What a thrill!

I'm off to Thrillerfest!

If you happen to be in New York, come on down. I'll be chatting about "How to Make Readers Come Back for More?"

So, as a reader, what's make you come back?

To Kill or Not to Kill

Sometimes I reach a point in a story where I'm not sure whether or not I'm keeping a character around because I've become attached to him, or if he really play a crucial role in the rest of the plot. Like Joe in my current work in progress (name has been changed to protect the direction of the story he he). Should Joe live, die, or just be horribly maimed?

As someone who writes by the seat of my pants, I truly don't know the end result until I'm almost there. So I have a lot of "go with your gut" moments. But sometimes my gut is more of last night's spicy dinner than true creative genius. And if I kill someone off too early in a story, that's a helluva lot of work in second draft to re-write him in.

Also, if I meander around the story just doing make-work projects for Joe until I find his purpose, that's a helluva lot of deleting later.

I think I need to meditate Joe's existence ... probably while in a bubble bath.

My Jaw Dropped

I just finished reading a book (that I won't name) that used the term "my jaw dropped" and then a couple pages later "her jaw dropped" and then a chapter later "it made my jaw drop". It made me think seriously about my own tendency to repeat. It is probably the number one thing caught by my editor. If she stopped me from sounding like the book that will remain nameless, then I owe her big smooches! Seems if I think something fits in one particular scene I find a way to toss it out there again and again. Not on purpose, of course, but it concerns me because I usually don't catch it in 2nd or even 3rd scans.

I am in the process of writing a scene where my heroine is shocked...stunned...surprised and, yes, it was very tempting to state that her jaw dropped. But I was still too disconcerted by my recent read that I just couldn't use the term lol.

Back in the real world, my jaw did drop today when I brought our 2 guinea pigs to the vet for checkups and found out our boys were actually girls!

Anything cause your jaw to drop recently? :)