When Your Protagonist Sees Your Antagonist in the Mirror

By C. Hope Clark

Oh my, how authors love to groom protagonists, making main characters deep, flawed, driven, and three-dimensional. Readers have to connect with them. Stories usually open with them. They carry series into multiple books, and readers cannot wait to see what happens to their lives.

But antagonists define protagonists. Readers and authors cannot clearly articulate the good in someone without it being reflective against the bad in the world, in society, in people, but most of all the person responsible for creating the reason for the story in the first place – the opposition.

Which means the protagonist has to study the antagonist closely. Every good guy strives to better understand the composition of the guy he’s up against, and all too often, that means the main character waking up to the revelation that they have to think like the opposition, with the fear that they will find the bad guy staring back at them in the mirror.

Intelligence-When adversaries in any competition are mismatched, the results are a boring game. The two opposing parties must be intellectual challenges for each other. That’s not to say they have the same IQ or have the same type of smarts. The truth is when one is remarkably smart in one area, and the other sharp in another totally foreign, their clash makes for grand conflict. They each have the wit and cerebral tools but must dig deeply to learn how the other thinks, each piecing the puzzle, learning the other’s history, habits, and methodologies. If the two aren’t thought-provoking stimulation for each other, one of them will win quickly, and what fun is that?

Appearance-Often a protagonist fears being too similar to a culprit. That’s the fear of many a hero, that they’ll absorb enough of the other side, or become too calloused to evil that they start not feeling the divide as clearly as they think they should. So imagine how that chasm between the two sides is lessened if either sees themselves physically in the other. Smile, build, eyes, a scar. They’d almost obsess over that, wondering what else they have alike that they cannot immediately see.

Habits and Likes-This type of comparison appears in military stories, with opposing countries and armies. Also, when the sanctioned military group goes up against the privatized ex-military group. What if a PI went up against a cop? Or one attorney went up against another? Technology, athleticism, nature skills, science. Level the playing the field, and they have to use alternative skills to those they have similar. The more similarities, the greater the challenge.

Remember how exciting it was when Superman went up against Batman? They utilized what they had in common as much or more than how they were different in battling each other.

Take it further and recall the movie/story Face Off, where Nicholas Cage and John Travolta literally changed faces, taking the appearance similarity to the extreme by swapping places. They’d studied each other down to nuances, understood how each other lived personally and professionally, yet one was bad and the other good.

Authors prepare detailed character analyses for a story, noting the differences and specifics of characters. But when they spend as much or more time on the similarities between the protagonist and antagonist, those characters come with built-in tension before Chapter One even gets written on the page.

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C.Hope Clark just released Newberry Sin, her eighth mystery and the fourth in her Carolina Slade Mystery Series. Hope is also founder of FundsforWriters.com, chosen by Writers Digest in its 101 Best Websites for Writers for the past 17 years. She lives on the banks of Lake3 Murray in central South Carolina with her dachshunds and federal agent husband. www.chopeclark.com

How to Write When Life Steps on Your Head

By C. Hope Clark

Through my newsletter at FundsforWriters.com, I’ve motivated writers for almost 19 years. With a goal to remain positive, with a mission to show that anyone with drive, diligence, and a strong degree of hard-headedness can navigate the writing profession, I practiced what I preached through crazy deadlines, relocations, birthdays, weddings, holidays, and more. As I preached, I thought that a dedicated writer wrote through anything.

Until we had two hurricanes and both my parents were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s within six months of each other.

Through tears, headaches, and lack of sleep, I kept telling myself to write. After all, I had deadlines. Suddenly my bottomless well found a rock-hard bottom, and not only did I struggle to write, but I wondered if I ever wanted to write again.

Practicing what I preached became more than rhetoric.

In the midst of all the chaos of family, moving, doctors, power going out, and being the strong shoulder for parents frantic they were no longer in charge, I looked back at what I taught my readers. . . to see if I’d been spot on or theoretical in my teachings.

And this is what I learned about dealing with a complicated, stressful life:

• It’s okay to write anywhere, anytime, and any way. Forget the perfect study with the proper music background and the keyboard with the just-so touch. The goal is to put words to paper. Fix it later. I wrote 2,500 words while my father received his two-hour neurological test that diagnosed him with Alzheimer’s, with me in one chair and the laptop perched on the seat of another in the lobby.
• Compromise is in order. I had a December deadline for the novel, but had given myself an earlier July goal which I’d been keeping nicely with a 500 word-a-day mission. Then all hell broke loose. Seven-thousand-miles-in-two-months-on-my-car kind of hell. I reprogrammed the deadline to October. Regretful since it changed advertising, Christmas, and appearance marketing plans, but I was determined to keep on keeping on.
• It’s okay to tell people you have limitations. Normally highly active on social media, I didn’t want to just disappear and lose my fan base. So I let people know in my newsletters that I had my hands full, and why. The outpouring of condolences proved such a balm. I felt the release valve allowing me to be human.
• On that note, it’s fine to be human. I explained the situation to my publisher. I told family that any day I wasn’t with them, I had to be at the keyboard. I kept one major appearance and cancelled others. Offers for lunch, writers groups, and many appearances were declined. Family and writing only. I boiled life down to those two basic needs.

While I’m not home free, the days I have to write are slowly increasing. I still keep a tight restraint on the commitments I accept, for fear I’ll encroach on the two basic responsibilities I have. However, this too shall pass. Right now, I’m excited to see myself coming out on the other side, and thanks to the forced down time, I’m thrilled and excited about 2018. The opportunity to make new, more extensive goals has me practically giddy.

As writers, we learn from what we experience. And those experiences make us stronger and oh so much wiser. Bring it on. I’m ready to tackle the world now. And maybe it’s time for The Best of FundsforWriters, Vol, 2, because I darn sure have a lot of material that’s been practiced as well as preached. Come on, writers. If I can weather all this, you can, too!

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In 2017, C. Hope Clark still managed to publish Edisto Stranger, fourth in the Edisto Island Mysteries, and The Best of FundsforWriters, Vol. 1, a motivational how-to taken from the annals of the widely popular FFW newsletters. Her fourth Carolina Slade Mystery is set for release in Spring 2018. www.chopeclark.com / www.fundsforwriters.com

Collaborative Beauty

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine


Each time I attend a writers conference, as I had the pleasure of doing this weekend, I come away with a renewed sense of the community spirit that writers share.  It's a brotherhood and sisterhood unique in the fact that we all have something to say.  Not only do we respect each other's right to say it, but we're eager to help each other do so.

The folks who visited my table for 15-minute one-on-ones were all promising writers with diverse interests: songwriting, playwriting, creative fiction, and more.  They were each working on projects at various stages of completion.  But what they all had in common was the question, "Now what do I do?"

My first question back to them is to find out whether they have a platform for promoting their work. I'm quick to recommend Edie Melson's comprehensive but easy read, Connections: Social Media and Networking Techniques for Writers.  Lots of books offer advice on using Facebook for marketing, but few address specific promotional tactics to help writers develop an online audience, and Edie has practiced what she preaches with great success.

To those who want to know how to approach a publisher with what they've written, I then pull out my copy of W. Terry Whalin's Book Proposals That $ell: 21 Secrets to Speed Your Success.  From coming up with an elevator pitch to putting together the whole presentation package, Terry's voice of experience as an acquisitions editor has helped countless writers learn how to get their feet in the door and their manuscripts looked at.

Occasionally, I can even answer a writer's question without the aid of a book! But in moments like these I'm reminded of how grateful I am for Terry and Edie.  I'm especially grateful that they contribute their talents to each issue of Southern Writers Magazine.

As a huge movie buff, I have an affinity for the insights of screen and stage writer Shelly Frome, who left his mark in the Big Apple before taking up roots as a Southern novelist.  Shelly's articles on screenwriting also appear in each issue.  He explores themes, scenes, character motivations and much more from an insider's perspective.  If you like to ponder the psychology of what's on the silver screen, Shelly is the man in the director's chair.

Acclaimed Virginia poet and author Sara M. Robinson is one busy gal.  In fact, she presented at another convention herself just a few weeks ago.  But she finds time to contribute her deep thoughts via "Poetry Matters" in each issue.  Her ability to analyze prose and its purpose is of TED Talk caliber.

C. Hope Clark is another regular in the mag who parlays her talents as a novelist into valuable instruction, in this case on writing dialogue.  You can catch a glimpse of Hope's enviable ear for the spoken word via an entertaining new video she and I collaborated on, called What Rhett and Scarlett Can Teach Writers About Dialogue at bit.ly/RhettWrite

What can I say about Steve Bradshaw besides that he is a scholar and a gentleman, and has seen more corpses than Vlad the Impaler? Well, that's been a necessary evil in his career as a forensic investigator, biotech entrepreneur, and now a celebrated mystery author. His articles in each issue dig into medicine and murder as only someone who has investigated over 3.000 unexplained deaths can do, so that you don't have to.

We couldn't do what we do without those talented folks, much less the 30 to 40 authors who appear in each issue and an awesome writing staff that includes Vicki H. Moss, Chris Pepple, Jessica Ferguson, Londa Hayden, Barbara Ragsdale, and Annette Cole Mastron, who also makes this very blog you're reading happen.  Put them all together with our fearless leader, Editor-in-Chief Susan Reichert, and it adds up to a collaboration much greater than the sum of its parts.

This is not so much a shameless plug for the magazine (although it is!) as much as a well-deserved plug for these authors and any others who sacrifice their own precious book-writing time to show other writers how it's done. We never take them for granted, and I hope when you meet them at a conference, you'll take a moment to thank them too.

My Book Release Tricks . . . This Time

By C. Hope Clark

Echoes of Edisto releases today, August 5. The third book in The Edisto Island Mysteries, it’s special to me with its daring twists and turns taken with characters my readers have come to love. Therefore, I did not want this book just to be the next in the series. So I stepped up my marketing savvy a bit.

Marketing a new release doesn’t have to be pricey, but what you choose not to do in terms of money, you make up for in sweat and entrepreneurial spirit. You don’t just want to be yet another author shouting, “Buy my book!”

Frankly, I refuse to use the word BUY in any of my efforts. I am an author. My books are posted on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. What about that doesn’t already say the book’s on sale?

So what have I done to promote Echoes of Edisto that didn’t cost thousands for a public relations guru?

Facebook headers. Prior to release, I created unique photos to insert every couple of days as my Facebook cover pic. I designed pictures using simple sites like www.picmonkey.com that made it appear my cover was on billboards, at bus stations, outside downtown high rises, and on theatre marquees. No text. Comments went wild. 

Pre-order copies. I purchased 100 copies of my own book. While pre-orders were available on Amazon, I offered my own via social media, newsletter, and website. I sent autographed copies out early to very excited readers.

Review copies. I announced on social media the need for 30 dedicated souls willing to read and post a review on the August 5 release date. Rather than professional reviewers, I wanted passionate people eager to snatch the book out of its envelope to read it. A hundred dear, sweet people begged me to choose them. Those not chosen often pre-ordered.

Pre-releasing parts of reviews. Some reviewers contacted me after reading only the first few chapters. I posted that feedback on social media to spread excitement.

Appearances. I appeared at libraries and book clubs in the two weeks ahead of release. And I offered to sell early autographed copies out of my own stock.

Guest blogging. Several weeks ahead I wrote guest blog posts for any of my fans willing to post them the week before and after release date.

Release day event. Since my series is set on a real island on the South Carolina coast, I worked with the Edisto Bookstore for a signing event on the release date.

Other books on special. The publisher offered to reduce the price of an older book in July and a second one in August, appearing on Amazon next to Echoes’ pre-order.

A feature magazine piece. The closest major city to Edisto Island is Charleston, SC. I pitched local publication a feature piece about the series. It came out August 1, telling thousands that my signing would be at four PM on August 5^th on Edisto Beach.

Podcast with the state library. The state capital library had a fledgling podcast, and we aired a session about me the week of release.

Marketing a new book can be exhausting but exhilarating. Pre-release promotion is a matter of choosing to think creatively, invest the effort, and remain open to opportunities. Have fun with it. Be excited about your upcoming day. Show people that your life as an author is amazing and that you would not have it any other way.

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C. Hope Clark has written six novels in two series, with her latest being Echoes of Edisto, the third in the Edisto Island Mysteries. Mystery continues to excite her as both reader and writer, and she hopes to continue as both for years to come. Hope is also founder of FundsforWriters, chosen by Writer’s Digest Magazine for its 101 Best Websites for Writers. www.chopeclark.com / www.fundsforwriters.com    www.facebook.com/chopeclark   www.twitter.com/hopeclark

Why Setting Matters More Than You Think

By C. Hope Clark

We’ve all moved at some point in our lives. When we went to college, when we married, when we changed jobs, when we retired . . . when we ran out of money or hit success. In our dreams we envision the perfect home. A kitchen we love to cook in, the most excellent back porch, a view of water, or a bedroom that envelops us in quaint security at night. Then there’s the town, state or country we prefer. Not all of us are happy where we are. Others, like me, have found a locale that nourishes our souls. Rip me out of here, or destroy what it represents to me, and I’m lost . . . or coming after you.

In our day-to-day existence, we yearn for that piece of geography that makes us whole, and when we don’t have it, we’re unsettled. So, imagine you’re in your perfect place . . . and it’s ruined. Or imagine you are in a strange location, and like Dorothy and Toto, you cry “There’s no place like home” and vow to find it come hell or damnation.

The power of setting ought to be as intense in stories as in our lives.

I’ve just released my fifth novel, Edisto Jinx, set on secluded Edisto Beach, South Carolina. It’s the second in The Edisto Island Mysteries. Readers love the coastal getaway that’s known for being laid back and poised on the end of the world, far removed from civilization. And they love how I’ve given those naïve residents some crazy murders to disturb that peace and quiet. Characters have escaped to Nirvana, only to find the devil vacations there, too.

I write mysteries, but when I begin a book, my first major decision is place, not crime. You overlook a major tool when you choose place and don’t make it dance the dance with the rest of the players. In the case of the Edisto series, the location nourishes people who’ve escaped the rest of the world to soak up the sun and surf and leave urbania to conjoin with nature. What better way to mess with characters than to ruin that? Place is as important a character as your protagonist, and we all know that if we don’t challenge our protagonist, there is no tale.

I recall my first release in my Carolina Slade series, Lowcountry Bribe, and the chase where a Slade seeks her missing children. She’s frantic, traveling country roads, searching ponds, ditches, barns, imagining the worst. The rural, rustic setting was horrendous enough – no city grids, but when my critique partner asked me why there wasn’t a hurricane off the coast, after all, this was the Carolinas, I smacked myself. Suddenly Slade fought wind, rain and dark, black clouds, in addition to an antagonist. Made all the difference in those chapters.

Where would Moby Dick be without the constant threat of the ocean? Gone With the Wind without Charleston or Atlanta?

The bestseller Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins, is based upon the character’s routine, in the city, riding a train. Then she’s rocked to her core by something horrible disturbing that oh-so-normal routine.

Debbie Macomber’s recent release, Silver Linings, centers her characters around Rose Harbor Inn in Cedar Grove. People who should never leave do, upsetting the balance, and then new people appear who don’t fit in. All around that charming little inn the reader becomes intimate with.

Setting dictates the flavor and voice of your story. Don’t underestimate it. As a matter of fact, give it free rein and let it have a serious hand in screwing up your characters’ lives.

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C. Hope Clark is the author of five mysteries and a short recently published in Killer Nashville’s famous anthology Cold-Blooded, alongside Jeffrey Deaver, Steven James, and Donald Bain. She’s also published numerous nonfiction pieces in such publications as Writer’s Digest, The Writer, Writer’s Market, and Guide to Literary Agents, and she speaks across the country at writing conferences and workshops. She’s known most for her origination of FundsforWriters.com , a writing resource recognized by Writer’s Digest in its 101 Best Websites for Writers, for the last 15 years. You’ll find her at www.chopeclark.com and www.fundsforwriters.com

A Southern Writer’s View of Go Set a Watchman

By C. Hope Clark

The reviews of Go Set a Watchman have been all over the place, a lot of them tinged by the fact Harper Lee is elderly, in assisted living, and possibly not 100 percent aware of her new notoriety. But I just want to look at the book, the writing, and its effect on me.

I – Loved - It

I am a child of the deep South. Born in Mississippi. Reared in Mississippi then South Carolina. My parents are Southern. My grandparents, great-grandparents, and however many greats were Southern back to the late 17^th century. My mother grew up the sixth of six kids in rural Mississippi on a cotton farm. As a small child visiting the farm in the summer, I recall begging for a cotton sack so I could go out with the hands in the field to pick my grandfather's cotton. My grandmother sewed a miniature floral sack that fit over my shoulder, a version of the white ones the adults used. It didn’t take me long to understand the hard work and the work ethic of those workers. I remember admiring them for being so grownup and efficient, yet a tad distraught about watching them sweat once I gave up the effort and sat in the shade.

I had a sweet aunt who lived in Jackson, Mississippi who could've stepped into a character in the book The Help. She employed a lovely lady who worked for her for decades, in a white uniform. As a child I looked up to her as someone who ran the house and understood what any child needed. We won't get into the pros and cons of that arrangement.

I recall aging a few more years and feeling like Jean Louise does in Go Set a Watchman. My generation was remarkably more modern than the previous one and the one before that, and I recall the differing schools of thought regarding race just as is presented in this book. Some of the beautiful people in my life had quasi-racial views that I recall labeling as outdated, and I recall feeling in my heart that I was glad my generation would move this issue forward to new ground. But after a hard look at my family history I realized that each generation handled that subject differently, with each one advancing a step or two as the culture of the time allowed.  Mine wasn’t the only generation trying to be progressive. Mine didn’t get it all right either.

And this is what makes for remarkable writing . . . chapters that make our own experiences blend in with the fiction until we can hardly tell the difference.

The opening of Watchman wasn’t anything to be excited about if you listen to the how-to gurus of today. Chapters One and Two did little more than establish the time, setting and introduce us to the characters. The disadvantage that Watchman had to overcome, which was not what Harper Lee could ever foresee, was the reader having a preconceived impression about Scout/Jean Louise and Atticus. However, I’d never read To Kill a Mockingbird. I’m reading it now, but I’m glad I read Watchman without any preconceived notions as to how the characters ought to behave. But while the opening wasn’t dramatic, it caught the reader. No word was wasted. Each word mattered. Each sentence built precisely on the one before until we realized we were two chapters in, eager to see where this story went because if the writing was so beautiful with nothing happening, how fantastic would this be when the plot hits the fan?

I’m a dialogue fanatic. Striking dialogue rocks because conversation inserts energy into the players who in turn define the story or plot. In the case of Watchman, dialogue also meant internal monologue, or Jean Louise’s thoughts. We were her. We got angry. We felt the pain in our heart at her disappointment in humanity in her beloved hometown. We felt the conflict of home versus New York, how one didn’t understand the other yet she could not one-hundred percent side with either.

I’m also a strong believer in setting as character. Again, as a child of the South, I’m always on the lookout for the frauds who feign Southern. It’s difficult to write about a region you do not intimately know. But I smelled the biscuits, tasted the too-strong coffee, and choked at the overdone perfume clinging to hair and hats at the coffee clutch. The old-fashioned furniture, the cool water during an evening dip in the lake, cigarette smoke during a time when lighting up was as second nature as tucking hair behind an ear.

Detail after detail. This story was not complicated . . . simple actually. A girl comes home to be disappointed in the experience – the painful changes that occurred atop the ignorant struggle to remain the same. All done with elementary word usage. Deep character, deft strokes of setting, and dialogue to make you almost look up and hunt for the voices. A combination that stirs us into anger or tears, just because we read a page in a book.

Harper Lee wrote this book so intensely as to make people of today uncomfortable. I’m actually happier that she released it now, when its message is being felt differently that it would have been if published during the period To Kill a Mockingbird hit the bookstores. She snared the time period, more colorful when read today than back then. The political arguments were intense and honest. The coffee clutch party was pretentious and stifling, accented by a huge degree of internal monologue that I’d be afraid to use, that Harper Lee used with relish. Loved the aunt's old-fashioned ways of corsets, dresses, and hats in public compared to Jean Louise's slacks and cigarettes – the contrasts subtle when presented, but loud in a big picture way.

And I adored the ending.

No, Atticus was not painted a racist like some profess, but should be considered more of a realist. To me, he was no different than what I’ve read thus far in To Kill a Mockingbird. He was part of change, but recognized it as a difficult and complicated changing of the guard. Change is painful and is never handled with a clean break regardless of what people want, and he chose to remain in the middle of it to better understand and help with the transition. Sitting across the table from a racist did not make him one. Yet the ending rousted readers to challenge their beliefs, quite evident from the reviews on Amazon, and across the blogosphere. As an author, that would just make me quiver with satisfaction.

This book is so real about humanity and change that it stings, yet the words are delicately chosen, the prose stunning. The book’s earned a place on my top shelf of books, alongside Prince of Tides, The Stand, Lord of the Rings, The Paris Wife, and The Lewis Man. It's so refreshing to read something that doesn't fight so hard to be PC.

Now I'm reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I wish Miss Lee had written more. Lee speaks of a subject we're afraid to talk about without yelling and picking a fight, and she enables us to slow down and study it with a more level head because that raw part of our culture took place a long, long time ago. There has to be some omniscient hand in Watchman not being found for decades, as if we needed the discussion now more than ever.

Go Set a Watchman is beautiful literature with a serious message, showing us how life isn’t simple, isn’t perfect, and isn’t readily fixed when broken. But it’s best to remain in that world, amongst its flawed and struggling people, in order to make it better. In other words, I wish I were still in that story. That’s the epitome of great writing.

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C. Hope Clark writes mysteries set in humid, beautiful South Carolina. She adores setting as character and colorful Southern players, and she continues those strongest traits of her writing in her new release, Edisto Jinx, the second in The Edisto Island Mysteries, released October 1 from Bell Bridge Books. Learn more about Hope at www.chopeclark.com and about her mission to assist writers atwww.fundsforwriters.com . The Carolina Slade Mysteries, Bell Bridge Books and The Edisto Island Mysteries, Bell Bridge Books

Another Side of Southern Writers, Part Two

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine

In my last blog post I shifted gears slightly to introduce you to books written by some of the staff writers and contributors at Southern Writers Magazine. Their interviews and instructional articles appear in each issue, but many are also authors in their own right, and I'm gratified that so many of you have enjoyed getting to know their works.  Today, I'm proud to brag on the rest of our respectable regulars:

Vicki H. Moss

Like many of our staffers, Vicki has been a vital part of the mag from the very first issue, sharing expertise and writing up awesome author interviews with a strong and witty voice. Her passionate personality permeates her many other projects including blogging, poetry, speaking, and teaching writing classes, and her book How to Write for Kids Magazines While Working on a Debut Novel is a smart guide to making extra cash in a fun market.

You'll want to keep an eye out for her soon-to-be-released Writing with Voice. It's already getting rave advance reviews from no less than bestsellers Lee Smith and Emily Sue Harvey. I'm jealous because I haven't gotten my copy yet.  You can visit Vicki at www.livingwaterfiction.com

Julie Cantrell

Literate and lovable, Julie Cantrell is truly a champion for the cause of communication. A speech-language pathologist and literacy advocate, her debut novel Into the Free was an international bestseller and received two Christy awards. She and Lisa Wingate team up for The Writer's Jar, a popular feature in each issue of Southern Writers, where they engage in lively conversation with Southern authors.

Julie's latest novel, When Mountains Move, is a Carol Award winner and, like its predecessor, has been recognized as a top read of the year by USA TODAY. Her eagerly anticipated third novel, The Feathered Bone, will be out this November.

www.juliecantrell.com

Lisa Wingate

Lisa is a former journalist, inspirational speaker, and the author of over twenty novels. Her national bestseller Tending Roses is now in its 19th printing. Lisa graced our very first issue with our first Last Word back in July 2011, and has been a favored friend of the mag ever since.  Her feature The Writer's Jar with Julie Cantrell became a Southern Writers staple in July 2014.

Lisa's current series, Carolina Heirlooms, continues in September with her next release, The Sea Keeper's Daughters, available for pre-order now.

www.lisawingate.com

Shelly Frome

After an illustrious career as a professional actor, film critic, and a professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the University of Connecticut, Shelly is now a full-fledged Southerner and shares his vast insider's knowledge of the theater via his current series on screenwriting. Anyone who finds the psychology of story fascinating appreciates his astute insights, which is why I own pretty much everything he's written on the subject. 

The author of several nonfiction books including Playwriting, The Art and Craft of Screenwriting, and The Actors Studio, Shelly is also an acclaimed mystery writer whose latest novel, Tinseltown Riff, has all the cinematic flavor of a good Hollywood whodunit. His latest crime novel, Murder Run, will be released in a couple of weeks.

www.shellyfrome.com

Edie Melson

If you've taken social media seriously in the last few years, you've come across Edie Melson, a leading voice in the blogosphere. She is co-director and faculty member of numerous writers conferences, and her writing website The Write Conversation is a resource referred to regularly by both beginning bloggers and experienced world wide webbers. As our Social Media Director, Edie cuts through all the noise and spells out the means to having a successful author platform.

Her book on social media and networking techniques, Connections, is a must read for anyone who wonders "How much time must I spend on Facebook and Twitter when there's this book I'm trying to write?"  Hardly a week goes by that I don't recommend Connections to someone who ends up thanking me later. Simply put, Edie makes it easy. 

http://thewriteconversation.blogspot.com

C. Hope Clark

One of the most common things authors tells us they struggle with is writing dialogue. But C. Hope Clark has tongues wagging thanks to her frequent articles on just that subject. The founder of FundsforWriters.com, Hope reaches over 40.000 readers each week with advice on markets, grants, contests and much more, and her book The Shy Writer Reborn: An Introverted Writer's Wake-Up Call, has ignited many an author's ability to promote themselves with confidence.

Hope is the author of the Carolina Slade mysteries Lowcountry Bribe, Tidewater Murder and Palmetto Poison. Her newest series, The Edisto Island Mysteries, begins with Murder on Edisto. For lovers of Southern intrigue, nothing is finer than to be in Carolina with Hope.

http://fundsforwriters.com

Steve Bradshaw

Steve is one of the newer contributors to the magazine, but someone who's been around the (writer's) block. A forensic investigator, biomedical founder-president/CEO, entrepreneur, radio talk show host, Steve was the youngest field agent for the Medical Examiner's Office in Texas history, investigating 3,000 unexplained deaths and 300 homicides. There is no dearth of death in Steve's background, which uniquely qualifies him to instruct on the mechanics of mayhem in Southern Writers.

His personal experience with the grisly and gruesome also lends chilling authenticity to his Bell Trilogy of mysteries, which include Bluff City Butcher, The Skies Roared, and Blood Lions. www.stevebradshawauthor.com

In my previous post I was also proud to feature Susan Reichert, Chris Pepple, Jessica Ferguson, Londa Hayden, W. Terry Whalin, and Sara M. Robinson, but the Southern Writers family hardly stops there. We consider the 900+ authors who've graced our pages our extended family, not to mention every subscriber to the magazine and every visitor who comes here to read Suite T. Thanks to one and all for your role in making the writer's community an amazing place to be.

Daring a Mystery Series

By C. Hope Clark

Agents and publishers love series, as do most readers. I’m chomping at the bit for suspense author Lisa Gardner to release another Quincy and Rainie crime story. Gardner’s one of the few mystery/suspense authors I’ll pre-order and not care what her new release costs.

Many readers become comfortable, friendly, even intimate with repeating characters, and remain anxious to see what calamity an author can concoct for them next. That challenge represents both the good and the bad of writing a series.

Initially, a series seems the simplest way to go. You spend the first book introducing and defining the basics of your protagonist: her relationships, upbringing, strengths, and weaknesses. This is ground level construction where you’re laying the foundation, and to your reader, it’s a honeymoon phase. You define her environment, her habits. And with a mystery comes dictating the degree of crime, level of gore, type of law enforcement, and the capabilities of your sleuth to dance in and out of the confines of the law.

Then comes book two. Your protagonist grew in the initial story. She’s different now, changed. You now pen an intriguing plot nothing like the first, but more challenging than the last, because your character has evolved. She’s wiser. Those around her changed as well. Just like in the real world, they applied what they learned to their new conditions. And they grow again.

Book three tests you. Even if you have a bumbling sleuth, she won’t bumble exactly the same. She reacts based on her history, and how it altered her. Here is where many authors fall short. They forget that the reader has grown along with the character. He won’t be deceived quite so easily, and reading inside your protagonist’s head now for the third time, he’ll expect more from her, giving her less benefit of the doubt.  She can’t make the same mistakes. She can’t use the same tactics.

By now you also have a slew of characters to keep up with. If you’ve read a long-lived series comprised of people like Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse, or Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, you keep up with a huge host of people who step in and out of the stories. Some appear once in a great while, others in every other scene. People age or die. They change professions or get divorced. They earn accolades and they screw up with long-lasting effects. You must get the facts right, maintain the time line, preserve the history, because your readers keep track.

The reader may know you better that you know yourself now. Remember, mystery is the only genre where the reader is pitted against the author, each trying to outguess the other. Each book makes you up your game, because the reader is buying with an urge to best you before you reach “the end.”

The quirks have to get quirkier.

The needs have to feel keener.

The love has to grow deeper.

The past fears have to scar.

The twists turn more complex.

A series gets harder, not easier, in spite of how well you think you know your players. It’s a difficult balancing act, but in the end not only do you amass a loyal fan base for the effort, but you also achieve a satisfaction in knowing you still have what it takes to keep that reader guessing. And that’s the addiction that keeps an author shrewd, savvy and alive.

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C. Hope Clark’s new release is Palmetto Poison, the third in The Carolina Slade Mystery Series, from Bell Bridge Books. First in the series is Lowcountry Bribe followed by Tidewater Murder. Hope is also editor of FundsforWriters.com, voted 101 Best Websites for Writers by Writer’s Digest Magazine for the past 13 years. www.chopeclark.com

TWITTER - http://twitter.com/hopeclark
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BLOG - http://www.chopeclark.com/blog

What I Know About Blogging

By Jeuron Dove

To a casual observer, blogging may appear to be little more than the electronic journaling of one’s thoughts on a particular topic. However, to a writer, blogging provides an invaluable opportunity to simultaneously perfect your craft and cultivate an audience for your work.

The following are a few simple ways to help maximize your blog’s presence. Just like anything else worth having in life, the success of a blog is totally dependent upon the level of dedication put into it.

Keep your blog updated with fresh content on a regular basis - No one likes to read a blog with the same information on it week after week. Whether you post once a week or once a day, make sure to keep a consistent routine.

Participate in meaningful dialogue with your readers- There are few things more disrespectful than a blogger that does not interact with their audience. Responding to comments shows your readers you value their opinion and are not using your blog as a means to stroke your ego. After all, there are thousands of blogs they could have just as easily chosen to read. Pay back the gratitude.

Utilize a social media outlet to support your blog- A blog can only reach so many people. Therefore, it is important to complement it through the use of social media. Every major blog-publishing service offers free tools to connect with a wide range of social media options. For example, a blog’s Facebook or Twitter page could be updated regularly with announcements, photos and videos to keep readers interested.

Stay true to yourself- Write what matters to you. Never feel like you must write about something just because every other blogger is doing so. Blogging is a personal venture and anyone who reads your blog should be able to get an understanding of the passion you have for your subject matter. If you find yourself questioning whether you care for what you’re writing about then scrap the idea.

Never lose sight of your goal- The very nature of blogging offers the instant gratification of having your work published for the world to see. The desire to put out as much content as possible could take away from the precious time you should commit towards achieving your real writing objectives. Regardless of what you wish to gain from your blogging venture, always remember that it is just one part of the journey and not the destination.  Becoming an exceptional writer, first and foremost, is where you should keep your focus.

Though there is no guaranteed path to a successful blog, I can assure you these tips will lead you in the right direction.

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Jeuron Dove would like to thank to these inspiring writers Michele Berger, Anora McGaha,C. Hope Clark and Susan Woodring. Jeuron Dove graduated from North Carolina A&T State University with a degree in Journalism and enjoys writing on a multitude of topics. You can read his blog at www.jeurondove.com.