwin armed 19th century missionaries with a set of 16 questions to aid his research on discovering if body language was innate or learned behavior. With data collected from throughout the world, he discovered that basic emotions are expressed with relative similarity.

The six basic emotions

Happiness -- smiling mouth and crinkles around the eyes
Sadness (crying) -- raised brows, lowered upper eyelids, and down-turned mouth
Anger -- eyes have a penetrating stare and the lids tense, brows are lowered, lips pressed together or open and pushed forward
Disgust -- wrinkled nose and raised upper lip, lower eyelid is pushed up and brows are lowered
Surprise -- raised brows, eyes & mouth wide open (hands flying to cheek signals the person is stifling the reaction)
Fear -- raises & draws brows together, eyes are open & tense, lower lid is raised, month is open and lips draw back tightly

Most people provide conversational signals when they listen. Nods, smiles, widened eyes or puzzled frowns are used to demonstrate the listener's attentiveness. Conversely, a blank expression or a broad yawn may discourage the speaker from continuing.

Differences Between the Sexes

Women are more adept at recognizing the emotion of facial expressions, but less able to discern when someone is hiding their true feelings.

Women smile more than men, often smiling when tense or uncomfortable. They also show their teeth more often as a smile of greeting.

A woman smiling with a closed mouth shows she is ready to be kissed, but smiles with teeth showing when she initiates the kiss.

Men blink faster and more regularly than women, but if they control their blinking, they create a more powerfully masculine impression.

The Eyes Have It

Normal glances are brief. Conversations start when eye contact is made (speaker may prompt this by saying "excuse me"). Usually the speaker looks away first. To show attentiveness, the listener looks at the speaker for ¾ of the time, using brief glances lasting 1-7 seconds. Speaker maintains intermittent contact to retain attention. If eye contact is not established, listener will find interrupting more difficult.

When encountering a stranger, we look less often and for shorter periods of time. We look at people we like more than those we don't. Returning a long, uninterrupted gaze heightens sexual arousal and continued gazing states your interest in the other person. A giveaway of sexual interest is the widening of the pupils. Since this is not a voluntary response, the only way to hide this interest is to look away, which over the centuries has become an action associated with flirting. Courtesans knew the power of this wide-eyed gazing and used belladonna drops in their eyes to produce this look.

Keeping these facts in mind when you write will add new meanings to your scenes.

Theme - Part One
What is it? What does it do? How do you find it?
by Megan Kerans

Theme is more than a word thrown out by your high school English teacher. Theme is a key component of your story. If plot makes up the bones of your story, then theme is the DNA. Theme may be the most difficult craft concept for writers to understand and use effectively without sounding "preachy."

If it's so hard, why care?

Probably everyone reading this has a favorite book on the keeper shelf that "spoke to them." For some, the impact of a powerful story message is life changing. Most writers dream of penning a work whose impact leaves a lasting impression on its readers, more than a wonderful, message they take away. That's theme! When used correctly with great characters, a solid plot, strong dialogue and the many other craft components, theme makes a good book a great book.

What is Theme?

In the most basic explanation, theme is the main idea. But that definition really doesn't do theme justice. Lots of ideas exist, plans to build a super spaceship or create a recipe for the world's best chocolate cake. Those are ideas, but are they themes? No.

Theme isn't any old idea. Theme is a universal truth or concept the majority of the world believes is true or wants to be true. Some examples are:

Love Conquers All
Never Judge A Book By Its Cover
Good Always Triumphs Over Evil

My built-in Apple dictionary says theme is, "An idea that reoccurs in or pervades a work of art or literature." Theme is different than the actions (plot) your character takes. Actions happen once; afterwards based on the results, your character takes a new action. Below are two examples of actions:

Elizabeth walks into her office building for her first day at her new job.
No matter how many times she goes to work during your story, there will never be another first day at this job and each trip into her office will never be 100% identical. A theme in contrast will always be the same exact message/universal truth and will show itself again and again.

Quinn pulled the trigger, but the rifle jammed. He threw the weapon aside, fired his pistol and shot the attacker charging towards him.
While in the above scenario, Quinn fired a gun more than once, the circumstances under which he acted changed, as did the results. So, his firing the gun is an action, not a theme.

If we put together the two explanations they tells us, theme is a universal truth the repeats throughout a story. Good, except the definition still isn't complete. Jason Surrell in Screenplay by Disney gives us the missing piece. Theme answers the question, "What does the story mean?" The lesson is what the character and audience learn as a result of the character's journey and actions.

Remember Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars movie? He learns to fight like Jedi, rescues a princess, gets stuck in a garbage bin, watches his mentor murdered, and finally trusts his Jedi skills and uses them instead of his x-wing fighter's computer to destroy the Death Star. Through all those actions he learns to believe in something bigger and in himself. The belief he learns is the theme.

Finding lost treasure, saving the princess, or getting the right job is the plot of the story. Theme is what the characters and audience take away from the journey.

A final definition of theme

A universal truth repeated through a story and the message or lesson learned by the characters and readers.

When we break this down into the craft elements of a story. Plot is what happens. Character is the who it happens to. And theme is the why/ lesson learned by the character and reader.

Part Two explores what themes exist and what they do for your story.

Confused? Still have questions? Or just want to talk and put forth your own ideas about theme? Post to the Roses' Colored Glasses Yahoo Group where I and other Roses will be happy to chat and answer questions. Don't be shy! We love to talk writing!

Dear Rose

My critique partners say I head-hop POV. How do I fix that?

Multiple Personalities

Dear Multiple,

First, let's define head-hopping. Pure single Point of View (POV) is found in any story written in First Person (me, myself, I). Absolutely everything is experienced through the emotions of that one person, the narrator. Most novels though are written in third person with the deep POV so the reader can see the internal struggle the character experiences in achieving personal growth. In romance novels, the heroine and hero have the most frequently used POVs. Usually a scene is done from the viewpoint of a single character. Everything that happens in the scene revolves around the actions and decisions of the single character.

For example: The heroine is trying to decide whether or not to tell the hero his parents are cheating at the card game they are playing. While she's debating to herself, the reader goes with her into her thoughts. When she bites her lip while she's thinking, the reader feels the sting of her teeth clamping down on the tender skin. The hero, across the table, sees her biting her lip and knows she's worried about something. She decides to stop the card game and confront his parents about the cheating.

In that example, the scene started in the heroine's POV, then jumped to the hero's thoughts, then back to the heroine's decision. That's head-hopping.

This is not to say head-hopping is a bad thing. Some editors insist on head-hopping. Some writers do it consistently. Nora Roberts does it in all her books. Her army of fans loves the way she deepens the emotional conflict by showing multiple viewpoints in the same scene.

Few of us have Ms. Roberts' skill.

Most writers cannot keep the reader emotionally connected to a character when head-hopping between characters. When that emotional connection is severed, the reader is jerked from the story. Notice in the example, the reader doesn't know how or even why the heroine made her decision. The reader never saw her emotional turmoil and what factors she had to weigh to reach her decision. The writer has cheated the reader of the learning experience of the heroine's internal struggle to grow.

With practice and skill, an author can enrich a single scene with multiple points of view. For the vast majority of writers, it's best to keep the POV changes to the natural breaks in the story be it a scene break or a chapter break. The story tends to flow more smoothly and evenly when written in per scene single POV and will keep the reader emotionally involved in the characters. However, if an editor insists on head-hopping, then the correct answer is, "Yes, I can rewrite it that way."

Rose