Guest: Melinda Dozier

I'm really glad to be participating in the Time Changes Everything Book Tour. I'm even more stoked that author, Melinda Dozier, has generously shared her advice on getting published.

Time Changes Everything
by Melinda Dozier

Amanda Larson is dedicated to her job and doesn't want to make time for anything else. Until she runs into Jake Edwards. He used to be the cute boy next door; now he's a sexy, big shot lawyer.

Jake Edwards isn't interested in commitment. He's successful, sexy, and single--and that's how he likes it. When he reconnects with Amanda, Jake realizes he might have to rethink his philosophy on the carefree, bachelor lifestyle.

But, is it too late for them? Or can he convince her that he's ready to give her his heart?

Purchase links: http://www.entrancedpublishing.com/imprints/entranced/time-changes-everything/

Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzKh1B21Z5w&feature=g-high-f&list=FL5KvXdEur-muCY2C8YBXBYQ

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15990302-time-changes-everything

Reading romance has always been at the top of Melinda’s favorite past times. After hectic days of teaching English to middle school students, Melinda finds time to write and read in the evenings. She lives in Guatemala, Central America with her husband, three boys and German Sheppard. She enjoys being the queen of her household and dreams of being pampered fully by her boys once they are grown. Melinda loves reality TV, traveling, blogging and playing Words With Friends.

Website: www.melindadozier.com
Blog: http://melindadozier.blogspot.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/melindadozier

Blog Tour Giveaway

Melinda will be giving away a $25 Amazon gift certificate and an ecopy of Time Changes Everything. Winner will be announced on Melinda’s blog May 26. Good luck!

Click to Enter

The Boy Next Door, a free novella by Melinda Dozier is available now at Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/310848

Now some advice from Melinda!

Hi Mary! Thanks for having me at your blog today – my debut novel release day! Time Changes Everything has a long story behind it. I’ve been an aspiring writer for many years and in the past year my dream has finally come true. I’d like to give some advice to aspiring authors – all based on my personal experience. 

Tip #1: Don’t give up! Yeah, yeah, this is completely clichéd, I know. But, I almost gave up. I began writing Time Changes Everything seven years ago while on maternity leave. Then mothering got in the way and I had to put it to the side. If it weren’t for my husband giving me a little push to finish the novel last year, I wouldn’t have. So, even if you have to put your writing to the side, don’t forget to get back to it once the inspiration hits again.

Tip #2: Do your research on publishers! I’m a Harlequin girl. Since I was a teenager, I had stacks of Harlequin category romance next to my bed. After receiving a rejection from them on Time Changes Everything – I was heartbroken. What we writers need to realize is that there are more than one romance publisher out there. Actually, there are many fabulous publishers – including small presses who I’ve had the best experiences with. Check them out on Duotrope.com or google the different sites. You won’t be disappointed.

Tip #3: Find untraditional ways to submit your work! I love this tip, because with both publishers I’m working with, I did not take the traditional route – sending a query and partial through email, waiting months for the news, etc. With Time Changes Everything, I saw a pitch contest on www.romanceuniviersity.com website with Entranced Publishing. So, I decided to go for it (see Tip #1). I’m so happy I did. I pitched my story and within a few weeks had contract in hand. I secured my second contract with Crimson Romance through a Twitter pitch session just last month. Yep. I sold my book to the editor with a 140-line pitch. Two weeks later, I had a book deal! So, again, find untraditional routes. It’s quicker, it’s fun and it’s great practice. Here’s a post I wrote about my pitching experience and places you can find to pitch your book:  

http://www.christina-mcknight.blogspot.com/2012/11/guest-post-from-rejections-to-contract.html

Tip #4: Know the editing tricks of the trade! I had a major newbie fail with Time Changes Everything. I’d never heard of Track Changes in word, so when I first edited my novel, I didn’t use track changes. FAIL! I had to teach myself how to use the program and I’m glad I did. It seems this is the way editors work with writers in the industry. Here’s an explanation of my experience and a simple guide to help you if you don’t know about Track Changes: http://melindadozier.blogspot.com/2012/12/road-to-publishing-major-newbie-author.html

Tip #5: You will have to kill your little darlings! When you first get your edits back, be ready to cry, shout, scream, yell, throw things – because it’s painful. Your ‘baby’ will be practically eaten alive. Opening up your edits and seeing red marks all over it is quite disarming at first. My advice is to sit down with a glass of wine, take a deep breath, open the document and read through. Then set it aside for a day – take it all in – and realize that your editor knows what he or she is doing. They’re the expert. Their goal is to sell your book, not torture you. Then when you’re ready, get to work. As Steven King said, “kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”

Tip #6: Make your presence known! You want exposure and you want to find out all you can about the industry. Create an online presence. Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest are all great places to create your brand. You can also make lifelong author friends. Both my editors have told me that a writer’s online presence is important to them. They check writer’s out before signing them. If you need to create a blog, do it NOW! And if you want to follow me, find me on Twitter www.twitter.com/melindadozier. 

I hope these tips help you out. I’m by far an expert, but I am living and breathing a newbie author’s life at present. If someone can learn from me, then I’ll be satisfied. I hope you check out my debut novel, Time Changes Everything and my second novel, Breaking the Rules, available from Crimson Romance on July 8. 

Thanks for reading and good luck!

Melinda

Sail Away (with a gentle push)

There comes a time—maybe more often than we'd like—when our writing slows, or actually comes to a halt.  You don't know how to continue your story, or you do, but can't put your ideas into words.    Whatever reason this happened isn't important, it's how to push off and set sail again that's vital.

Halfway through writing the sequel to my YA, I found it impossible to continue.  Maybe you even noticed my lack of posts during the time this happened to me, because this terrible disease was contagious and claimed the lives of all my manuscripts.  I decided to go back and edit the beginning of my sequel, because I wasn't doing anything productive with the middle.  After polishing the first half, I really liked what I had, but still didn't know how to make the story work.  This led me to share it with another writer who had read the first book.

He picked out inconsistencies in the main character from the first book, and he also made a few friendly hypotheses about what would happen—things I hadn't even considered.  Reflecting on his comments, almost magically, I realized my character had a motivation I hadn't even considered making into a subplot.  This subplot has become the vehicle to get me from point A to B in the main plot.

So, if you're stuck, I ask:

Have you taken the time to consider all of your character's motivations?  Thinking your character has only one motivation throughout a story can get you into serious trouble.  At least that's what I've learned from this experience.  And if your character's still don't talk to you after that, maybe they're mad because you've misrepresented them and they're being stubborn until you fix it!

take me to the sea

take me to the sea (clipped to polyvore.com)

Dialogue: Part Two (with Robbie Taylor)

As a writer, do you have someone to debate the aspects of the craft with?  I hope so, but if not, I hope you seek a person to do that with and find them soon.  I’m lucky enough that I have had the pleasure to meet several writers and do this.  One of the fellow writers I spoke with most recently is Robbie Taylor.  I’m going to share our conversation on dialogue with you.  The best part of this was starting this as an interview and it turning into a discussion, where Robbie asked the questions, too.  Enjoy.

Robbie Taylor is the founder of Today In Alternate History, a web site that garnered praise from such diverse entities as USA Today, Metafilter and Instapundit. He lives in Texas with his wife and 2 daughters where he is working on his next release, a horror novel tentatively titled The Lascaux Nightmare.

Mary Cain

You titled our first blog post Dialogue: Special Effects

Blog Post two title?

Dialogue: ___  (you fill in the blank with something witty)

Robbie Taylor

I like (you fill in the blank with something witty)...

Mary Cain

Good call.  

Robbie Taylor

Part two - spying on others for fun and profit?

Mary Cain

Haha.  So what were we talking about?

Robbie Taylor

We've gone over how to dress up the dialogue, so now we have to address how to get it.

And I think the most effective way to learn how to write dialogue is to listen to how people talk to each other. Sure, you may have to edit an actual conversation to get rid of the uhms and repeated words, but people come up with cool dialogue every day - you just have to listen for it.

I've gotten some great lines of dialogue from friends and family members - and only given a couple credit for it. Suckers!

So, are you from the school of espionage and theft, or do you like to construct character and dialogue in your head?

Mary Cain

I construct 99% of the dialogue in my head.  My characters have conversations in there, and whatever I can remember of it becomes dialogue when I sit down before my keyboard.

Robbie Taylor

You should keep the recorder around for getting down the inspiration - I know that I've lost piles of good plot point and dialogue by forgetting it before I wrote it down.

If you're constructing it all in your head, you really need to keep material around for note-taking - this is where technology has come to the rescue of the writer - smartphones, tablets, and oh so many other ways to take notes

Mary Cain

I think I'd like play writing, because most of the time, I write out pages of dialogue and then go back and write in all the other elements.

Robbie Taylor

I enjoyed it while I was doing it. Writing a script for film is a lot more work - you have to get in a lot of technical material like camera angles and the like. But scripting is very rewarding, especially when you finally get to see other people give your words life.

Mary Cain

I imagine.

This might sound a little crazy... but while I do record some things on the notepad on my iPhone and occasionally pick up a pencil and jot something down on that white stuff people used to use, most of it stays locked in my brain until I get it out on the screen. 

Robbie Taylor

How much do you retain?

Mary Cain

95% (guessing)  Not doing actual math, here.  Surprise, surprise.

Robbie Taylor

You must have an amazing memory - I doubt I'd get even 50% to the page. But, how long do you wait to write it down once you've constructed it?

Mary Cain

This is my method (when possible):  I escape to my bedroom, free of children and husband.  Turn off the lights and lay in bed.  With eyes closed, I play a whole scene out like a movie in my mind.  Then I either lock it away until I can write it, or I'll just go ahead and write it.  Most of the time I have between 12 and 24 hours before I can write it out.

Robbie Taylor

That's a long time - do you keep running it in your head over and over to make it stick?

Mary Cain

Yes.  While I'm dreaming it up, my characters will do something that I don't feel is right, and I'll go to the beginning of the scene and start over, only keeping what works.  There’s a lot of repetition in my head.  Envisioning a scene for me is a lot like memorizing a sonnet.  

Robbie Taylor

I think an image is easier to remember than lines of dialogue - and picturing something visual gives you a chance to make up the words for it on the spot, once you're at your computer

Mary Cain

Yes, that's what I do with setting and such, but I do remember specific lines of dialogue as well.

Robbie Taylor

I still recommend keeping something to jot down ideas for most people - you have a superior memory, and I wouldn't trust my own to keep that much stored in it for that long ;)

Mary Cain

One very important part of developing good dialogue is having split personalities.  You have to go back and forth between two or more characters.

Robbie Taylor

Mental illness - a prerequisite of good writing

Mary Cain

You have to remember to keep both (or however many) voices separate.  You also have to know how the character spoke to will react, and then you have to go back and do it again and again and again.

Robbie Taylor

Having a high degree of empathy is also important, because you need to be able to see everybody's point of view.

Mary Cain

Also, you have to avoid chatter. People don't want to read things like, "Hey, how are you?"

Robbie Taylor

Unless you need chatter.  One thing about writing - everything's conditional.

I think it's ok to have some chatter - people greeting each other can be a good place for characterization. How do these people feel about each other? You can show it in how they greet each other.

Everybody shouting "Norm" when Norm entered the bar in Cheers showed us that he spent a LOT of time there.

Mary Cain

That's why I love oblique dialogue.  A character asks a simple, direct question and the other character answers with a question of their own, or some pithy remark, but they don't give a direct answer.  That's what makes the reader turn the page.  Don't give them what they want.  At least not right away.

Robbie Taylor

I think there comes a point where you need to give them what they want, though - although now we're talking more about plot than dialogue.

Mary Cain

I disagree.  Yes, you keep the goal out of reach in the plot until the end, but break it down to dialogue and sometimes its all about finding the answer to one question.  Eventually, yes, they have to get the answer.  But they need to work for it.

Robbie Taylor

We're going to have to agree to disagree here, although I suspect you have by far the more commercial approach. I get frustrated by stories that delay giving me the payoff. 

Mary Cain

So what makes you keep reading?

Robbie Taylor

Knowing that I'm going to get the payoff - little rewards along the way. Good plotting, good characters, good scenery.

Robbie Taylor

Almost every romantic comedy in history could be solved by the parties just talking to each other directly, so I'm going to have to resign myself to minority status ;)

Mary Cain

Yes, but people don't usually talk directly.  Especially not when it's relationship related.  Even when we try... there's things we can't push beyond our lips.

How do you feel about inner dialogue?  Those rare little snippets of a character talking in their head, identified by italics?

Robbie Taylor

Inner dialogue is essential - it's what makes a novel something that a movie can't be, because a novel can take you inside someone's head via inner monologues. Inner monologues are telepathy. That's the magic of writing that keeps people coming back to the form.

Mary Cain

Yes, but don't you think it should be subtle?  I've read books published and unpublished that made the characters seem a little loopy because they talked to themselves so much.  I find it especially creepy when a character says something like, "Mary, don't do that!"  Calling themselves by name?  Oh no.  Oh no.

Robbie Taylor

People do that all the time - which is a poor excuse, I know; reality should never dictate what is dramatically appropriate. But, people do talk to themselves like that. I agree, you need to keep it believable, but subtle? Depends on the character.

So there you have it, two writers who agree whole-heartedly on certain points and disagree just as firmly on others.  Don’t forget to ask yourself the next time you’re reading a book and thoroughly enjoying it, what’s going on with the dialogue?  How does it factor into your opinion of the overall scene?

Buy Robbie's Book

The Tree Of Knowledge (The Chelsea Perkins Trilogy)

You Don't Have To Believe Me

"You don't have to believe me.  I'm just speaking my mind."
Well said, Eric Hutchinson.  Well said.



Same goes here.  You don't have to take my opinion to heart, but this blog is about my experiences and what you can learn from them.

I've struggled with revising my first novel for a few months now.  Once an agent asked for my full submission, I put it in the mail and moved on.  I began writing a completely new novel and revising the second one I wrote, which is in the same series as the first.

But then, instead of getting an offer of representation, the agent told me to revise my manuscript and then she would take another look.  She didn't say, "No thanks."  That's a good thing, but it really wasn't what I'd hoped for.  And although I'm committed to gaining representation for my book and seeing it published, I started doubting whether my book was good enough.

I've been struggling to revise this, thinking, "Oh god.  That sentence is terrible."  Delete.

What wasn't happening was I didn't have any reassurance that my writing had any merit. (No, having an agent's interest wasn't enough for me)

And this is where I get opinionated.

I'm going to tell you what helped me, and give you a shove to do the same thing so that you never find yourself in this predicament, or if you do, then you'll know how to solve it.

Start finding critique partners now.

I realized today that finding a good critique partner is like finding a good friend.  There's a lot of people out there who won't give a damn about you as a friend.  There's a lot of editors and agents and publishers and beta readers who won't give a damn about your book.

Other side of the coin?  There's plenty of people out there you will mesh with and develop a strong critique relationship with.  People who will love your book and believe in you, but also point out errors, suggest changes, and pick sentences out of your book and say, "This is brilliant."

The sticky part of all this, is it becomes a game of trial and error.  How many people have you met in your life?  How many of them became close friends?

Start now.  Get in writing communities.  Seek.  Offer.

And then... when you start to lose belief in your novel, ask some of those CPs to work one-on-one with you.  This might not work for you, but it worked for me.  I went from dreading revisions, to being excited to get at them because not only did my CP point out what didn't work—but she highlighted parts that made her laugh, things that touched her, and she fell for one of my characters.  Evoking those things in one person gives me the confidence to fix what's wrong, so I can get published and evoke those same emotions in readers far and wide.

Dialogue: Special Effects (with Robbie Taylor)

As a writer, do you have someone to debate the aspects of the craft with?  I hope so, but if not, I hope you seek a person to do that with and find them soon.  I’m lucky enough that I have had the pleasure to meet several writers and do this.  One of the fellow writers I spoke with most recently is Robbie Taylor.  I’m going to share our dialogue on dialogue with you.  The best part of this was starting this as an interview and it turning into a discussion, where Robbie asked the questions, too.  Enjoy.

Robbie Taylor is the founder of Today In Alternate History, a web site that garnered praise from such diverse entities as USA Today, Metafilter and Instapundit. He lives in Texas with his wife and two daughters and is working on his next release, a horror novel tentatively titled The Lascaux Nightmare.

The Tree Of Knowledge (The Chelsea Perkins Trilogy)

Mary

Robbie, if you could go back and briefly visit yourself when you started writing,  what would you tell your younger, less-experienced self?

Robbie

START NOW!!!! Seriously, if you're young and want to write, you should try to get out as much as you can while you're young and have few responsibilities to eat up your time. Once you have significant others, kids, jobs and hobbies—you'll be losing sleep if you want to write. If I'd been more diligent starting when I was ten, I'd have suffered from less sleep deprivation the last 8 years

Mary

How do you feel about dialogue tags?  

Robbie

One of the things you discover when reading something aloud is how often somebody said something. Blah, blah blah, Joe said. Yadda yadda yadda, Mary said in reply. It's best to break that up as much as you can, but it's also necessary to know who is talking. While it might be clunky at times, I think that the tags are a necessary evil. Not that they can't be disguised and prettied up—but it's still putting lipstick on the pig.

Mary

The one dialogue tag that really irks me is:  "I'd love to visit your blog," said Robbie.  

It sounds so unnatural.  Put Robbie before said and we're cool, although I agree, it could be prettied up.

Robbie

Would it be ok if it was "replied Robbie" instead of "said Robbie"?

Robbie

Different shade of lipstick?

Mary

Not for me.  This is all just person opinion, but "Robbie replied." sounds more natural than "replied Robbie."  Have you ever heard a person put an action before the subject in regular speech? Fast ran Charlie.  or Charlie ran fast.?

Robbie

Yes, I have, but I have small children :)  There's also the fact that dialogue tags aren't normal speech.

Mary

I have small children as well.  And books are my escape from them, so I'd like some eloquence to the narrative.  Dialogue tags aren’t normal speech.  Good point.  But if they jar me out of a otherwise naturally spoken narrative, I'll be disappointed and feel cheated.

Robbie

That would also apply to a first-person narrative.  You have to be true to that character's speech patterns rather than an ideal of English.  You do have to watch what you're saying and what the characters are saying, and try not to let your voice become theirs, or vice versa.

That brings up something for me. Sometimes people are eloquent when you least expect it, but sometimes characters get eloquent because an author wants to show their chops - and that's something where character has to have priority.  Snappy dialogue is fun to write, but the dull-witted goon guarding the door to the speakeasy isn't necessarily the one who needs to speak it.

Mary

Well said.  How do you feel about use of the exclamation mark in dialogue? 

Robbie

In comedy, I think the writer should feel free to overuse it! But in non-comedic work, I think it should be extremely limited - maybe just to people shouting, and sometimes not even then. You don't want to turn your novel into a Facebook post. Exclamation points have become less useful as people have become more overblown in their private communications. So, it should be used like an expensive seasoning in a dish - a little goes a long way

Mary

I hate seeing an exclamation point in inner dialogue... You have to trust your reader to identify with the character's emotions without throwing a ! at them.  If you felt inner dialogue was required, then its already obvious the character feelings strongly.  Every time I catch myself using a ! I ask myself if I could replace it with action instead.

Robbie

And, if you think that they're not seeing that emotion, maybe you need to go back and rewrite the dialogue.  Now, having said all that, it feels kind of wimpy to end an angry shouting match with a period.  It has its place.

Mary

It definitely does. Do you have a favorite dialogue writing device?

Robbie

Smart-assery? Does that qualify as a device? I had a friend once say he could identify a play of mine because everybody was a smart-ass.

Mary

HAHAHA.  I enjoy myself some smart-assery... although, no I'm not sure it's a device.  I recently learned the term for my favorite dialogue writing device.  Oblique dialogue.

Robbie

Pinter Pauses - I remember those from way back in my script writing classes :) Saying more in the pauses than in the words around them. Gives an actor a chance to emote, or a reader to think.

Mary

And it goes hand-in-hand with smart-assery.

Robbie

Yep! :D (Now, there's a use for an exclamation point)

Robbie

How do you feel about ellipses?

Mary

I use them when they're called for.  Love me an em-dash, too.

Robbie

Do you use both in the same manuscript, or do you like to use purely one or the other?

Mary

I use them both, because they do different things.

Ellipses (...) trail off a sentence, an em-dash (—) interrupts it.

Robbie

Of course, these are all the special effects of dialogue. What's really important is the words you choose - and that's the part writers have struggled with since time immemorial.

Mary

No one is going to argue with that.

Mary

I like that!  The special effects of dialogue...

Hmmm... I may need to title the post that.

Robbie

To capture good dialogue, people have carried around tape recorders, both to record others and to record themselves when inspiration strikes, kept notepads by the bed, eavesdropped on people incessantly, and read as widely as possible. It's the kind of thing that you have to keep your mind wide open about, so you can develop a good ear for what sounds good and will read well on the page.

Here are some examples of proper ways to use punctuation in dialogue (taken from my WIP):

Logan sucked in his breath and looked up at her.  “What?  No.  I don’t want you to be sorry about—” 

The em-dash is the punctation ending this phrase.  It replaces the period.

"I'm a closet smoker," he heard himself say.  

He heard himself is part of the sentence, separated from his dialogue by quotations and a comma.

"I’ll take you to my place, but I should warn you," he said as he pulled back onto the street, "I don't live on solid ground."  

This sentence is broken up by an action, so the action sentence ends with a comma, before the rest of the dialogue continues.  It's all part of the same sentence.

"Yeah, I guess you owe me."  She smiled at him from beneath her black eyelashes.  "I'll see you around."  

In this, these are two separate phrases, made clear by periods and character action.

"Then how can you own a boat like this?"

“It’s a yacht.”

Drew released a soft snort.  “Oh, excuse me.  Most people don’t have houses this nice.  Did you win the lottery or something?”

The italics in both these pieces of dialogue shows the character is putting emphasis on a particular word, or phrase.

He sighed.  “Relax.  It’s going to be fine.”

Who was he trying to convince?  He couldn’t think of a worse situation than having the mark sleep at his place.

The italics in this case indicate a thought/something the character would like to say outloud, but refrains from.

“I’ve always liked spunky women, but Drew...”  Matt tried to think of a a delicate way to say she was a bitch.

The ellipses indicate an unfinished sentence.

A writer asks, “I've heard the advice "don't bury your dialogue", but I've seen it handled so many different ways when I'm reading. In a very popular series that I'm reading now, I've noticed that the author likes to put lines of dialogue right in the middle of paragraphs of long narrative, at least sometimes. Honestly, it didn't bother me all that much. So how strict is this rule, and how do I know when it's ok to violate it?”

That’s the kind of question I love to hear.  Not only is this writer asking if it’s okay to break widely accepted rule, but she’s referencing a popular author doing so.  There’s no hard and fast answer.  Personally, inserting a piece of dialogue in the middle of a paragraph would irritate me.  However, this is all relative to the writer’s style and what works for one novel may not be appropriate for another.  I believe this rule is built on the principles that narrative and action should be kept separate.  If you have a few lines of narrative, then show a character’s action, the sentence (or more) showing the action earns its own paragraph.  Speech is considered a form of action.  Burying it in the middle?  Be careful.  You can easily get away with beginning a paragraph with dialogue, then inserting a dialogue tag indicating tone and/or some narrative, then switch back to dialogue to conclude the paragraph.

If you’re questioning part of your writing and whether it’s effective, ask a handful of other writers to read it.  Weigh out all the opinions and then decide.