A Word Please

I was recently asked a question that made me pause and really consider my answer. The question, and my answer, made me wonder – What do you get out of fiction?

What would you like your readers to take away from your books?

This is a difficult question for me to answer. I could list a dozen things I’d love readers to take away from any one of my books. Each has underlying themes, sometimes intentional, sometimes not. While important aspects of the various plots, I hope these issues never come across as preachy or overpowering. The best themes are always subtle.

The reason this is a difficult question for me is because fiction is a personal venture. Each reader approaches a book from a different vantage point. Their own experiences in life give different shades of color to all they see, hear, and read. Telling someone what I’d like him/her to get from a book takes away their crayons. I want them to color the pictures along with me.

People who know me won’t be surprised to learn I’m interested in social justice – or the lack thereof. These issues pop up in much of my writing. For instance, with Beyond Salvation a reader might rethink the homeless situation here in the U.S. With Enemies and Playmates, a reader might get a different perspective on domestic abuse.

Into The Light might be less subtle in its themes because they are woven into Max’s character and his journey. To follow Max’s story means taking in and examining the things he learns about himself. In part, this book is about loss, regret, and what happens when we allow other people to shape our opinions of ourselves. I would love for readers to learn from Max and maybe shed a bit of the baggage we all carry with us.

That being said, the primary goal of fiction should always be entertainment. Ultimately, my answer is simple: I hope my readers take away a smile and a feeling of time well spent.

This month, I have 2 giveaways on my site!

My April Giveaway is winner’s choice! One winner will receive a signed, print copy of any of my eight titles. You can read excerpts from all the books and enter on my contest page: www.QuietFuryBooks.com/contests.html

Next, my BestsellerBound friends and I are having a BestsellerBound eBook Bonanza! We’re giving away 25 ebooks! We’ve broken it down into 5 prize groups of 5 ebooks each. Here’s a quick rundown:

Prize Group 1:
No Justice by Darcia Helle
The Dream by Maria Savva
Trevor’s Song by Susan Helene Gottfried
The Guardian’s Apprentice by J. Michael Radcliffe
Grey Engines by Gareth Lewis

Prize Group 2:
The Other Room by James Everington
Nexus Point by Jaleta Clegg
The Cutting Edge by Darcia Helle
The GNAW Project by Cynthia Meyers-Hanson
Broken Worlds by Gareth Lewis

Prize Group 3:
The Shelter by James Everington
Allegiances by Gareth Lewis
Into The Light by Darcia Helle
The Choice by Sydney S. Song
Second Chances by Maria Savva

Prize Group 4:
Recall! Return of the IRR by Doug DePew
To Hunt Monsters by Gareth Lewis
Miami Snow by Darcia Helle
Echo Falls by Jaime McDougall
Mom’s on the Roof and I Can’t Get Her Down by Cynthia Meyers-Hanson

Prize Group 5:
Blade Sworn by Gareth Lewis
Bloodstone: The Guardian’s Curse by J. Michael Radcliffe
His Story by Cynthia Meyers-Hanson
Hit List by Darcia Helle
Surreal – The Hell in the Family by Sydney S. Song

You can find more information on each book and author, and enter this giveaway on its contest page: www.QuietFuryBooks.com/bsbgiveaway.html

** These are 2 separate contest pages. I created a new contest page specifically for the BsB giveaway. You can enter both! **

Good luck!

It’s Random Acts of Kindness Week! What better time to do something nice for someone? Your random acts don’t have to cost money. Smile at a stranger, open a door for an older person, bake cookies for a neighbor or friend who’s having a rough time. Create a ripple effect. One moment of your time could do more good than you’ll ever know.

In my novels No Justice and Beyond Salvation, Michael Sykora is a hit man with a heart. He only kills the bad guys, and he does all he can to help those in need.

In this scene from Beyond Salvation, Michael is looking for a lost teenage girl. They are in a park and a homeless man named Charlie has just given him helpful information:

“It’s going to storm,” Michael said. “Do you want us to take you to a shelter? Or I’d gladly set you up in a motel room for the night.”

“And you didn’t need to help us out,” Michael said. “We all do what we can for each other.”

Most of us don’t have a hundred dollars to hand out, but we’re all capable of small kindnesses. A hot cup of coffee or a cold bottle of water can mean a lot to someone living on the streets. Often, even a smile and a greeting can give hope to a person who spends most of his/her day being ignored by the rest of us.

In this scene, Michael’s best friend since childhood is getting married and they’re at the engagement party. Michael’s father John wanted to give Isaac something special. He doesn’t have a lot of money or a lot of time. He’s dying. His choice of gifts is personal and, for Isaac, profound:

Ten minutes later, Isaac and Nadine were seated in the middle of the room, surrounded by gifts. Isaac was the one to rip open the gift from Michael’s father. He stared into the box, not touching the glove. Finally Nadine pulled it from the box and her face actually did light up. She examined the signature and gave a little shriek. “I can’t believe it! This is signed by Carlton Fisk!” She nudged Isaac. “Did you see this signature?”

“Thank you, John,” Isaac said. “I’d say that you don’t know what this means to me. But you do.” His voice cracked and he looked away.

We often hold on to our possessions as if we can take them with us into whatever awaits us after death. If you have something that means a lot to you, and you know it will mean as much, if not more, to someone you love, why wait for family and friends to divide things after your death? Isn’t it better to see their faces, to share while you’re alive? I’m not suggesting you rid yourself of all your possessions. But maybe you can find a way, while you’re alive, to share a profound moment with the special people in your life.

Be sure to check out the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation’s webpage. Learn how you can get involved, and see how others are celebrating the week!

www.randomactsofkindness.org/RAK-Week

I’m giving away books! I’m taking part in the With Love Valentine’s Day Blog Hop! I know, I’m not exactly a romance author but I still enjoy playing cupid now and then. This is a huge event, with 263 authors giving away prizes! Want to know what you can win here? Of course you do. That’s why you’re here.

Grand prize: A signed, print copy of any one of my eight novels.
Five more winners will receive an ebook copy of any one title.

Yes, all prizes are winner’s choice! Click on the cover to read the description and an excerpt:

Now we need rules. Let’s call them guidelines. That’s a much nicer word. Here we go:

1. This giveaway is open to everyone 16 and older, everywhere in the world
2. To enter, leave a comment here along with a valid email address
3. Enter once per person
4. Leave your comment between 7:00 a.m. EST on Saturday, February 11 and midnight EST on Tuesday, February 14

That’s it! I’ll use random.org to choose the winners. I’ll notify everyone via email, so please keep an eye on your spam folder. Spam filters sometimes like to kick me out of inboxes.

Once you’ve left a comment here (go ahead, don’t be shy), be sure to take a look at the event page to find all the other participating authors. All the details are here: http://thebloghopspot.com/event-page

Good luck!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Most writers sprinkle pieces of themselves throughout their work. Often, during the writing process, we aren’t aware of it. The bits we leave, a kind of bread trail, are unintentional and unavoidable.

The best fiction allows me to lose the line between the author and the story. They’re tangled together, inseparable. Does the author love cheese fondue or is it just the character? Has the author been skydiving and felt that rush of adrenaline, ran a marathon, rescued feral cats? Does the author hate oatmeal, love cherry pie?

A well-written book will often make the author and the narrator feel like one and the same. Authors need to be aware of this, because it can sometimes backfire.

I recently read a book I won’t name because I hated everything about it. This book was filled with the most unlikeable characters I’ve ever come across. The pages overflowed with vitriol. The characters spewed bigoted statements at every turn, as if their insight into their city and its people was fact rather than opinion. All the characters shared these intolerant, prejudice views. Because of this, the characters and the author easily became tangled in my mind. I not only disliked the book, I disliked the author.

I don’t know whether the author shared his characters’ opinions, though I find it unlikely that he’d be able to – or want to – give every character this same mindset if he did not agree. Had the author given only one character this trait, preferably not the narrator, he and his characters would not have fused together as they did.

Books like this make me wonder how much of myself I spill onto my own pages. Hopefully, I don’t leave readers spitting nails, as I was while reading the unnamed book. For those who have read my books and wondered if it’s me or the character, I thought I’d share a couple secrets today.

Some of my readers know I have late-stage Lyme disease, with neurological complications. A few of the symptoms I contend with show up in two of my characters.

Corinne, from Hit List, suddenly lost her mind. She can’t hold onto a thought, is easily distracted, and has forgotten much of her past.

Corinne sucked in her bottom lip. The wallpaper behind Dr. Endicott’s head had little pastel flowers scattered about. She’d had flowers in her garden once. Now just weeds grew there. She’d been telling Ian that they needed to pull out those weeds and buy new plants. Hadn’t she told him that?

My symptoms are nowhere near as extensive as Corinne’s. I’m not quite that crazy – yet.

Corinne shuddered. An image flickered like a dying light bulb in the recess of her mind. Too elusive to grasp. Too intrusive to ignore. Words attached to strange voices skittered just out of reach.

Corinne’s character came to me easily. My own frustration with my brain’s malfunctions showed up in her character. This caught me by surprise and was completely unintentional. Corinne popped into my head one day with a story and, somewhere along the way, the two of us intertwined. This is not to say that she and I are the same. Her life and personality is absolutely not autobiographical in any way. But bits of me are sprinkled in there.

The other character with flashes of my Lyme symptoms is Nicki from No Justice: A Michael Sykora Novel and Beyond Salvation: A Michael Sykora Novel. When Nicki talks to Michael, she often jumps from one topic to another so fast that Michael has a hard time keeping up.

Michael had gone to Sal’s and rented a Toyota Camry for the night. He didn’t plan on doing anything illegal but he also figured that it wasn’t wise to be driving around Dover Street in a flashy Porsche.

“Pick a topic and stick to it for five minutes. You’re making me dizzy.”

This, I will confess, is a trait I intentionally gave Nicki. I do this exact thing to my husband all the time. I can be midsentence and suddenly shift to something else. Sometimes I do it because my brain loses the original thought. Other times I’m not even aware I’ve done it. Nicki, of course, isn’t dealing with Lyme brain. But she is a high energy character, whose mind works quickly. A more coherent version of my flightiness became a good fit for her character.

And now you know. Bit and pieces of me are scattered throughout my books. Pick them all out, fit them together, and I’ll be fully exposed.

Whether you worship God, Allah, Mother Earth or nothing at all, the holiday season has the same basic meaning – love and be kind to one another, and give what you can to those who are less fortunate. We shouldn’t need a holiday to remind us. We should behave this way all year.

Enough said. I shall not step up on my soapbox today. It’s the holidays!

I am excited to be helping Santa out this year. I don’t have a lot to give. (In fact, my bank would probably argue that I have nothing. ) But even the little stuff counts, right? In my role as Santa’s Helper, I need your help. What I have to give is books. And I’m looking for someone who loves to read and is in need of a boost this holiday season. Here’s the deal…

Are you having a difficult year and can’t afford to give gifts to all the people you love? Do you know someone who doesn’t have much, who probably won’t get much, and you’d like to make that person smile? Do any of these people love to read? If so, tell me about them! Choose one person and tell me why you think he/she deserves a gift. You don’t have to give me a lot of personal details. Maybe you lost your job and can’t afford to buy your best friend something. Or you’re buried beneath a heap of medical bills (I can relate to that!) and you need a gift for your child’s teacher. It could be someone you know who lost a job, a house, is going through a divorce, and that person is special to you. Tell me why!

I’ll pick two ‘winners’ from the comments. If your nomination is picked, I’ll send you an email requesting the person’s name and mailing address, as well as your choice of one of my eight titles for that person. I’ll wrap the book, include a card letting the person know the gift is from you, and ship it – all free!

Sound good? I hope so! Here are the guidelines in simplified form:

1. Submit your nomination of one person who deserves a surprise gift this holiday season. You do not need to give this person’s name.
2. You cannot nominate yourself. (But you can get someone else to!)
3. Include your name and a valid email address.
4. Nominations are open between 8:00 a.m. EST on Saturday, December 3 and midnight EST on Wednesday December 7.
5. Due to shipping time, I have to restrict this to people living within the U.S.
6. The person you nominate needs to be at least 16 years of age.

That’s it. Please help me be a Santa’s Helper this year by nominating someone you care about.

A few months back, an author acquaintance read and reviewed one of my books. He enjoyed it, though he said I relied too much on dialogue. Or perhaps he didn’t say “rely” – but simply that it contained too much dialogue. Since then I’ve been paying closer attention to dialogue in novels. That one author is the only person I’ve ever received that particular critique from. Still, it makes me wonder. Is there a point when dialogue becomes too much? Is there also a point when there is not enough?

Of course, when I say dialogue, I’m not talking about two or more characters having a mundane conversation, such as:

“Hello,” said Harry.

“Hi, Harry,” replied Charlotte. “How are you?”

“Oh, fine. You?”

“I’m doing well. What’s new?”

That type of dialogue is boring and unnecessary. I’d put myself to sleep writing that kind of stuff. I’m talking about the kind of dialogue that moves a plot forward. Rather than paragraphs of narration informing the reader, a conversation between characters can do the same with a bit more flare. Such as this conversation from my novel No Justice, the first in my Michael Sykora series:

Sean leaned back, sipping slowly on his beer. Then, his voice dropping to that low tone reserved for business, he said, “Word is that one of Lotto’s guys, a cousin, was executed.”

“That would be true,” Michael said.

“And left on their own turf,” Sean said with a smile. “Nice message. I’m impressed.”

“Damn. I must be getting good if I’m impressing you.”

“Talk is your girl hired a pro.”

“Hiring would imply getting paid, so I guess that’s false,” Michael said.

“Want me to correct that rumor?”

“I think we’ll let that one stand.”

“Pushed Lotto right to the edge,” Sean said. “He and his wanna-be bangers are out for blood. Now they want the girl as well as the guy who did the cousin.”

Michael nodded, sipped his drink. He watched out the window as he considered the situation. Taking out an entire group of people hadn’t exactly been in his plans. Yet it was looking like he didn’t have many options left.

“They’ve been asking around,” Sean said. “Looking for her. And info on the mystery hit man.”

“Are they learning anything?”

Sean chuckled. “Yeah. They’re learning why you’re called The Ghost.”

I could easily have put that information in narration form. However, I find overly long passages of narration dull. I like to see the characters, hear their voices and feel the emotion behind their words. That’s how I hear it in my head, so that’s how I write it.

Here’s another from my novel Beyond Salvation, the second in my Michael Sykora series:

“What have you got on Tracy?” Michael asked Isaac. He adjusted the cell phone on his ear as he steered his Porsche through a snarl of traffic.

“So far just a blip,” Isaac said. “But it’s a start. Twenty-five years ago, she spent two days in Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville. The billing information was your mother’s name on Bennett Road in Jacksonville.”

“Jacksonville?” Michael said. What the hell were they doing there? He wouldn’t have expected them to remain in Florida. Then again, where had he expected them to go? “What was she hospitalized for?”

“Don’t know. Medical records are sealed.”

“Right,” Michael muttered. “Twenty-five years. I don’t suppose she still lives at that address.”

“Unfortunately, no. Not unless she’s renting a room from the Wongs.”

“Okay. Well at least it’s a start. She might still be somewhere in Jacksonville.”

“I’m looking into it.”

Again, this could be done with narration. Would it be better? Worse? Or just different?

Finally, here’s a snippet of dialogue from my novel Miami Snow, the novel my author acquaintance felt had too much dialogue:

“So I’ve been thinking,” Brandy said. “Aaron hasn’t worked in over a year and the guy has all his bills paid and plenty of extra cash. Why can’t we do that, too?”

Nick opened his eyes, now fully awake. “I’m not selling drugs.”

“What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is a six-by-nine jail cell.”

“We won’t get caught. Look at Aaron.”

“That’s Aaron.” Nick slid his arm out from beneath Brandy, then pushed up on his elbows. “I’m not that lucky.”

Brandy turned to face Nick. She said, “We’d only sell to people we know.”

“I don’t know anyone but you.”

“I know plenty of people. We could do it for six months and be totally out of debt.”

“You’d be out of debt. I’d be in jail.”

“Stop being such a pessimist. It’s easy money. Don’t you want some rights with your daughter? You need a lawyer.”

Nick groaned. “Thanks for reminding me.”

I have read few books in the mystery/suspense/thriller genre, which I write under, that rely more on narration than dialogue. Usually, it’s a pretty equal mix. However, I have read some with too much dialogue, in the sense that I don’t want to read the “Hello, how are you?” conversation with every character. I’ve also read books with not enough dialogue, in which I grew bored with the endless pages of narration.

How do you feel about dialogue? If you write, do you use it moderately or extensively? Do you like to read dialogue within novels or do you prefer more narration?

The first kill was the hardest. His father staring with those dark narrow eyes that had incited fear for so many years. Even as the life seeped out of him, those eyes were full of scorn.

That’s the first paragraph from a short story I recently wrote called The First Kill. I don’t normally write short stories. My characters have way too much to say. However, recently my so-called minor characters have been demanding more attention. Many of them want to step up into the spotlight, twirl around, show off, then take a bow at the end that is all their own. Shushing them was no longer working. I gave in and followed along as the first of many background characters jumped to the forefront.

The First Kill is Sean Riley’s story. Sean is a minor character, a hit man, in my Michael Sykora series. The first book in that series is No Justice, the second Beyond Salvation. I’m currently at work on number three.

The First Kill is a free download on Smashwords! You can download the PDF to read on your computer or any format that works for your eReader. I hope to soon have it available on Amazon, as well.

I hope you’ll take the time to read the story. You’ll make Sean quite happy.

Free stuff always gets attention, doesn’t it?

I am currently giving away downloads of my romantic suspense novel Enemies and Playmates! You can download the e-book free on Smashwords and on Scribd. This is temporary giveaway. I haven’t decided how long I’ll let it run, so download Enemies and Playmates soon!

I’ve also uploaded my other five novels onto Scribd and they are now available as e-book purchases on that site!

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/DarciaHelle

http://www.scribd.com/darciah

I drop things all the time. My fingers and my brain don’t always speak to each other and, poof, stuff falls to the floor. A while back, we bought dishes that are pretty but also heavy and extremely breakable. Do I need say that they haven’t lasted long? You know what solves the problem? Corelle! Yeah, I know, this is an odd discussion for a book blog, right?

Good luck!