Life is not a dress rehearsal

After finishing writing a series of blog posts about my latest travels, which you'll find on my own blog, should you be interested, it's time to get back to the business of writing that new story I'd started. I re-read what I'd written so far, and confirmed that I need to think about the plot a bit more, and that got me to thinking about the business of writing.

My first novel, a historical fiction story about the wreck of the Dutch merchantman Batavia in 1629, was published in May 2010. It was almost a year later that my first SF story hit the ebook stands. That was The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy. I've got nine full novels under my belt now, and a number of shorter works. Have I learned anything on this journey? I hope so. Here's some advice I might have given to my younger self, or anyone starting on this journey.

The story's the thing

Sure, grammar and spelling matter. They are the storyteller's stock in trade. There's a big difference between "let's eat grandma" and "let's eat, Grandma". "We drug the body to the river bank" will toss me out of the story, and it's surprising what something like ["I think we should go now." He said.] does to the reading flow. Even so, if the spelling and grammar are flawless but the story is boring, as an author you've missed the point.

Genre is a marketing ploy

I was just reading an article about 'literary horror' books. It's worth reading the first section for the author's attempt to answer the question 'what is horror?'. Here at space freighters we often ask ourselves 'what is science fiction romance?' and find ourselves trying to define a relationship between two genres. Sometimes the discussions over those definitions can get downright acrimonious. But at the end of the argument, it's whatever takes your fancy. If, as an author, you want to write about sexy times in a spaceship, so be it. You'll have an audience. If you want to write a mystery story with a romance arc thrown in, you'll still have an audience. Write what you're comfortable with. But bear in mind if your story fits (sort of) into more than one genre, you will cop criticism from multiple sides. In the case of SFR, you'll be caught between the twin horns of not enough/too much romance and not enough/too much science fiction.

What readers think is none of your business

There's so much finger-pointing, so much mocking. You've heard the knockers - E.L. James's FSoG is rubbish. J.K. Rowling can't write. Dan Brown's books are awful.  But that's just somebody's opinion. Books are the simplest of virtual reality devices. They take a reader out of the here and now and take them somewhere else in space and time. But what works for some readers doesn't work for all readers. So be it. There's no point in getting your authorial knickers in a knot over it, which is why I hardly ever read reviews of my books. (Taking advice from trusted beta readers is another thing altogether.) I can't afford to get my skin Teflon-coated, and I'm not going to change my books to suit a subset of readers. If they don't like my stories, there are plenty of other books out there which may be more to their taste.

Editing advice is not always worth taking

Remember Authonomy? You loaded at least ten thousand words of your opus onto the site, and invited other would-be authors (and a very few readers) to comment on your work. You'd get several opinions, some undoubtedly contradictory, about your first three chapters, offered by 'experts' who knew as much about writing as you did, and quite often, knew nothing about the genre your book fitted into. I was there, happily giving advice to anybody who wanted it.  After all, I'd done three novel-writing courses, so I knew of what I spoke. Don't use adverbs, be careful with the adjectives, passive voice is a no-no, trawl through for 'that' and 'was', watch out for point of view, don't use prologues. These days I take the wise wizard's approach to doling out advice, which is to avoid doing so at all costs. Every author has his/her own style. Some I simply don't like to read, for example, first person present POV. But that's just me. Some people love it. If I'm beta reading for somebody, I might point out typos or grammar errors, but my main role is simply, does the story work for me? If I think something is confusing, or missing (in my opinion) I point it out and let the author fix it – if the author agrees it needs fixing. Oh – and giving advice on ONLY the first three chapters has limited value. When it's out there, the whole book has to stand, not just the first three chapters.

Watch out for con artists

The writing business, especially with the advent of self-publishing, is rather like a gold rush. Everybody thinks they'll make a motzer out of their first novel. Not that one? Then maybe the next one. Not that one? But if I get a few more books out there, I'll have a back list and they'll start to read them all…

Somewhere else, a clever brain realises there are opportunities to be had. Just like at the goldfields, where the fellow who sold shovels and wheelbarrows, or the couple who built a rudimentary pub, or the Chinese family who created a market garden – all these people would probably earn much more than the miners, of whose number only the lucky few would strike it rich. As an author, you'll find plenty of (paid) marketing opportunities, some useful, some not. Some competitions are worth the entrance fee, others have no real credibility. Some boxed set opportunities may be worth your time, others are just a con.

Here's some advice – join a group of like-minded authors, such as the SFR Brigade, where these opportunities are discussed and evaluated, giving you a chance to make an informed opinion. And you'll have willing shoulders to cry on if you need some support.

There's nothing wrong with giving up

For the vast majority of people, writing is a part time thing they do in between kids, jobs, and life. Some people feel compelled to write. Fine. Write. But if your lack of success is getting you down, if you're getting depressed because you've realised you haven't caught the public imagination like J.K. Rowling did, then don't feel you have to keep doing the Sisyphus thing. Find something else that makes you happy. If you're one of the 'never give up' crowd, that's okay, too. If you do give up and later you want to try again, that's fine.

Remember, life is not a dress rehearsal. You'll never get another go at it, so do what works for you.

And here endeth the lesson.

I despise the "Rules of Writing"

I don't actually subscribe to Chuck Wendig's Terrible Minds blog, but I quite often read what he has to say because it's so often shared by the writing community. Usually I agree with him. He's had much to say about important topics such as sexism and diversity. He has also often offered useful advice to writers - he's written a book on writing which I believe many people find valuable.

But his recent advice to newbie writers left me uncomfortable. Please - go and read it. I smell your rookie moves new writers. Some of what he had to say didn't fit with my own experience. But hey. I have a nasty habit of shrugging and saying, "What would I know?"

Not everyone took that attitude, though. Foz Meadows took furious exception, and made his counter case in I see your preferences Wendig. It's a long post, but well worth the read. Go ahead, I'll make myself a cup of tea while I'm waiting.

Back?

Really, I think the only point where I disagreed with Meadows was the one about grammar. Yes, I'm a bit of a grammar Nazi, and poor grammar makes my teeth ache. However, if the story grabs me, I'll sort of train my brain to ignore the errors and keep reading. That's not what's happening in Tim Winton's Cloud Street. Winton writes Literature, and be assured he knew exactly what he was doing when he used that approach. Which brings us back to the old argument that you need to know the rules before you break them.

We all have our own style of writing. And different stories demand different approaches. Let's take the example of starting a story with action. Linnea Sinclair drops the reader right into it with Gabriel's Ghost. But she doesn't do that with Hope's Folly. Personally, I prefer to be engaged with a character before I have to decide whether I want them to win a fight. Then there's cutting your story. Um... no, not for me. I always, always, always add detail. Several thousand words worth. So it depends on how you do things.

There's a real danger in listening too much to everybody else's advice. You'll lose your own voice and you'll end up writing a story that is not your own. I know this because I came very close to ruining my Iron Admiral stories. I shared that experience in a blog post - Yes, Virginia there is such a thing as over editing.

I'll share one small example of what I cut from those books. Admiral Saahren might be a great leader, but he's not much good with women. Since Allysha keeps him at a distance, he does the only thing he can think of to tell her how he feels - he sends her flowers. Here's the section.

The team had just started on their first exercise when the IS spoke. "Allysha, you have a delivery."

Allysha straightened up beside Sirikit’s workstation. "Delivery?"

"Yes. Flowers."

Leonov’s clerk brought them in and left. Allysha flushed. Flowers again. They were beautiful, ten tall stems with blossoms like wine flutes arranged to display their deep red throats. Their fragrance was unmistakable, delicate and delicious.

"Are they from Brad?" Anna asked, her eyes dancing.

All of the others stared at Allysha, equally curious. She felt like a fugitive under a spotlight as she read the note. ‘I hope your week went well. Brad.’

"Well? From Brad?" Anna repeated.

Please, leave it alone. But they wouldn’t. "Yes."

"Was he there? At that course?" Anna asked.

She had to think for a moment. Oh, yes. She was supposed to have been instructing at a senior officer’s course. "No, he wasn’t."

"Ah hah. So he is a senior officer."

"Where did you get that from?" They were guessing; they had to be.

"The way you said it. As though no, he wasn’t there but he could have been." Anna's eyes sparkled with gleeful delight. "Besides, these are love lilies."

"What?" Allysha collapsed into her chair. She didn’t need this. But she was intrigued. "Love lilies?"

"Yep. It’s a Fleet thing. If a man gives you just one of those," Anna jerked her head at the flowers, "it’s understood to mean he’s serious."

Sirikit nodded, her liquid eyes sparkling.

"They’re hideously expensive," Todd chimed in. Allysha thought he looked rather somber. They might be hideously expensive to a lieutenant, but not to the man who sent these.

In the interests of 'does the story work if you leave it out' I cut that passage to just being he sent her flowers and her team wanted to know who Brad was. That way I could also leave out this bit, when Allysha's back home, talking to her IS.

"Brew me some kaff, Albert, then tell me what you know about love lilies."

Allysha took her cup over to a chair while Albert talked.

"It’s something of a Fleet legend, Allysha. It harks to the times when space travel took months or years and even moving from a planet’s orbit to a point where a ship could transfer to shift space could take days. Captain Isaac Ishkar finally found the woman of his dreams. But he was called to war before they could marry. He knew months would pass before his return and, having very little time to do much else, he organized with a florist to send his lady one of these flowers every week to remind her of him until he could return."

"Hm. And did he?"

"Yes. He was captured and imprisoned so he wasn’t able to return for two years, but then, at last, they were married. And now it has become something of a tradition for male Fleet officers to declare their intent by giving their lady one of these flowers."

One. He’d sent her ten. "Are they expensive?"

"It depends on the time of the year. Perhaps I should say, they are always expensive. When supply is low, they are extremely expensive."

"Why is that? Surely they’re cultivated?"

"They are. But the cultivated blossoms are not of the same quality. They lack the fragrance and glowing color of the wild stock."

He’d sent her the wild ones, of course.

In the end I put it all back. Sure, it's detail. Sure, the story stands without it. But personally, I LOVE detail. I love that rounded feeling you get when you can tell the writer really knows her world. It's why I love Tolkien and Jack McDevitt. And Linnea Sinclair.

Getting back to my post about over-editing, at the end of it I wrote "I’ve learned a valuable lesson; to use a cliché, ‘to thine own self be true’. Write your own story and stick to your guns."

If you want any writing advice from me, I'd tell you to go and learn the 'rules' and take what you want from them. Then write your own story and stick to your guns.

Oh, by the way, the quotes are from The Iron Admiral: Deception. You can find it here.
 

WHEN I STOP READING--AND WHY

*sigh* Another 5-page info dump!

I used to be a dream reader for all you authors out there.  When I plunked down $5.99 (or more) for a book I could hold in my hands at a brick-and-mortar bookstore, I considered that a contract with the person who wrote that book.  I made a commitment to give the book a chance.  And, unless the thing was truly dreadful, I read it through to the end.

In this brave new world of e-readers and digital publishing, of self-pubs and small presses and the decline of the bookstore and the book-in-your-hand, I’m not nearly so accommodating.  I may pay $5.99 or $2.99 or $0.99 or nothing for the books I read on Kindle; price is no longer any indication of anything.  But when I set out to read a book now, it had better be good.  I no longer have any tolerance for poorly-written stories.

There used to be gatekeepers in the publishing world.  The gates have been crashed and we readers are being overwhelmed.  By choices, yes.  But in some cases, by not-so-good stuff.  Reviewers do their best to sort it out and identify the good stuff, but we all know there are also trolls out there who like to spread the hate.  Tags help, but they are limited in scope, particularly when it comes to SFR.  Book clubs, websites, word-of-mouth?  Yes.  More, please.

So in an effort to stem the flood, let me just put up a few of my own levees.  I’m not an agent or an editor; I’m a reader who has been forced to act like one.  But for any of you newbie writers who might be wondering, there are reasons why readers stop reading in the middle of a book and hit Delete.  Here are a few of mine:

--I’ve been reading a fair amount of SFR lately, and the Number One killer of SFR stories, like their SF counterparts, is backstory, oodles of it, in info dumps of epic proportions in the beginning of the book.  This passes for “worldbuilding”.  Stop.  Let me discover the world your characters inhabit, little by little, not all at once.  Show me, don’t tell me.  And, by the way, the omniscient third POV was last used to good effect by Charles Dickens.  Or maybe Somerset Maugham.  You can’t talk about this character and that character on board a ship as if you are God introducing them to the reader.  Do it for yourself and keep it in your Notes file.  Leave it there.

--Whose story is it?  Pick a point of view and stay with it, at least for a scene at a time.  No shifting from the hero’s POV to the heroine’s in the same scene!  This is called “head-hopping”, and it drives me crazy.  If you shift POV, mark it with an ellipsis or an extra space between lines.

--And speaking of the hero and heroine, make them lively and likeable.  If they are flat, unbelievable, irredeemable or unmotivated by anything I can discern, then I won’t care what happens to them.  Then, make sure they meet within a reasonable length of time.   If this is a romance, your hero and heroine can’t spend half the book wandering around looking for each other.

--Pick up the pace.  Now, there are novels where a languid pace and dense prose are appropriate.  But unless you are Tolstoy or Proust, you probably want your readers turning pages a little quicker.  I recently gave up on a planet-based SFR adventure that bogged down hopelessly in the middle chapters.  Not only was the external plot going nowhere, the romantic arc was lost in a vague triangle with not much sizzle.  This book was part of a series.  I suspect the author plans to resolve all these issues in future books.  I’ll never know.

--A good story takes time (length) to develop.  Few of us are good enough at what we do to develop character, plot, setting, a believable SF world and a satisfying romance within the scope of 25,000-40,000 words.  Short stories and novellas take a special kind of writing; they are not just sketches of a longer novel with key pieces missing.  This is one of the most frustrating developments of the digital age.  You would think that with minimal production costs, length would be no object.  Instead, e-books are often much shorter than hard copies, and too many of them short-change the reader on depth.

--Spellcheck does not an editor make.  Your computer’s grammarian may suggest changes that are inappropriate for your style.  Equip yourself with a good set of dictionaries and grammar references and use them.  Then latch onto a good editor as if your life depended on it.  This may be one of your beta readers with professional experience, a pro that you pay for (if you are self-pubbed), or, if you are extraordinarily lucky, your editor at the publishing house that buys your manuscript who just happens to have time to edit your work.  In this day and age editors rarely have time to really edit manuscripts in detail.  Much of that is up to the author.  I still see way too many published novels with grammatical mistakes and diction errors that Spellcheck will not catch (“rein” in a horse; “reign” of a king, for example).

Some readers (and writers!) will argue that some of these things don’t matter, that it’s the story that counts.  I would counter that all of these things combine to make the story.  Without character, POV, pace, proper use of backstory and good use of language, there is no story, there is only an idea.  Lots of us have ideas—wonderful, creative ideas.  Very few of us are writers.  Readers can recognize the difference.

PING PONG

Laurie, you found some great things on the News Feed!  I particularly loved the “Five Things That Cost More than Space Exploration”.  We seem to have such skewed priorities in this world!  I missed ABOUT TIME.  Guess I’ll have to catch it on Netflix.  STARCROSSED has already been panned by reviewers as being dull as deck plating, but I’ll watch Colin Farrell in anything, even if it’s called THE LOBSTER. :-)

Pippa, this business has more ups and downs than the Dow Jones, and takes as much resilience, I think, as acting.  So, Keep Calm and Carry On, as the saying goes on your side of the pond.

Cheers, Donna

For Aspiring Authors - My First Mistake

It's confession time. When I first finished my debut novel Keir, I didn't have a clue about publishing. No, really! I was totally and utterly clueless. Faced with either sticking my MS in a drawer or doing something with it, I decided to look into publication. I didn't know where to start, so I looked up things on the internet.
And one of the very first things I did, and soon realized was a mistake, was request a brochure from a publishing company interested in all types of fiction and non-fiction.

Y'see, I'd never heard of vanity press (sometimes calling themselves subsidy publishers, but generally making out they are some kind of legitimate publisher like the Big 5 - they aren't!). Luckily, I recognised my mistake on receiving the brochure and having done some more research. A writing site had guided me toward the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, the must-have guide for aspiring authors in the UK (I was going to say at this point - get it! But I've seen via Writer Beware that vanity presses like Author Solutions are now being allowed to promote in this once great institution, so I will no longer recommend it. A damn shame. Use Preds & Eds instead). Go to Writer Beware and check out agents and publishers on the Preditor and Editor website too. But now that company had my phone number, and for several months after they persisted in ringing and emailing me, pushing for me to contact and submit to them. Eventually they quit it, and I've steered well clear of any since, being somewhat the wiser.

So when I woke at an annoying 4.30am one Tuesday morning to find an email from another vanity press in my inbox, I was livid. These parasites had discovered I'd registered my latest novel at the Library of Congress, and 'offered' to publish it for me (apparently this is now a regular occurence if you register a manuscript - check out this Writer Beware post here - that's exactly what I got, and luckily I knew exactly what kind of company they were). The bloody nerve of it! The email also said at the bottom that I'd agreed to receive their emails. No I didn't! I'd never contacted them at all.

I know how vanity presses work, and I'd heard about this one. So I knew to steer well clear (although the MS in question is already published, so they're way too late). But the email reminded me of those days when I knew nothing. What if I'd got that kind of email then? Full of self doubt and ignorance, I'd have been flattered to be approached by what looked like a bona fide publisher. I might have responded. And if I might have done, so might others.

Be wary of things like this. I don't want to preach to aspiring authors, but I certainly don't want anyone's publishing dreams to become nightmares with predators like these on the prowl. If they have free access to resources like the copyright office, they can contact anyone. So when you get emails like this, be suspicious. I always say research is one of those essentials for authors, new or experienced. Check the company out. Ask around. If, for whatever insane reason you decide a vanity press is the way you want to go, be clear on what you're paying for and what you're liable for. Their aim is to make themselves money, not the author. They won't care if you go into debt rather than profit. If you complain your book isn't doing well, chances are you'll just be offered another overpriced package of more or alternative marketing. And seriously, you're better off finding those services elsewhere and self publishing your work. Find a good editor, get a decent book cover, and go indie. Don't use a vanity press. I can even recommend some way better resources for you to use if you want me to. Find and join writing groups. Try the Kindle Boards or CritiqueCircle.com, or look for indie publishing/book groups on Facebook. Don't believe the claims or testimonials on the publisher's page - I always, always go by personal recommendations by people I trust - friends, fellow authors and work collegues.

Things to watch out for -
1. Someone contacts you out of the blue, offering to make you a published author, even when you haven't looked into becoming published.
2. No example or given terms for the contract you'll be offered.
3. The mention of promotional or publishing packages that you'll be 'offered'.
4. No online store of their own.
5. They will publish ANYTHING. What, even without seeing your MS? Plus most small presses focus on a main genre, like specualtive fiction or romance and its sub-genres. The Big 5 generally have separate imprints that focus on specific genres, and these often work as separate divisions.

There are other things to look out for, but I strongly recommend you go to the Writer Beware website and read up. Be careful out there.

Pippa's Journal

I am close to strangling my muse. After completing my Halloween story, I started work on a winter solstice story (inspired by one of the pre-made covers created by the talented Gayle Ramage here), only to then be distracted by an undead/zombie story. This is once more taking me from my scifi homeland into new and somewhat scary territory. Of course, it won't be a horror story - I'm not into frightening or gory - but at the moment, straying into new genres like this is both exciting and terrifying for me. Despite its zombie theme, this will not be horror. Although how exactly I can market a non-horror zombie story is a conundrum...

Happenings

Military SF writers: Apex is accepting submissions through Nov 31 for new anthology War Stories http://t.co/vQ8BOJ491q #scifi #writers

Brigader Kimber An has started a new book review site...and science fiction romance is one of the topics! The site officially launches on the 1st November, but you can check out her wish list of books here.

This week a digital format of my YA scifi Gethyon and a $10 gift card are up for grabs at Long and Short Reviews here. The giveaway ends on Friday. From next Monday, it's anti-bullying month, and for the whole of November I will be donating all royalties from the sales of Gethyon to Childline, a UK charity that provides support to children being bullied and abused. Since my MC is bullied at the start of the book, it seemed fitting, especially since my eldest child went through two years of being bullied at school.

Ping Pong

Laurie, loved the post on command presence. There are people who can walk into a room and speak in a soft voice who command more and instant respect than someone who marches in and shouts. Maybe I should try cultivating that attitude with my little monsters. :D

Donna, I've never read Card, and in light of recent revelations, I'm not sure I want to, or to see the film. Which is sad, but sometimes I can't close out the personal aspects of an author from their work. Hubs is planning to take our eldest boy to see it, and that's fine because I believe in letting them make their own choices. Will be interesting to hear what they make of it, and if that will change my mind.

PACKING A MORE POWERFUL PUNCH

Bruce Lee delivers a self-defense lesson

 Many of you know I’m a martial artist by training.  In fact, teaching karate and tai chi has become my official “day job” in recent years, as I have taken on more classes at three local YMCA’s, at Germanna Community College and at Heartfields Assisted Living Center here in Fredericksburg.

But not many people know I started my martial arts career out of a desire to make my writing better.  I took my first karate class more than twenty years ago because I wanted to put fight scenes in my STAR TREK fan fiction. (Really, you can’t write Jim Kirk without putting him a good fight scene!).  I realized pretty quickly that I knew next to nothing about how to choreograph those scenes for the reader.

It’s one thing to watch Jim Kirk (or Bruce Lee or Jason Stratham) kick butt over and over again on the movie or television screen and quite another to translate all that action into words that convey both the movements and the electricity of the scene.  Some writers want to describe the scene blow-by-blow, losing the emotional and energetic impact of what’s happening along the way. But too often, particularly in romance, the pendulum swings in the opposite direction, and the movements actually make no physical sense.  The hero flattens the villain with one punch, or the heroine improbably escapes the villain with a kick to the groin (the most overused device in self-defense—and fiction).

Of course, not all of us have martial arts training, but that’s no excuse for making assumptions in our writing.  Fight choreography should be treated like any other kind of research for your book.  In other words, if you don’t know from personal experience, make an effort to find out.

Recently, I was painfully reminded of this point while reading a RITA-nominated romance novel.  There was much to like about the novel—characters, setting, pace, plot and so on.  But in one scene, the writer failed so completely that I’m still shaking my head.  The heroine had been captured by the bad guys, and the hero came to save her.  She, being a spunky sort of gal, wanted to take part in her own defense, so she struggled against the big, ugly man who had hold of her from behind, his hands clasping both of her wrists.  Now, somehow, I don’t remember quite how, she had a knife in her hand.  She managed, despite this big man holding her, to reach over her shoulder and stab him in the eye, killing him.

Okay, as someone who actually teaches knife defense, I can tell you this would never happen.  Just try, right now, sitting comfortably in your easy chair at home, to reach up and over your shoulder with your closed fist.  (If you like, you may imagine you are holding a knife.)  What kind of strength do you have in this movement?  Now, imagine that someone much stronger is holding you by both wrists.  Think you could get that fist up there before he could move his head to the side?

I may be making a lot of this, but this kind of thought process is what you have to go through when you plot out a fight scene between your heroine or your hero and your villain.  Where is she standing?  Where is he standing?  How much strength would it take to do what you are suggesting?

It’s not easy to stick a knife in someone’s eye on a good day, much less in the way this author was suggesting.  If she’d had any self-defense training, she would have known that it would have been much easier for her heroine to slip slightly to one side and stab downward toward the villain’s groin or thigh with the knife.  Still deadly and plenty enough to get her out of that situation.

Most fights last only a few seconds, but few fighters can knock someone out with one punch.  When adrenaline is high, even trained fighters miss their targets, get their techniques blocked or fail to use enough power.  The best fighters—and the writers who choreograph their moves—are able to identify and exploit weaknesses in their opponents, to use the weapons at hand and to protect themselves.

So, if all those things are true, you can’t expect your hero to fight for ten pages in an empty room, to get hit multiple times in the head with a baseball bat and keep on fighting, or to swing and miss over and over again.  Yet you see these things happen in movies a lot and on the page even more.  At least in some romance novels, the paranormal heroes have superpowers.  But if you’re writing contemporary, romantic suspense, historical or SFR with a human at the helm, please consider reality.

An easy way to get a feel for the reality of self-defense is to take a class at your local parks and recreation department, police department or community college.  These are usually inexpensive and last a few weeks, but give you the basics of street defense.  From a writing point of view, they give you a sense of what is possible and not possible when working one-on-one.  There is really no substitute for physically trying some things yourself.

Going deeper, you can ask martial arts and self-defense instructors for help and suggestions in working out scenes.  (Really.  They’d be fascinated.)

Before you commit any words to paper, be sure the movements would work in real life.  Try doing them with a partner (without sharp objects, of course).  Chances are, if you can’t walk through them, no one would use them in a real situation.

Once you have the scene plotted out, the key to writing it is to use short sentences, lively action verbs and the fewer descriptors the better.  Paranormal and SFR author Angela Knight occasionally teaches online workshops through Romance Writers of America on writing better fight and battle scenes.  Watch for the next one and take advantage if you can.  I can’t recommend her workshops highly enough.

And if you’re ever in Fredericksburg, come see me.  I’ll be glad to teach you—or your heroine--how to throw a proper punch!

Cheers, Donna