Writing Historical Fantasy: Blending historical fiction with fantasy elements

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It has been far too long since I posted an update to my blog. A few months ago I spoke at a writers conference at JFK University and spoke on the challenges of writing historical fiction and fantasy.

The attendees were an enthusiastic group of writers who asked some insightful questions. My presentation was largely built on the handout I gave. I thought perhaps it might be helpful to other writers, so I am posting it here. If other bloggers would like to re-post, please do so. I only ask that you link to this as your source 

Writing Historical Fantasy: Blending historical fiction with fantasy elements

by

Linda C. McCabe, author of Quest of the Warrior Maiden

Differences between the genres of historic fiction, historic fantasy and fantasy novels:

Historic fiction is a story written about a real time and place in our history, with or without real historic figures and events. E.g. Philippa Gregory's novels about Tudor England vs. Erika Mailman's novel The Witch'sTrinity set in a fictional German village but painstakingly describes witch trials of the 16th century.

Historic fantasy is a novel about a real time and place in our history, with or without real historic figures and events along with magic and fantastic creatures. Examples are stories using Arthurian or Carolingian legends.

If a story about King Arthur doesn't use magic, it is historic fiction and not historic fantasy. An example of that is Persia Woolley's Guinevere trilogy.

Fantasy novels without being set in a real place and time in our history are not constrained to use the correct historical elements such as period armor, specific religious practices, etc. Examples are C.S. Lewis' Narnia series, J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, and George R.R. Martin's Westeros. The challenges of writing in this genre is world building where you have to define the history, climates, locales, countries, religious rules, cultural practices, races of magical peoples, etc.

The primary goal of all writing is to create a compelling narrative. Every aspect of your writing should serve that primary goal.

Secondary goals include:

1. Historical accuracy for the time period

2. Devising a dramatic plot and memorable characters

Historical research:

1. Perform general research on the time period of your story before you start the creative writing process. (You can do outlines for your plot, but it would be better learning broad historical constructs before you write chapters worth of unusable text.)

2. Absorb the information. Go to a library and check out as many nonfiction books as you can find on your period. Browse the table of contents and read subjects that you think will be of interest/use. Follow footnotes, read bibliographies and find more titles. If your library doesn't have the new titles, request them through interlibrary loans. Books that are a treasure trove of information should be ones that you purchase for your own reference shelf at home.

3. During the writing process continually ask yourself about the various details in your story and do ad hoc research as necessary. E.g. Recently I have been reading up on Islamic burial practices including washing of the dead.

4. If possible, travel to the places you are writing about. Seek out the sites in your story and see where they are, what remains, and breathe in the locale. Become inspired.

5. Find experts on various aspects of your story who are willing to review passages for accuracy.

Including historical research in your narrative:

1. Remember the primary objective is to create a compelling narrative, and not to impress your readers with neat trivia you've discovered in your research.

2. Avoid data dumps where there are block paragraphs explaining arcane information. That is what nonfiction books are about. Instead weave the historical details into your narrative in descriptions and/or dialogue.

3. Use the details you learned about cultural practices, beliefs, gender roles, food, clothing styles and fabrics, architecture, weapons, technology, medical practices to give a richness to your narrative and to demonstrate how life during that time period is different than it is today.

4. Avoid using modern sensibilities regarding marriage, relationship, gender roles in previous centuries. Unless you are using time travel with modern people being transported back in time and this is to contrast the different mindsets.

5. Do not turn your average nobleman into a religious expert so that you can have exposition about the religious practices during the Middle Ages.

6. Describe the religious practices as how they were performed, but do not explain the theological reasoning behind them. Consider that most laypeople simply followed religious dictates without question.

7. Recognize and avoid including certain historical details from your research will be difficult for readers to follow and/or would derail your narrative. E.g. allowance for the consumption of beaver tails on fast days.

8. Be on the lookout for terms in your manuscript that would be inaccurate for the time period. Eliminate them when found. For example, clocks were not as commonplace as they are today and so you should not use the terms minutes or seconds. Instead use "a few moments later" or phrases to illustrate the amount of time passed. An example from my novel: "I have seen Rodomont use a woman in less time than it takes for a horse to pass water." It not only demonstrates a length of time, it also serves to reveal crudeness of the character who was speaking.

9. Try to create a different linguistic style for the period you are trying to evoke. Avoid slang. Consider using curses and swearing, rather than profanity as used in modern discourse.

Cursing: "May Mandricardo's manhood shrivel to match the size of his brain."

Swearing: "You must do my bidding, or I swear to make good on my promise to castrate you."

Profanity: "Are you a bastard son of a swineherd?"

10. Other details such as foods, flowers, etc. Verify that they were a) indigenous to that locale, b) in season c) have a symbolic meaning which agrees with its contextual usage (that's optional, but it adds an additional layer of meaning and depth to your writing.)

Balancing dramatic needs vs. historical accuracy

1. If there is a conflict between your dramatic needs and being historically accurate, remember your primary goal: create a compelling narrative. Boring your readers is the greatest sin of all. I choose to side with Drama and then include my dramatic choice in the author's notes to inform my readers that it was an informed decision and not one made of ignorance.

2. Bending of the historical record should be done as sparingly as possible and not for trivial items such as including foodstuffs, flora, or fauna that were from the Western hemisphere and not known to Europe in that time frame: potatoes, tomatoes, corn, sunflowers, tobacco.

Fantasy elements in historic fiction:

1. Build on existing mythology such as divination practices of scrying, runes, tea leaves, Tarot cards, etc., rather than simply creating new ones. Also knots to seal magical spells, braiding of hair, etc.

2. Symbolic usages of water, caves, labyrinths, etc., add strength to your narrative. E.g. River Lethe, Spring of Mnemosyne, Cave of Trophonius.

3. Include tension between magical and non-magical people. Are magical people thought of as trustworthy or colluding with Dark Evil Forces?

4. Invoke magic when the laws of physics or nature would otherwise be violated by your plot points, e.g. travelling on horseback a distance of four hundred miles in a single night.

5. Be creative when creating enchanted realms. For example, you can use unnatural lighting, heating, ventilation, etc., without much explanation as long as you specify it is unnatural.


http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2014/05/writing-historical-fantasy-blending.html

Writing, adaptations and public speaking

This essay was inspired by a private correspondence I have been having with another writer. I realized my experience might be helpful to others and so I decided to make this into a blog post.

Every writer has specific strengths and weaknesses. The differences are as different as the writers themselves and their own life experiences. Back when I was in high school I was a member of our forensics team. In this context, forensics means public speaking and has nothing to do with autopsies.

Being involved in competitive public speaking not only helped me develop self confidence, but it enhanced my own inherent flair for drama, working within time limits and knowing how to engage an audience. I was involved with three different categories during my four years of competition. In my freshman year I was a member of our "multiple." Multiple Interpretation is a category for a group of speakers (between three to eight) and our selection was to be between ten and fifteen minutes in length. We were not allowed to have physical or eye contact with one another. The only props allowed were stools and scripts.

The selection we used during my freshman year was a script from an episode of the old television series "The Twilight Zone." The story was "Monsters are due on Maple Street" and it dealt with space aliens causing the residents in a small American town to turn on each other.

Being part of a multiple meant that I was part of a team effort to succeed. It was similar to a mini-play competing onstage against other mini-plays. Everyone involved in that year's multiple was a first year member of the team and we practiced everyday after school for months working on our performances and our timing. We made the final round in tournaments a few times and even placed second in one invitational, but we did not do as well as we had hoped.

One aspect of being on the forensics team is that our coach had a large filing cabinet with hundreds of scripts. Some had been used in previous years and were considered "winning scripts" that were to be inherited by a new generation of team members. Those proven scripts were outnumbered by ones purchased from a catalog and had never been read before being put in a file.

My sophomore year I was able to change categories and tried my hand at Humorous Interpretation. That was a solo competitive event where the speakers would rotate two different comedic scripts that were five to eight and a half minutes in length. I spent the summer looking for my own selections and settled on editing an essay from one of Erma Bombeck's books and a short story from Shirley Jackson. I was okay, but my talents were not really suited for that category.

In my junior year, I switched to Serious Interpretation and found my groove. The major difference between Serious and Humorous, (other than trying to make the audience cry rather than laugh), is that your selections alternated between poetry and prose. In the beginning of the tournament a drawing would be held and it was announced which of the two formats would be read in the first round of competition.

Because many poems are short, there were some competitors who read collections of poems to fulfill the time requirements. I found that approach to be lame. I also found myself getting bored when I heard the same poem being read by numerous people. "Patterns" by Amy Lowell was one of those overused poems. One tournament I heard that poem read three times and by two different girls in a single round of competition. It was popular because it was a single poem that when read fit the time requirements, was written by a woman poet and most of the competitors in Serious Interpretation were female. I found the poem boring and mentally tuned out when I heard it announced in the introduction. I wondered how many of the judges had similar reactions due to its overuse.

That was another reason why I thought it was better to find my own selections rather than depend on my coach to recommend something.

In my junior year I remember one of my competitors had written his own selection based on a novelization from the movie Apocalypse Now. I had not seen the movie, but was astounded at his performance, and felt that its difference from the majority of the scripts helped him stand out as a competitor. Later, when I saw the movie, it felt as if he were sitting next to me, whispering in my ear. That is how good his adaptation of the movie was to encapsulate its essence into eight and a half minutes.

That inspired me to do something similar for my senior year's selection. I read the memoir Playing for Time by Fania Fénelon. She was a Holocaust survivor who had been a member of the all woman orchestra in Auschwitz. Her life was spared, but she was still in a death camp and was forced to play music up to eighteen hours a day. The reason the musicians were allowed to live is because they played impromptu concerts for SS officers who found it relaxing to listen to orchestral music after a long, hard day of killing people.

I remember reading the book with a highlighter in one hand and marking up several particularly emotional passages. I wrote my script using portions of scenes along with transitions making it fit my time frame and knew that no one else would be reading the same work.

That strategy worked for me.

After the regular invitational season was over in my senior year, my coach told me something that spurred me on to doing another adaptation. This time it would be for the Multiple Interpretation category.

Our team was so large and successful that we had more members on it than could be entered into  the District Tournament. So there were many teammates whose season was going to be over unless he did something creative. He told me that he was thinking of dusting off the "Monsters are due on Maple Street" script and create a second multiple to enter at Districts. I cringed at the thought. It was an okay script, but I did not want to see it used again. Especially since judges had seen it only a few years before. I knew my teammates who would be asked to be a part of it might feel as if they were leftovers thrown together in a hastily prepared soup.

I went home and grabbed a book of short stories by Stephen King and banged out a script for what I titled: "A Taste of Horror." I made sure that it fit the time constraints, typed it up and made a few copies. On the next school day, I told my coach that I had a different idea for a multiple and handed him the script. I also offered to direct.

It was far more than he expected from that little chat we shared on the bus. He also accepted my offer. We only had a few weeks of rehearsals, but I was proud of the performances by my teammates and I am certain they felt more confident with that script when they competed against other teams' multiples who had been together for months.

Then I entered college and didn't have any time for creative writing. Or drama. Or much else besides watching an occasional movie.

After I finished college and began working full time, I felt there was something missing in my life. I realized that I longed for an outlet for drama like I had back in high school and that one of my greatest strengths was recognizing dramatic scenes and adapting it for presentations to audiences.

I decided that I would try that on a larger scale, and so I took one of my favorite novels Whispers by Dean R. Koontz and try to adapt it into a screenplay. I owed college loans and was making entry level wages, so I certainly did not have any ability to buy the movie rights. I did however, decide to adapt the novel as a writing exercise to see if I had the talent and stamina to do such a project. I went back to using a highlighter and marking up scenes, then transferring them into my computer in a screenplay format. It took several months, but I finished the task and it was in the 110-120 page range for a two hour movie. (The working rule is one page of a movie script equals a minute on the screen.)

I was proud of my work, but I also knew that as an unknown writer with no credits I would never get hired to do film adaptations. So in order to have any chance in pursuing that career path, I first needed to write my own screenplays.

I took two screenwriting classes at Wayne State University and learned a lot. I had to write an original screenplay for the course and I realize now that it was spectacularly depressing and would never have been made into a movie had I pursued trying to get an agent. (It seemed like a good idea to me at the time, but hindsight can have better visual acuity than foresight.)

During this time I purchased several scripts of movies that I enjoyed. I re-watched those movies with the scripts in hand and analyzed any deviations. I also began watching movies before and after I read the books and compared the adaptations. I took copious notes including writing down each and every scene in a movie and realized for the first time how many different scenes there are. Sometimes over a hundred in a two hour movie.

I have been devastated when a beloved story's lifeblood was leeched out when it was translated to the silver screen by oversimplification of plotlines and elimination of characters, etc. and I have marveled at how the essence of a story was enhanced by condensing timelines, characters, etc.

I learned by this extended critical analyses that novels and movies are two different mediums and what works in one does not necessarily work in the other. In novels, you can spend an entire chapter in a character's head learning their inner thoughts, but on a movie screen that could be accomplished by a close up of a raised eyebrow or summarized into a single line of voice-over narration. Another thing I learned was the importance of having scenes with conflict and action. A stage or movie script has bare bones descriptions, whereas novels need to describe the setting, the actions/reactions of characters so that the readers "can see" these important details as well as the characters are wearing if it is important to the plot.

I have been told by many of my readers that they can see my story as a movie. I take that as a compliment that my years of analyzing what works in cinema and translating it into a different format has paid off.

My adapting the epic poems of Orlando innamorato and Orlando furioso is a result of my years of experience of larger narratives and culling portions then changing its format so that it will work for a different audience.

I still love watching movies based on books and analyzing the differences between the two forms and formats. One movie adaptation that I am looking forward to watching is the forthcoming, Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters due out August 7th.

Please let me know what some of your favorite or cannot stand adaptations from novel to screen are in the comments.  By the way, I did watch the movie adaptation of the novel Whispers by Dean R. Koontz.  It was awful!  My script was far better.

http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2013/07/writing-adaptations-and-public-speaking.html

Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo

For several years I have seen blog posts by Professor Richard Scott Nokes about all the fun he has had at the annual Medieval Congress held in Kalamazoo, Michigan on the campus of Western Michigan University.

This year I am going to join him.

Correction, this year I am going to be in a panel discussion where Professor Awesome will be our moderator.

This will be Session #402 out of 582 sessions.

"Carolingian Legends: Adapting Medieval and Renaissance Literature for Twenty-First Century Audiences" on Saturday, May 11th, 10-11:30 am in Room 2355 Schneider.

The panel will consist of Alexis E. Fajardo, author of the Kid Beowulf series,

I will be discussing adapting my novel Quest of the Warrior Maiden from the epic poems Orlando innamorato and Orlando furioso,

as well as Douglas Gallagher and Brandon Spars of Sonoma Academy who produced an incredible musical adaptation of Orlando furioso set to the soundtrack of Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon."

 

It should be a fun round table discussion. We hope to inspire medieval literature professors in their preparations to have a grand celebration of the five hundredth anniversary of the publication of Orlando furioso in 2016.

I would enjoy meeting up with other medievalist bloggers at the Congress. Please drop me a line here or attend my session. Lex and I will also be vendors, so you can try to find us there as well.

If anyone has any suggestions about these Congresses and what to expect, I would enjoy hearing about it. I have attended other conferences, but never one with so many sessions and an expected three thousand attendees.

Help this newbie out if you can!

http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2013/04/medieval-congress-in-kalamazoo.html

Forged in Grace by Jordan Rosenfeld

"Jordan E. Rosenfeld’s  luminous, edgy debut is dark, searingly-written, and ultimately redemptive. Forged in Grace startled me at every breathtaking turn." - Patry Francis, author of The Liar's Diary

My friend Jordan Rosenfeld's debut novel Forged in Grace publication date is February 28th.

Here is a description:

Grace Jensen survived a horrific fire at age 15. The flames changed her: badly scarred in body and mind, Grace developed an ability to feel other people’s pain. Unable to bear human touch, she has made a small life for herself in Northern California, living with her hoarder mother, tending wounded animals, and falling a little in love with her former doctor. Her safe world explodes when the magnetic Marly Kennet reappears in town; Grace falls right back into the dynamic of their complicated friendship. Marly is the holder of many secrets, including one that has haunted Grace for over a decade: what really happened the night of the fire?

When Marly exhorts Grace to join her in Las Vegas, to make up for the years they have been lost to each other, Grace takes a leap of faith and goes. Although Marly is not entirely honest about her intentions, neither woman anticipates that enlarging Grace’s world will magnify her ability to sense the suffering of others—or that she will begin to heal wounds by swallowing her own pain and laying her hands on the afflicted. This gift soon turns darker when the truth of Marly’s life—and the real reason she ended her friendship with Grace—pushes the boundaries of loyalty and exposes both women to danger.

FORGED IN GRACE gives a new twist to the idea of reuniting with an old flame—literally. Exploring ruptured female friendships as in Leah Stewart’s The Myth of You and Me with the dark psychology (and twist of the inexplicable) found in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, FORGED IN GRACE will resonate with anyone who has wanted to set the past right.

To help build momentum for the release date, Jordan is highlighting the work of some of her literary friends and offering free copies of their work through daily literary trivia questions.

Today an electronic copy of my novel Quest of the Warrior Maiden will be given away to the first person who correctly answers the trivia question posted on her blog.  She also has a Facebook author page you can "like" and a link will appear there as well.


Jordan had been an influential part of the Sonoma County literary scene when I first met her. She had created a literary salon in Petaluma as well as a literary radio program on our local National Public Radio station. 

She has moved out of Sonoma County, but her influence is still felt here. Last night an interview with Jordan about her forthcoming novel was aired on KRCB Radio by Gil Mansergh, the new host of "Word by Word." It will be available in a few days as a downloadable podcast from the station's website and through iTunes. (I will add a link once that is put online.)

Jordan has written many articles that have appeared in such publications as Writer's Digest Magazine including a cover story interview with New York Times best selling author Tess Gerritsen. She has several nonfiction books on writing including the wonderful Make a Scene: crafting a powerful story one scene at a time published by Writers Digest Books.

She has returned several times to our county to be a speaker at Redwood Writers meetings and workshops. Here is a photo of her from the 2009 Winter Editing Workshops where she discussed the importance of writing powerful scenes.

Jordan has not only done her own writing, but is a successful freelance editor. I am one of her many satisfied clients in that regard.

One more thing I wanted to mention is that Jordan also teaches online writing classes with lessons and assignments to bring out the best in your writing.  She has a Revise for Publication class starting February 18th. So if your New Year's Resolution was to shape up your NaNoWriMo manuscript into something publishable - consider this as Opportunity Knocking on your front door.

I wish Jordan well in the launch of her novel.  Bonne chance mon ami!

Edited to add links to her book that is now available.

Kindle
Trade paperback on Amazon
Nook
Smashwords




http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2013/02/forged-in-grace-by-jordan-rosenfeld.html

Dos and Don'ts of Public Speaking

This blog post is intended for writers who are given the opportunity to read portions of their work aloud. However, others who have to speak in front of an audience may also find some of the suggestions to be helpful.

I have over thirty years public speaking experience. In high school I was a member of our championship forensics team and was an award winning competitive public speaker in the Serious Interpretation category. This advice is the product of my experience as well as my frustration when I have witnessed public readings I have found to be embarrassing.

1. Do  know your time limits and plan for them.  If you have a short time frame to work with, say five minutes, select a passage that fits within those parameters including any prefatory comments you need to make to set up the scene for the audience. Time yourself. If it goes long, consider choosing another passage or perhaps change your beginning or ending places so that it fits in the time frame.

2. Don't Ramble or waste time. I have been to a few open microphone sessions where a writer is one of several speakers, but once they have the mic it seems as if s/he will not relinquish it without a big hook coming out and taking him/her off the stage. I particularly hate it when people ramble, because it demonstrates they were not prepared.

If you are given five minutes to speak, that five minutes starts from the time you are given the floor or handed the microphone. Rambling for four minutes before you start reading does not mean you still get to read for an additional five minutes. Nope. If you are given five minutes, you have five minutes. Especially if you are sharing a stage with others. That means that there will be members of the audience who came specifically to hear someone else speak. If you go over your time limit, (by more than a minute or two), you will be cutting into others' time or causing the program to go long.

Recently I saw an author bring her book to the stage, but her opening was not a statement used to set up her reading. Instead she rambled on and on about her life. She spent her entire time speaking without any discernable purpose, used up her entire time and never read a single word from her book. It became nothing more than a prop she waved in the air.

A different example of wasting time was when I delivered an academic paper at an international conference. I was one of three speakers in a session and I was given the last speaking slot. We were all to have an equal twenty minutes to present. However, the first speaker was a college professor who had not timed his presentation until the night before. He became irritated about the brevity and felt this time constraint caused him to eviscerate the heart and soul out of his talk. He complained about this. Repeatedly. Not just to the panel moderator in private, but during his talk.

He took time during his speech to complain that he did not have enough time. He probably spent a total of three minutes during his talk saying, "oh I cannot go into more detail about that because I do not have enough time."

He also ignored the moderator when she told him that his time was over, and continued speaking for a few more minutes. This cut into the time left for my presentation. I was professional about it and was able to condense and speed up some of my presentation so the session did not run overtime.

3. Do make a script that is easy to read. One of my pet peeves is authors reading from their physical books. I think it is fine to read directly from a book if it is a picture book where the pages are read and shown to an adoring crowd of children. Otherwise, it is often awkward for someone to read directly from a bound book. Not only do you have to fight with the binding, losing your place if it closes, but the font is generally not large enough to read with ease.

If you are reading your own story, then make a script off of documents you have on your hard drive.

Boost the font. Make it 18 or 20 point. Make it bold. Whatever works best for you to read without difficulty.

Print it out, and make it so that your paragraphs do not have widows or orphans. It is best to read to the end of a paragraph and then turn the page.  Number your pages.

My personal preference is to put the printed pages onto construction paper. This makes it a script where the pages can be changed with ease. I find this easier to use than plain paper with a staple on the top. I also find myself being distracted from the reading by concentrating at the stapled copy in a reader's hand to assess how many more pages they are going to read. A script with separate pages will remove that distraction.

4. Don't think that reading glasses will make reading from a physical book easy to do in public.

It will not. Wearing reading glasses while trying to read from a physical book will make you have to look down more often. This will hurt your performance. As your head is turned downward, your voice will be focused downward. Or your throat will be at an acute angle and this will change the tone of your voice and your ability to project your words. Alternately, you could hold the book upward so that your neck is straight and your voice is projected well. This will also cause the book to cover your face making it hard for your audience to see your facial expressions or to have any eye contact with them.

5. Do entertain your audience. Express yourself in a manner that will captivate your audience's attention. If you are reading passages with dialogue, create different voices to help them understand and follow who is speaking. Use eye contact to engage the audience with you. Having rehearsed your talk enough times and having an easy to read script will allow you to look up and at your audience.

Remember, if you are sharing the stage with others then many in the audience will be there in support of other speakers. They may know nothing about you. Make them sit up and take notice of your performance. Make them feel as if they discovered someone new to admire.

6. Don't bore your audience. Rambling at the beginning of your talk is lethal for grabbing and maintaining an audience's attention. Once lost it is hard to get back.

Fumbling with a book and reading glasses as well as speaking in a monotone is also high risk behavior for losing your audience.

Whether you realize it or not, you are competing for all of the audience members' attentions. Make it worth their while to pay attention to you and not make a mental list of errands that need running or check their email on their iPhone. They could be other places right now, but they are chose to spend a portion of their lives at whatever venue you are speaking. They could change their mind at any moment and leave to go to the bathroom or go home.

7. Do your best to be heard. It is frustrating when a speaker does not project his or her voice well enough to be heard or does not know how to properly use a microphone. If someone objects when you start speaking and says, "I can't hear you!" make sure that the situation is resolved before you continue with your planned talk. This may mean readjusting the microphone to being closer to your mouth or forcing yourself to SPEAK UP!

8. Don't think you do not need amplification.  I have seen speakers at a podium decide they did not want to use the microphone that is provided. Even after someone in the audience complained. Most of the time speakers are mistaken when they think their voice is loud enough without amplification to be heard in all corners of the room. I only knew one woman who could pull that off with ease, because She Could Project. Loudly. When she chose to project her voice, it was as if she used a megaphone. She was the proverbial exception that proves the rule.

I remember a sad case of a female politician who had become feeble in her old age. She was a guest speaker at an event and when it came time for her to speak, she could not make herself heard by using the microphone. It had worked fine for all the speakers before her, but it seemed as if it stopped working when she took the stage. People scrambled to find a replacement microphone, they tested it and then handed it to her. We were all hopeful this would resolve the problem. She took the microphone and then it became clear that her anemic vocal performance was not due to technology, but due to her inability to perform anymore.

This was heartbreaking for me, because I had looked forward to hearing her talk and knew she had a wealth of knowledge and a lifetime of experience that was worthy of hearing. I stopped straining to make out her words, and instead accepted that I could not hear her unless I was standing next to her onstage.

--



Here is an example of a recent public speaking appearance where I read a passage from my novel. You can see how I used a script, varied my voice to entertain the audience, tried to use eye contact and did my best to be heard over the ambient conversation of those in the restaurant who were not there for the literary event.

I was the only participant to stay in the 5-7 minute time frame mentioned at the beginning of the event. (The video running time is just over seven minutes, but that includes the introduction given to me before I started speaking.)





If there are any other pieces of advice in public speaking that I did not mention, but you think should be included in this list - please leave it in the comment section. Thank you and I hope this advice is helpful.


http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2013/02/dos-and-donts-of-public-speaking.html

Advice for newbie writers

The other day I received a ping on Facebook chat from one of my FB friends who wanted to ask me about how to go about getting published.

It is a common starting point question for those who have begun the process of writing a book. What do I do after I finish writing?

Well, before you finish your first draft, I recommend that you begin thinking of yourself as a writer.  Start using that term when you refer to yourself.  It is a psychological shift, but one you need to make in order to take yourself seriously as a writer.

You also need to work on your craft.  That means you must write all the time.  You must also read all the time.

Discover what you enjoy reading, and then write the kind of book that you would like to read.

Analyze your favorite books.  Tear them apart.  Dissect them.  Take copious notes. Discover the plot points, the subplots, the plot twists.  Think about the characterizations and settings.  Could the story be set in another place and time?  If so, how would it have changed the story?

Here are a few books on craft that will be thought provoking and help improve your storytelling ability:

Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass
Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass
Make a Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld

Here is another book that I adore for understanding drama:

Audition:  Everything an Actor Needs to Know to Get the Part by Michael Shurtleff

Beyond working on your craft, you also need to start educating yourself about the business of publishing.  I recommend that you subscribe to two different daily electronic newsletters.

Publishers Lunch and Publishers Weekly Daily

You should also read industry blogs.  If you do not have a reader to help manage blog subscriptions, please remedy that today.  I use Google Reader and I have far too many blogs to comfortably follow, but I do scan them.  If you don't have a Google account, please get one.  It's free and easy to obtain.

Here is one agent's blog that I think is helpful:  Kristen Nelson.

Start there, check out her blogroll.  Try a few others, subscribe to ones you like.  Scour more blogrolls. Rinse, repeat.

You must also find a support network.  Try and find a writers club near you.  Check your Sunday newspaper to see if there are any listings for meetings in their author signings area.  Look in the advertisements in your papers for meetings.  Perhaps you have a writers club that meets that you've never heard of before.

Then again, maybe you'll have to dig a little deeper to find a writing community in your area.

You can also try and utilize a cyber community of writers.  Absolute Writer Water Cooler is a great place to start.

Getting feedback from fellow writers is essential.  Finding a good fit critique group is important in improving your writing skills.  It is helpful to not only hearing from others about what works and what doesn't work in your drafts, but by reviewing others' work you begin to develop stronger editing muscles by identifying strengths and flaws in someone else's writing.

I feel it is more important to find someone you have good chemistry with in your critique group than it is to find a group of same genre writers.

Now onto a word of caution: there are many who will try and take advantage of writers.  Please do not click on any links for "Publish your novel here" that you might see.  It is doubtful that you will be happy with the result.

You should check out a website called Preditors and Editors and familiarize yourself with the various scams that are done to unsuspecting writers.

A companion blog that is entitled:  Writer Beware Blogs!

Another tip is to find a good adhesive to secure your backside to your desk chair or as some of my friends call it:  Butt Glue.

Any other suggestions from my writing friends for those just starting out?



http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2012/05/advice-for-newbie-writers.html

Chapter 5 Sonoma Squares Murder Mystery is online

My contribution, or Chapter 5 "Why Sandra?," of the Sonoma Squares Murder Mystery serialized story is now online.

Please check it out here.

And if you would be so kind, like it on Facebook.  There you will also find kind and generous remarks  Robert Digitale wrote about me.

I must admit that trying to cover all the information given me in a short word count was the greatest challenge.  In the final version, most of my dramatic flourishes were lost on the editing room floor, but  it was fun writing a scene where characters refused to answer questions posed to them. It creates tension and drama, plus readers will have unanswered questions that should make your imagination run overtime.

I hope you enjoy this tale of intrigue.








http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2012/05/chapter-5-sonoma-squares-murder-mystery.html

Details of how to become a part of the Sonoma Square Murder Mystery team

I mentioned in a previous blog post that I was a part of an upcoming serialized murder mystery due out next week online.  There are sixteen chapters to the story and one chapter has yet to be written.

There is a contest to see who will get the honor to be the sixteenth writer.  If you are interested, you can find all the details on the Santa Rosa Press Democrat's blog Digitale Stories  on how to submit with the chance to win.  There is no prize money, but it is a chance to be a part of a cool literary project and a nice writing credit to your name.

The deadline is Friday, May 18th.

The story begins on Monday, April 23rd on the Digitale Stories blog. It will be updated with a new chapter on Mondays and Thursdays.

I wrote chapter five and have read a few chapters (to help me in the course of understanding the context of my contribution) and it is a quick and fun read.

Here is hoping that Robert Digitale gets an overfilled inbox with submissions to be a part of this project he brainstormed and started.

Good luck!





http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2012/04/details-of-how-to-become-part-of-sonoma.html

Sonoma Squares Murder Mystery - Coming Soon!

I will be a part of a literary experiment. One of the members in my writers club, Robert Digitale, is a reporter with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Robert has created a murder mystery to be published online with sixteen different writers. I am honored to say that he invited me to participate in this fun endeavor.

Robert wrote the overview and gave us direction as to what he wanted covered in our assigned chapters, and then he served as the air traffic controller/editor in assuring that the storyline was as seamless as possible.

The story will be available online starting Monday, April 23rd and can be found here. There is one last chapter that has yet to be written and is still up for grabs. Details of how you can apply to write that installment will be posted online this Thursday.

You can find a lineup of the different participating authors here.

Check it out and you can even "Like" the Sonoma Squares Murder Mystery page on Facebook.

I hope you enjoy the story and my small contribution. I found it difficult to try and cover as much ground as Robert wanted in as small of a word limit as he gave. Going from epic historic fantasy with room to elaborate on settings, characterizations, etc. to writing a distilled essence of a scene was challenging.

Should anyone here wish to join the mystery, I wish you the best of luck getting chosen and have fun in the writing if you are!

Linda



http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2012/04/sonoma-squares-murder-mystery-coming.html

Upcoming conferences

The next three months are going to be busy for me as I will be at three different conferences.

The first chronologically is the Women's Power and Strategy Conference organized by my friend Patricia V. Davis and being held on Saturday, March 24 from 9-5 pm at the San Domenico School in San Anselmo, California. I will be a vendor at this conference that is billed as "a gathering of leaders from diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise who are joining forces to educate and inspire women of all ages to believe and invest in their own talent, skills, and potential.

Speakers include keynote Malissa Feruzzi Shriver, California Arts Council Chair, Founder - Feruzzi Fine Art, Evan Bailyn, Erika Bjune, Christine Bronstein, Nancy Calef, Zoe Fitzgerald Carter, Marisa Churchill, Kaye Cloutman, Deborah Cooper, Verna Dreisbach, Deborah Grabien, Dr. Tamarah McClintock Greenberg, Jeb Harrison, Laura McHale-Holland, Joe Klocek, Dena Kouremetis, Vicki Larson, Linda Lee, Frances Lefkowitz, Monique Lessan, Ivory Madison, Gil Mansergh, Amanda McTigue, Hyla Molander, Kimberly Moore, Justin Oliver, Kim Pipkin, Laurie Berry, Rebecca Rosenberg, Jeannette Sears, Ransom Stephens, Alex Vargas, Niko Volonakis, Jody Weiner, Susanna Solomon, and Mimi Towle.

All registrations of adults at the regular rate of $100 will include a gift registration for a girl. More information and to register for the conference can be found here.

I will be a presenter at my writers club upcoming conference on Saturday, April 28th at the Santa Rosa Junior College in Santa Rosa, California. It is Redwood Writers Next Step Conference where writers are encouraged to take their "next step."

I will be moderating the luncheon panel of four industry experts: Mark Coker founder of Smashwords, Charlotte Cook principal of Adapting Sideways, Joel Friedlander proprietor of Marin Bookworks, and Laurie McLean literary agent with Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents. We will be discussing the rapid changes in the publishing industry in the 21st century and how writers can use those changes to their advantage.

The morning keynote address will be done by the marvelously talented David Corbett.

A description of the talks given by the following presenters can be found here.

Abby Lynn Bogomolny

Catherine Brady

Frances Caballo

Robert Digitale

Verna Dreisbach

Kate Farrell

Jody Gehrman

C.W. Gortner

Deborah Grabien

Suzanne Lang

Rob Loughran

Pete Masterson

Arlene Miller

Kemble Scott

Jeane Slone

Geri Spieler

Lee Stein

A special newsletter created for the conference can be found here.

There is also a banquet the night before the conference with the focus on poetry including the keynote speaker Al Young, California Poet Laureate Emeritus.

The deadline to register for the conference and the poetry night is April 13th!

And lastly, I will be presenting a paper "Deconstructing Carolingian legends to discover feminine archetypes and symbolism" at the biennial national conference of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology being held in San Francisco from May 11-12. For more information about that conference, please see their website here.

http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2012/03/upcoming-conferences.html

Guest blog post on Freda's Voice

For those readers who are new to my blog and would like to see my numerous posts about my travels in France and Italy as well as see many gorgeous photographs from those places, please explore these posts tagged with travel.


The blog Freda's Voice was kind enough to host a question and answer post for me and my novel Quest of the Warrior Maid.

I talk about writing, Greek mythology, drama and mention my favorite novel of all time.

Please stop by and check it out.

Also, for those in Northern California, I will be reading at a new event this evening. It is called "Dine with Local Authors" being held at Gaia's Garden, 1899 Mendocino Avenue, Santa Rosa at 6 pm. I will be one of seven authors who will be reading from our work.

Please stop by if you can. (Four dollar minimum for the food, but the entertainment will be well worth it!)

Thanks and now back to NaNoWriMo.




http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2011/11/guest-blog-post-on-fredas-voice.html

Guest post on the Graveyard Shift

My friend Lee Lofland was gracious enough to allow me to write a guest post on his wildly popular police procedural blog The Graveyard Shift.

Please check it out, my post is about writing about laboratory procedures in fiction as well as getting the correct historical terms as well. I also have some nice photos from Hotel Dieu that dates back to the seventh century in Paris.

Back to NaNoWriMo!

Linda

Upcoming literary events in Sonoma County

November promises to be a busy month for me. I decided to take the plunge and participate in NaNoWriMo, which for those who haven't heard of this before is short for National Novel Writing Month. A fast and furious thirty days where the goal is to write 50,000 words. Quality is not the underlying goal, but instead it is quantity. Why? This is to encourage writers to silence their inner critic which can make you stop and re-read every sentence as soon as it is written.

That need to self-edit needs to be restrained so that your creative side can have free rein and possibly come up with something wonderful.

It will be less likely to happen if you spend an hour agonizing over the position of commas and debating whether or not the word "that" belongs in a specific sentence. Honestly, I have been there and I know how insane that type of editing can be on one's psyche.

I have an advantage of many of the NaNoWriMo participants because the sequel to my novel Quest of the Warrior Maid is outlined in great detail. I just have not allowed myself to start writing it in earnest because I have been trying to market my first novel. So I have a plot and a detailed one at that. I just have to start putting my thoughts down in the first draft format.

Beyond NaNoWriMo, I will be reading from my novel in the Odd Month Reading sponsored by Redwood Writers at the Windsor Public Library.

The theme will be:

Rain! Here it Comes!
Ready or Not!

Details:
SATURDAY, November 12 , 2011
1:00 – 3:00 PM
Windsor Library
9291 Old Redwood Hwy.
Windsor, California

I plan on reading from a chapter where the leader of the Islamic forces is planning an attack on the fortified city of Paris and the weather promises a terrible thunderstorm that evening.

The next day, Sunday, November 13th my writers' club monthly general meeting will be held from 2:30-5 at the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa. Our guest speaker will be Terri Farley, author of the well known Phantom Stallion series. Her topic will be "Writing a Series isn't Child's Play."

Then on Monday, November 14th I signed up to participate in the Dine with Local Authors event at Gaia's Garden, 1899 Mendocino Avenue, Santa Rosa at 6 pm. Seven local authors will be reading from our work after eating dinner with friends and fans of the local literary community.

Hopefully, between those events and Thanksgiving I shall get somewhat close to "winning" NaNoWriMo by composing 50K words.

Wish me luck, and for those who live in Northern California, please stop by at some of these events if you can.

http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2011/10/upcoming-literary-events-in-sonoma.html

Sonoma County Book Festival

This past weekend was the twelfth annual Sonoma County Book Festival. It has grown to eight different venues and stages for readings and panel discussions, as well as four different areas for the over ninety vendors.

Amazing.

Here is Fourth Street in Downtown Santa Rosa which was closed off this year to traffic to accommodate the event.


My writers club had two separate tables, one for membership and another for advertising our various programs and upcoming events. Redwood Writers has become so vibrant and popular that it sponsored four other tables for our members to showcase their books on a rotating basis. Each table had two authors on two hour shifts, so a total of thirty-two members had an opportunity to sell their books as a benefit of belonging to our club without having to pay an exhibitors fee.

That was a great opportunity and one that I utilized. I was also scheduled to read from my novel Quest of the Warrior Maid. To help put myself in a festive mood, I decided to wear a period costume.

My outfit may not be accurate ninth century apparel, but I have limited sewing skills. Many people complimented me on my dress, so if nothing else - I stood out from the crowd by dressing Medievalish.

With my friend Kate Farrell.

Here I am with Teresa LeYung Ryan

Ana Manwaring organized the Redwood Writers Village Stage with twelve different groups who each had multiple readers. That is a lot of organizing. Our podium was created by her husband. It is a hollowed out redwood stump and we were in front of a grove of redwood trees. How fitting for Redwood Writers.

Ana Manwaring introducing me.

I am reading a scene from Quest of the Warrior Maid.

Ana requested that I read a "spicy" scene from my book, so for those who have a copy of my book - it was chapter 28 - a scene on Alcina's island.

It was fun and I had several people tell me later in the day that they enjoyed the enthusiasm I showed in my presentation.

Here is a close up of my jewelry. Yes that's a sword pendant I am wearing as well as Occitan crosses for earrings.

After I read, I introduced another club member's new work.

Robbi Sommers Bryant reads from her new novel The Beautiful Evil.

Our writing club's vice-president Jeane Slone has created a wonderful program for Sonoma County authors with independent coffee shops. There are now eighteen coffee shops selling over seventy titles by forty-seven Sonoma County authors. The coffee shops love it because their customers get to browse while they are waiting for their lattes, and the owners do not have to do anything with the books. Jeane visits them regularly to rotate and refill titles. Here she is talking with two festival goers about the program.

Here is a picture of the list of coffee shops in the program.

And here is an easier to read list of the independent coffee shops who are carrying local Sonoma County authors' books:

Apple Box Coffee shop: 224 B St., Petaluma
The Barking Dog Roasters: 18133 Sonoma Hwy., Sonoma
The Barking Dog Roasters (II): 201 W. Napa St., Sonoma
The Bean Affair: 1270 Healdsburg Ave, #101, Healdsburg
Bungalow Coffee and Tea: near Molsberry Market, Larksfield
Café de Croissants: 6580 Oakmont Dr., Oakmont
Café Noto: 630 McClelland Dr., Windsor
Community Café: 875 West Napa St., Sonoma
The Dry Creek Store: 3495 Dry Creek Road, Healdsburg
Golden Bean: 101Golf Course Dr., Suite A3, Rohnert Park
Gypsey Café: 162 N. Main St., Sebastopol
Kenwood Farmhouse Gift shop: 9255 Sonoma Hwy., Kenwood
Local Folkal: 117 N. Cloverdale Blvd., Cloverdale
Midtown Café: 1422 4th St.. Santa Rosa
Muffin Street Baking: 52 Mission Circle, Santa Rosa (McDonald/Mission shopping center)
Off the Track Coffee shop: 6544 Front Street, Forestville
Pearson & Co. Expresso & Catering/McCoy's Cookware: 2759 4th St., Santa Rosa (Near Farmer's Lane, next to Safeway)

Jeane told me that my book is currently at The Bean Affair, Café Noto, and the Bungalow. There were a few others, but she rotates the stock so that the coffee shop regulars will have different titles to browse.

It's hard to see with the shadow, but Jeane is holding up a copy of my book.

Jeane had a great day talking with festival goers, selling a few books and seven more authors expressed interest in having their work entered into the program.

Here I am at my half of the table with my books, book marks, and post cards. I also have an artist's drawing of the Guédelon project to help set the mood. I also set out an Occitan flag that I purchased on my last trip to France.

The bright yellow cross on a field of red is used throughout the Midi-Pyrenees region and even appears on their license plates. It was a symbol of the counts of Toulouse and now represents a regional pride. The design may not date back to the time of Charlemagne, but it is associated with the area where my heroine Bradamante is from and therefore I like it.

Besides the colors are vivid and eye catching. I also found it and my costume to be conversational ice breakers.


Here are some more pictures from that glorious autumn day.

Schmoozing with my friends Pat Morin and Barbara Truax.

Barbara Truax and Catharine Bramkamp checking out Carol McConkie's new book Fat Girl Fairy Boy.

Goofing around with Cindy Pavlinac.

Hanging with "Fear the Beard" SF Giants fan Roger Harris.

And my table was graced with the Cindy Pavlinac's famous road tripping pooch Merlin.

All in all it was a glorious day. The weather was perfect this year. Now, I need to order more authors' copies of my book as I am down to my last copy.