tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13893271104716659492024-03-13T01:18:56.443-06:00LINDA SANDIFER, Award-winning AuthorLinda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-87042879822464104742020-02-27T14:58:00.003-07:002020-02-27T15:04:48.907-07:00The Inspiration for The Last Rodeo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNT55W1samK8MArph0A__-b1822TO1Cvyo2C5l1BRwiZe088H_vUVtvqdbw5TxTq5MDjCe8vNR_2bjAZsrtmXaOGaK12I9Oea0eUx7T3yo0v419hZ5kcwqmfRyzWDE3AspmTxp6VqN3M8/s1600/the-last-rodeo_sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="126" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNT55W1samK8MArph0A__-b1822TO1Cvyo2C5l1BRwiZe088H_vUVtvqdbw5TxTq5MDjCe8vNR_2bjAZsrtmXaOGaK12I9Oea0eUx7T3yo0v419hZ5kcwqmfRyzWDE3AspmTxp6VqN3M8/s200/the-last-rodeo_sm.jpg" width="128" /></a></div>
<i>The Story</i><br />
<br />
Dev Summers wants nothing more than to quit the grind of the rodeo and return to his grandfather’s Nevada ranch. At thirty-five, and battling serious injuries, his decision to retire from professional bull riding thrusts him into conflict with his freewheeling dad and brother . . . and into the arms of July Jones, a woman he dare not love.<br />
<br />
Running from a failed marriage and an empty life, July is searching for meaning to her existence. She seeks sanctuary at the ranch with Dev, her long-time friend and confidante. As she struggles with her own inner conflict and her growing desire to be more than Dev’s friend, she becomes the catalyst that sets his family on a course they did not seek, nor could have foreseen. But before their broken lives can mend, tragedy and a murderous plot will force them to face what they have become.<br />
<br />
<i>Behind the Story</i><br />
<br />
Interestingly enough, <i><b>The Last Rodeo</b></i> was one of the first books I ever endeavored to write. I can’t remember what single thing inspired it, only that I was in my early 20s at the time. It started out as a simple coming of age story about two brothers who lit out on their own, escaping a rundown ranch where their father’s alcoholism had made their lives miserable. They were only twelve and sixteen when they saddled their horses (their only means of transportation) and ended up on a neighboring Nevada ranch where they were taken in by a kindly rancher. From there, the oldest brother planned to take care of himself and his brother by becoming a bull rider. I couldn’t have known then that these two brothers would become larger than life and would remain so for many years to come.<br />
<br />
Over the course of the next several decades, <i><b>The Last Rodeo</b></i> mostly rested on the shelf, its characters waiting for me to write a dozen other books that were more marketable. But occasionally they called out to me from their shadowy corners to take up their story again. At last, I did, but by then I’d married, traveled the country, raised three daughters, ran a ranch with my husband, lost a parent, and become a grandparent. <br />
<br />
The brothers in my story, too, had become adults and experienced a good deal of life. The oldest brother had succeeded in becoming a world-famous bull rider but had reached the age where it was time to let it go. He had married, divorced, and had a teenage daughter who was mature beyond her years. He yearned for the love of a woman who was married to his biggest rival. The youngest brother was having his own life’s crisis by being forever in the shadow of his older, more successful brother. Their father clung to his own youthful fame as a bull rider, living off his sons’ careers and his Jack Daniels. Their mother had abandoned their father—and them—long ago to find a more stable life with another man. They had a grandfather who grounded them, an old widowed rancher who saw his life fading away, hoping that one of his grandsons would take over the Nevada ranch he’d spent his life building. <br />
<br />
The book now spanned four generations of people. Over the years, it was written, rewritten, and shelved many times. It grew, changed, and matured, as did the characters, and as did I as a person and a writer. After living with these characters for decades, it was fulfilling to complete their story at last, but it was sad to let them go. The only constant in their story, it seems, was that they were characters who had stood over my shoulders for years, patiently waiting for me to tell their story. How could I let them down? <br />
<br />
<i>Reviews</i><br />
<br />
“A unique and highly recommended piece of western fiction.” Midwest Book Review<br />
<br />
“Duty makes a difference in this tale . . . the apex of the story is one you’d never guess, making for some darn good storytelling.” Roundup Magazine<br />
<br />
“A powerful story that shows Sandifer’s intimate connection with the West.” Rod Miller, Cowboy Poet and Author<br />
<br />
“Great story-telling, a stunning sense of place . . . one of the finest and most authentic western novels to come along in ages.” Irene Bennett Brown, author of <i>Miss Royal’s Mules</i><br />
<br />
“<i><b>The Last Rodeo</b></i> brings the world of professional bull riders into sharp focus—the swagger, the glory, the danger, the pain—along with the pride and heartache of the women who love them.” Dee Marvine, author of <i>The Lady Rode Bucking Horses</i><br />
<br />
Purchase at <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=linda+sandifer&ref=nb_sb_noss" target="_blank">Amazon</a> and <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Linda+Sandifer?_requestid=2989896" target="_blank">Barnes & Noble</a><i> </i>Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-41474844922021320692020-02-27T14:44:00.001-07:002020-02-27T14:45:16.894-07:00The Inspiration for Came A Stranger<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiPTWNHOhMivyBiYIvVkl_ad5XIR35J4VSPFonRegLmLGg6zC6CYd1ku3WU4A17jbKKIU_fWy1IALYzHUUrXtHTrqHhYqU6FKg79LQm70Ro8N4LDkH1zg8HYUCVYtfUPkxGFb9-09HDMc/s1600/CameStranger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="713" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiPTWNHOhMivyBiYIvVkl_ad5XIR35J4VSPFonRegLmLGg6zC6CYd1ku3WU4A17jbKKIU_fWy1IALYzHUUrXtHTrqHhYqU6FKg79LQm70Ro8N4LDkH1zg8HYUCVYtfUPkxGFb9-09HDMc/s200/CameStranger.jpg" width="118" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paperback</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmJDBP5dHdqzPmBH7maSNhq_0ZS1beIyRdVAfRvPhIlQG4eW0qhiiLrJuqprgywoXFxOQbEkmVZqnSLGqwv6petoORX-rvC8uiI1VSF32cbl-YEKptG708K1mGJLqxM1WvAPY3xw__mt0/s1600/CAS_jpg_bookcover0004064-2019-06-17-15-57-04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmJDBP5dHdqzPmBH7maSNhq_0ZS1beIyRdVAfRvPhIlQG4eW0qhiiLrJuqprgywoXFxOQbEkmVZqnSLGqwv6petoORX-rvC8uiI1VSF32cbl-YEKptG708K1mGJLqxM1WvAPY3xw__mt0/s200/CAS_jpg_bookcover0004064-2019-06-17-15-57-04.jpg" width="125" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">eBook Cover</td></tr>
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<i>The Story</i><br />
<br />
Maggie Cayton had first come to Wyoming as a seventeen-year-old bride. Together, she and her husband fought impossible odds to build the White Raven Ranch from a wild, untamed land. Then, suddenly Trent was dead, killed by a bullet bought and paid for by Big Ben Tate, a wealthy rancher out to seize her land. Maggie hired Seth Sackett to safeguard her family and her home. But Seth had lived through a darkness no man should ever know, and he hid his bitter secret deep in his soul. His gun was his curse and his salvation. Now he would use it to fight a brutal range war and to protect the woman who made his heart ache with longing for the promise of a love he never dreamed could be his.<br />
<br />
<i>Behind the Story</i><br />
<br />
One of my favorite books to write, which also became a favorite of readers, might not have been written at all. I had wanted to set a book in Wyoming and wanted a female protagonist who was more mature. She came to life as Maggie Cayton, a widow with three children and an aging mother to take care of. Maggie needed help to protect the ranch as well as her family from Tate. The decision to turn to a hired gun wasn’t as easy as it might have seemed because Maggie’s late husband had been killed by a hired gun. Still, even though she hated who Seth Sackett was even before he rode onto her ranch, she knew he was a necessary evil.<br />
<br />
Maggie sprang to life easily enough, as did her children and mother, but Seth was another story. There was something in his past that I couldn’t find, and until I did, the book had come to a standstill. Then one day while my husband and I were traveling across Wyoming en route to somewhere else, I was doing some brainstorming. I had often found that traveling across our great country was the perfect time to let the muse take over. Who knows where ideas spring from, but I had my “ah-ha” moment when out of the blue I saw Seth take a Bible out of his saddlebag. The wall around him fell down. Here was a gunslinger who killed for a living but still read the Bible. A man who made people fear him but who, when alone, turned to God for redemption. Then the questions began to pour out. Why? What led him here? What were his failings? What were the ghosts he hid? Why had he turned to the gun? Not only did his past take shape, but also the notion that he was a tortured soul who believed he was not worthy of a normal life, and not worthy of the love of Maggie Cayton. <br />
<br />
The heart of <i><b>Came A Stranger</b></i> was born in that moment of revelation. The plot itself wasn’t a complicated one (wealthy rancher tries to take widow’s land) but it was the people—Seth, Maggie, her children, her mother—that made the book unique. It is common knowledge among writers that there aren’t many plot ideas out there, yet there are thousands of books using those few plots in different ways, different settings, and different eras. What truly makes a memorable story is not necessarily a plot that no one has ever read before, but rather characters, their pasts, their hopes and dreams, and their interactions with one another. These are the things that pull readers in and keep them reading. <br />
<br />
To my pleasure, Seth Sackett became one of my most beloved characters among readers. The book also won numerous awards in its publication year, including “Outstanding Hero” from Affaire de Coeur’s Readers Choice Awards, as well as finalist for Best Overall Historical and Best American Historical. You can purchase <i><b>Came A Stranger</b></i> from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=linda+sandifer&ref=nb_sb_noss" target="_blank">Amazon</a> and <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Linda+Sandifer?_requestid=2989896" target="_blank">Barnes & Noble</a>.Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-63492895810307995402020-02-27T10:00:00.002-07:002020-02-27T15:15:25.880-07:00The Inspiration for Raveled Ends of Sky<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaQe02x284eQ-Il2I4nr8zv1aVcjx_eWMurJ8k41nRuXhSmjSF5rFt0HSpcC9t1EfOQak4oYmzPXUNJPVALilwHpAwQWHSMHb50ibUxnzETpW-446YQgSr-tofbNFqah7xPXNPFuoMeVw/s1600/RaveledEnds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="808" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaQe02x284eQ-Il2I4nr8zv1aVcjx_eWMurJ8k41nRuXhSmjSF5rFt0HSpcC9t1EfOQak4oYmzPXUNJPVALilwHpAwQWHSMHb50ibUxnzETpW-446YQgSr-tofbNFqah7xPXNPFuoMeVw/s200/RaveledEnds.jpg" width="134" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hardcover/Paperback</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpkM9Q-vLbTw4Papokwdhf6GrPHRCEzcdAUooOVeQL2kh8lznaJfn-3f_9gSPelnCDNCjcDTxTdtJFKrT7tvfeis8p3azV3bl8MwW7TCzRqAFPEYtm7sJu0CasEziZwX0vLg6i1c9BdH0/s1600/AMAZON-RAVELED.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpkM9Q-vLbTw4Papokwdhf6GrPHRCEzcdAUooOVeQL2kh8lznaJfn-3f_9gSPelnCDNCjcDTxTdtJFKrT7tvfeis8p3azV3bl8MwW7TCzRqAFPEYtm7sJu0CasEziZwX0vLg6i1c9BdH0/s200/AMAZON-RAVELED.jpg" width="125" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">eBook Cover</td></tr>
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People often ask where we writers get our ideas. My inspiration for <i><b>Raveled Ends of Sky</b></i>,
an historical saga of an 1843 overland journey to California, came from
the diaries of many women who participated in the Westward movement.
The following is the book's Foreword, which might be of interest to
readers and history buffs. The book is also available as an eBook. <br />
<br />
FOREWORD<br />
<br />
The Westward
movement of the 1800s has seldom been portrayed in books and films from
the viewpoint of the unmarried woman. Even those stories written about
married women tend to lean toward the notion that women, in general,
undertook the overland journey because they had no choice, and that
every step of the way was a torturous affront to their delicate
sensibilities.<br />
<br />
In writing <i><b>Raveled Ends of Sky</b></i>,
I wanted to dispel that myth. I wanted to show that although there were
women who did not want to go West, there were just as many who took an
active part in the decision to do so. <br />
<br />
In 1849,
Catherine Haun wrote of her journey west with her husband: "It was a
period of National hard times and we being financially involved in our
business ... longed to go to the new El Dorado and ‘pick up’ gold enough
with which to return and pay off our debts.... Full of energy and
enthusiasm of youth, the prospects of so hazardous an undertaking had no
terror for us, indeed, as we had been married but a few months, it
appealed to us as a romantic wedding tour."<br />
<br />
In 1852,
Lydia Allen Rudd traveled to Oregon with her husband. In her words, "We
were leaving all signs of civilised life for the present. But with good
courage and not one sigh of regret I mounted my pony and rode slowly
on."<br />
<br />
<i><b>Raveled Ends of Sky</b></i> hinged, to a
large degree, on the motivations that drove my lead protagonist, Nancy
Maguire, and her widowed friend, Lottie England, to join the Joseph
Ballinger Chiles company in 1843. Chiles's company was only the second
wagon train ever to undertake the overland journey to the Mexican
province of California. The first wagon train to attempt the perilous
journey had been in 1841 and was unsuccessful. No wagon road existed
across the Great Basin or the mighty barrier of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains. The pioneers on that first journey were forced to abandon
their wagons at the Sierras and walk the remaining distance, weak with
starvation, to the California settlements on the coast. <br />
<br />
In
those early days, maps still did not exist, save those drawn on scraps
of paper, or etched into the soil by some trapper's stick as he squatted
near a fire before an anxious audience and tried to relate landmarks,
water holes, and possible mountain passes. Chiles, and a few of the men
who would be with him on his 1843 expedition to California, had made the
journey in 1841. They had returned by horseback to Missouri in 1842.
Although they still had not discovered the wagon road over the Sierras
during that first expedition, they at least had a better idea of the
best route south from Fort Hall and across the Great Basin. Finding a
wagon road was the one thing Chiles wanted to accomplish more than
anything.<br />
<br />
Historical records are not consistent, but
there appear to have been approximately six women and five children
traveling with the Chiles company, including two unmarried women. One
would automatically ask why those women agreed, or chose, to leave the
relative comfort and safety of their homes to undertake a perilous
journey to a foreign land where no wagon road had yet been discovered,
and where rumors of revolutions and wars passed over the land with the
regularity of the sun.<br />
<br />
It has been said that people
went West for three reasons: to get something, to get away from
something, and just to get there. A study of the Westward movement
reveals that men, at least, were usually motivated by financial
difficulties, health problems of a family member, free land, business
opportunities, or the call to be missionaries to the Indians. The
discovery of gold in California and other areas lured thousands. <br />
<br />
The
women's characterizations in this book were crucial to the story's
plausibility. "Gentle tamers" would not embark upon such a treacherous
journey without men to protect them. Instead, the story called for
highly independent women. Women who were driven by the desire for
adventure and freedom from the restrictions placed on them by Eastern
society. <br />
<br />
For a while I entertained the notion that a
single woman would have to be forced to embark upon such a dangerous
journey alone. She would have to be running from something–a disastrous
love affair, family problems, poverty, or scandal. But after numerous
excerpts from women's diaries of the overland journey, I seldom found
those things to be motivators for the women who journeyed westward, at
least in the beginning.<br />
<br />
Recently married
nineteen-year-old Miriam A. Thompson Tuller set out for Oregon in 1845.
"I was possessed with a spirit of adventure," she wrote, "and a desire
to see what was new and strange."<br />
<br />
Single woman
Elizabeth Wood, traveling to Oregon in 1851 said, "I have a great desire
to see Oregon ... the beautiful scenery of plain and mountains, and ...
the wild animals and the Indians, and natural curiosities in
abundance."<br />
<br />
Many books about the overland journey end
when that distant shore is reached, but the journey itself was only the
beginning for the emigrants. For those in this book, who journey to
California, getting settled in a foreign land where "gringos" were not
welcome was as much of a challenge as the journey itself. As Eliza
Gregson wrote of those difficult years before California became a
possession of the United States, "We few women were very uneasy about
this time for we did not [know] whether we were widows or not."<br />
<br />
The
reasons women went West were many and varied. But those unmarried women
who set out alone–possibly more so than those who went with the
protection of husbands and families–were possessed of the spirit of
adventure that was fundamental in opening and taming new lands. They
were stubborn and defiant, strong-willed and resourceful. They stepped
out bravely into the unknown, risking their lives for a dream they could
have no other way but by their own doing. <br />
<br />
In Nancy
Maguire and Lottie England I have tried to portray two single women who
exemplified the courageous indomitability of the whole. Women who had
nothing to lose by going West, and everything to gain. Women who
possessed the tenacity and the fortitude to blaze the trails upon which
an entire nation would follow.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=linda+sandifer&ref=nb_sb_noss" target="_blank">Purchase From Amazon</a><br />
Purchase From <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Linda+Sandifer?_requestid=2989896" target="_blank">Barnes & Noble </a>Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-32790873735886597912020-02-27T09:53:00.000-07:002020-02-27T15:14:19.516-07:00The Inspiration for The Turquoise Sun<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglD9XnazQtaPBDWZC-5gv_u2HeHKvGiaQhyaZAfjsh_c4CzP7Gju2QCDrigfQiO4V8A-4MYowmbxCAecsMxycCwM0ez3N-6dHO2QsW0IQeu9pj9g9NY4nxinT60pt5l-EUGRJFSGo9kIA/s1600/TurquoiseSun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="725" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglD9XnazQtaPBDWZC-5gv_u2HeHKvGiaQhyaZAfjsh_c4CzP7Gju2QCDrigfQiO4V8A-4MYowmbxCAecsMxycCwM0ez3N-6dHO2QsW0IQeu9pj9g9NY4nxinT60pt5l-EUGRJFSGo9kIA/s200/TurquoiseSun.jpg" width="120" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paperback Cover</td></tr>
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<i>The Story</i><br />
<br />
While excavating the primeval cliff dwellings of the long-vanished
Anasazi tribe, 19th-century archaeologist Tanya Darrow and rival
archaeologist, Keane Trevalyan, find a hidden passageway that sweeps
them back in time to the 13th century. Trapped in the untamed splendor
of the primitive past, and worshipped as gods by the ancient cliff
dwellers, Tanya and Keane are drawn into a lively battle of wit and
will, of love and war, and the realization that their destinies have
always been linked by one thing ... <b><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Turquoise-Sun-Linda-Sandifer-ebook/dp/B00H4FLVPW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386451977&sr=1-1&keywords=linda+sandifer">The Turquoise Sun</a></i></b>. <br />
<br />
<i>Behind the Story</i><br />
<br />
Shortly
after the Spaniards arrived in the American Southwest, explorers
reported the discovery of ancient ruins belonging to a lost civilization
in southwestern Colorado.<br />
<br />
The first report to gain
public notice came after an important discovery by two cowboys in
December, 1888. While out searching for stray cattle, Richard Wetherill
and Charlie Mason stumbled upon the largest ruin which they named Cliff
Palace.<br />
<br />
The Smithsonian Institution and other museums
had been sponsoring expeditions into the Southwest since the 1880s. With
the discovery of Cliff Palace, the interest shifted to Mesa Verde. Both
official and unofficial excavating was conducted in the area until Mesa
Verde National Park was established in 1906.<br />
<br />
Many
people have theorized on the disappearance of the Anasazi. When I read
the history of the Hopi Indians, however, I felt that the question had
been satisfactorily addressed by their historians. I chose to use their
creation myths, legends, and some of their religious beliefs to provide
the basis for this story about the Anasazi.<br />
<br />
Studies
also reveal that the Anasazi gradually abandoned the cliff dwellings
during the same time-frame that the Aztecs, or Aztlans, rose to power in
Mexico. Some scholars believe that the Aztecs (whom history records as
having come from caves in the north) might have been descendants of
those Anasazi who left the hard life in the San Juan River region for
the easier life in the tropics.<br />
<br />
When I think back to
what sparked my initial interest in the Anasazi Indians, I would have to
say it started with a hurried trip to Mesa Verde around 1979. It was
the first time I’d seen the ruins, and I had never heard of them before
this visit. Some ten years later, I read Louis L’Amour’s book, <i>The Haunted Mesa</i>,
and it renewed my interest in the mysterious cliff dwellers. Like all
writers, it only takes one seed to grow a forest. The next thing I knew,
I was up to my ears in some very compelling research, which required
that I return to the cliff dwellings around 1992 for more in-depth
study. On that trip, with our three children, we visited Mesa Verde in
southwestern Colorado, and Betatakin and White House Ruins in Arizona.
These places inspired both <i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Turquoise-Sun-Linda-Sandifer-ebook/dp/B00H4FLVPW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386452322&sr=1-1&keywords=linda+sandifer">The Turquoise Sun</a> </b></i>and<i> <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Firelight-Linda-Sandifer/dp/0821757652/ref=sr_1_16?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386452349&sr=1-16&keywords=linda+sandifer">Firelight</a></b>.</i><b><br /> </b><br />
One
of the strongest memories I have was of an old Indian man we passed on
the steep, twisting path leading down to the Betatakin ruins. When we
looked back, just a moment later, the old Indian was gone–nowhere to be
seen on the path above us, leading out of the canyon. It was only a
brief passing, eye contact, and exchanged smiles but it had a lasting
impression. We joked at the time that maybe he was a ghost of the Old
Ones said to linger in the dusty ruins. From him was born the loveable
and slightly eccentric shaman in my book, Ten-Moon, who believes it was
his power that brought the hero and heroine across time. <br />
<br />
When
you stand in the ruins with the massive rock all around you, it is
indeed easy to imagine that the stone dwellings have retained the
imprint of those who lived there. When you go into the kivas and the
small rooms where they lived, you can almost feel their presence. If you
listen closely, you'll hear the wind whispering through ruins like the
voices of those who went before. And one of the voices might even belong
to the Old Indian who smiles at tourists on the path to Betatakin...<br />
<br />
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Purchase from <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Linda+Sandifer?_requestid=2989896" target="_blank">Barnes & Noble</a>Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-86830877291189502412020-02-27T09:50:00.001-07:002020-02-27T16:24:37.765-07:00The Inspiration for Hattie's Cowboy<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvHJPGCzQJ71u7_Npk_ReaCIwUHglL7WD77cjMiRDypkKy0E__78iusPzfe9h5uNkzZVmcVfN5UuH3kLcY-iTvpd8psSkGAX-ZG9jamsAI2rInhhs40MMq7AUHwV0NBqbuuKJq1POEpQw/s1600/COVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvHJPGCzQJ71u7_Npk_ReaCIwUHglL7WD77cjMiRDypkKy0E__78iusPzfe9h5uNkzZVmcVfN5UuH3kLcY-iTvpd8psSkGAX-ZG9jamsAI2rInhhs40MMq7AUHwV0NBqbuuKJq1POEpQw/s200/COVER.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">eBook Cover</td></tr>
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<i>The Story</i><br />
<br />
She didn’t want a husband. He didn’t want a wife. They had the perfect relationship ... until love came calling.<br />
<br />
Hattie
Peyton Longmore hasn’t had much of a future since her selfish husband
divorced her and set her out in the streets of San Francisco. Struggling
to keep a roof over her head, she jumps at the chance to move to her
brother’s Idaho ranch to help him raise his motherless daughter. But
when Hattie arrives, it isn’t her brother who greets her, but his best
friend, Jim Rider, with the news of her brother’s murder. She longs for
strong arms to comfort and shelter her in this strange, lonely land, and
the handsome cowboy is more than eager to comply. She doesn’t have to
worry about a rake like him wanting to marry. With him, she’s safe. With
him, she’ll never have to disclose her greatest failure as a woman. <br />
<br />
Jim
Rider has always been wild and free, but his best friend’s pretty
sister might just be worth sticking around for, at least for a
short-term love affair. Besides, he needs to find Billy’s killers—and he
wouldn’t dream of leaving Hattie out in this empty land alone until she
can find some hired help, or a husband. The latter shouldn’t be too
hard since every available male within traveling distance winds up on
her doorstep, something that soon rubs him about as raw as a burr under
the collar. It comes as a bit of a shock to his freewheeling mind-set
when he realizes he doesn’t want anybody in her bed except him, and
he’ll do whatever it takes to prevent it ... even if it means marrying
her himself!<br />
<br />
<i>Behind the Story</i> <br />
<br />
<i>"Wherever men have lived, there is a story to be told."</i> Henry David Thoreau<br />
<br />
As
a writer and student of history, this is one of my favorite quotes. You
can look at any place and there will be history there. There will be
people who have passed through a place, or by a place, or who have been
affected by a place, if for no other reason than to avoid its harshness,
to fear it for some reason, or to bury a loved one on their way to
another destination. Even that lone marker left in the wilderness will
carry with it somebody's story.<br />
<br />
I chose to set one of my books, <i><b>Hattie’s Cowboy</b></i>*,
in my own back yard, literally, because there was a story here to be
told. Numerous stories, as a matter of fact. There was, first and
foremost, the story of my own people who settled this region in 1915,
and my own life spent here following in my grandfather’s and father’s
footsteps, farming and raising cattle with my husband. My grandfather
started out raising sheep; it was big business in Idaho in those days.
It was my father and uncle who, in the 40s, shifted gears into raising
cattle because my dad, for one, hated sheep. He spent years working all
over the west shearing them in the spring, but he didn’t raise them. His
dislike for the little woollies was something I had some fun with in
the book. My hero, Jim Rider, a died-in-the-wool cowboy, would rather die than be caught owning range maggots (sheep), an
issue that nearly makes him ride off and leave the love of his life,
Hattie Peyton, to tend her own darn sheep!<br />
<br />
Besides the
ranchers and farmers who settled the area, I also wanted to include
others in my story: the Indians, the miners, the soldiers, and the
outlaws. The latter found this untamed area ripe for the picking. They
would lay in wait along Idaho’s Gold Road for gold shipments coming out
of the mines in Virginia City, Montana, headed to Salt Lake City.
Another road, one that ran right past my heroine’s ranch, also had
historical value. It was known as the Salt Road, a winding passage
through the mountains of southeastern Idaho that began near the Oneida
Salt Works on the Idaho/Wyoming border and joined the Gold Road at Eagle
Rock (now Idaho Falls). Not only did three hundred teams of oxen
continually haul their precious white cargo over the Salt Road, but it
was also traversed by soldiers, Indians, gold seekers, and emigrants.<br />
<br />
Many
might pass through this area where my ancestors took root a hundred
years ago, and they might see nothing but wide open country dotted with
farms and rangeland and mountains. They won’t see historical sites along
the road for famous or infamous characters. It was common people who
left their mark on this land. Sadly, common people seldom go down in
history, but their stories, their struggles, are often more interesting
than those of the notorious characters who fill the history books. Often
the very nature of their mundane lives makes them easy to relate to.
Why? Because we can see ourselves in their daily struggles. Because the
human condition always focuses on the basic needs and emotions of all
people, of their struggle to make a living and provide a home for
themselves and their families, of their desire for love, success, and
perhaps even power. <br />
<br />
Hattie and her cowboy are
fictitious characters, but they represent the real people who settled
this part of the world. They represent my people. I hope as you read
their fun, lighthearted story set in a hard, unforgiving land, that
they’ll make you laugh, cry, and love every minute of their story. And
perhaps, in the end, they'll become very real people to you, too. It's
the most a writer can hope for.<br />
------------<br />
*Available for <a href="http://tinyurl.com/qbfk6ro">Kindle</a> and <a href="http://tinyurl.com/qjdlcgm">Nook</a>. <i><b>Hattie's Cowboy</b></i>, was originally published by Zebra Books as <a href="http://tinyurl.com/o9vzsb8"><i>Mountain Ecstasy</i></a>. The paperback is still available under that title. Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-48175546056293056972020-02-27T09:47:00.001-07:002020-02-27T15:45:24.395-07:00The Inspiration for Firelight<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4jyM_ty0mr1QRn6lOugUt4xSljtlP2IS0_TEFHbImEB0UmjUAV2bkrjbjk0zrmSRnOKMPSyK9lcMye8OngdmW0u0laQ4ft-kFyRfWixlryj0etyafOfFA4eLaAKG6z6eQ852PMQcdnK4/s1600/Firelight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="719" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4jyM_ty0mr1QRn6lOugUt4xSljtlP2IS0_TEFHbImEB0UmjUAV2bkrjbjk0zrmSRnOKMPSyK9lcMye8OngdmW0u0laQ4ft-kFyRfWixlryj0etyafOfFA4eLaAKG6z6eQ852PMQcdnK4/s200/Firelight.jpg" width="119" /></a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTq-iDD3ytEwmAMhiJQqQUvSAgt3LL0L_GwQW1DCRBYLAkfm4i_8rq4B2pAKYhT-QnyB3hKbBjKsj6RdPNFQ0JVbhRCsRNSLo-42csnMc0ff5QMM0xKpl6lPaXvZBLEiFES9AWvyXcLCE/s1600/firelight_bn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTq-iDD3ytEwmAMhiJQqQUvSAgt3LL0L_GwQW1DCRBYLAkfm4i_8rq4B2pAKYhT-QnyB3hKbBjKsj6RdPNFQ0JVbhRCsRNSLo-42csnMc0ff5QMM0xKpl6lPaXvZBLEiFES9AWvyXcLCE/s1600/firelight_bn.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">eBook Cover</td></tr>
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<i>The Story</i><br />
<br />
From the moment Phoenix Shappell
sees the fiery red stallion on the cliffs overlooking Arizona’s Canyon
de Chelly, she knows it’s the supernatural Fire Horse of her dreams –
her guardian spirit. But while the wild and spirited Navajo woman sets
out to capture the elusive stallion, she is thwarted by headstrong
rancher Rafe Cutrell, who believes the horse is a killer and wants only
to destroy it.<br />
<br />
The powerful attraction between Rafe and
Phoenix is held in check by divided heritage and an inexplicable
distrust of each other. Their meeting sets into motion a journey to find
the red stallion, as well as answers to what appears to be a previous
life they shared that ended tragically. While enemies plot to kill them,
Phoenix and Rafe must search their hearts–and their souls–as they
follow the mysterious stallion across the mesas, and across time, to
their new destiny. Set in the late 1800s.<br />
<br />
<i>Behind the Story</i><br />
<br />
It all started with a huge box of <i>Frontier Times</i>
magazines given to me by a friend of my husband. He knew I wrote
westerns and thought I might find something of value in the old
magazines. Indeed I did. I found two separate articles, one from a 1967
issue about a chindi (an evil spirit), and the other from a 1973 issue
about a chindi that rode a “spirit horse.” <br />
<br />
In the
first article, a Navajo family in 1825 had hired a powerful but blind
medicine man to perform a three-day sing on a member of the family, whom
they believed was tormented by the spirit of a dead enemy. They were
supposed to pay the medicine man with five butchered sheep, but because
they didn’t want to part with their sheep, they decided to give him the
meat of five antelope, believing he would never notice the difference. <br />
<br />
Within
weeks, however, members of the family began to die, and it came to
light that the medicine man had indeed noticed the difference and had
put a curse on the family. They went to him to make amends, and he
agreed he would remove the chindi for a price, but he wanted some time
to think about what that price would be. The family members returned in
ten days to find, to their horror, that he had died without removing the
curse.<br />
<br />
The immediate family, as well as the extended
family, saw their members growing sick, wasting away, and dying
mysteriously. When white man’s medicine arrived in the Navajo country,
they sought aid, but these doctors could find no disease, inherited or
otherwise, that could be attributed to the family’s troubles.<br />
<br />
People
knowledgeable in the Navajo religion believed that the chindi would
follow the family until every last member died. There were a hundred
members in the extended family in 1825 when the curse was placed, and by
1928 only one member remained, a young girl being cared for by friends.
This family tried desperately to keep her alive, fleeing every time
they believed the chindi had found them. But it was no use. On a cold,
snowy night, the young girl met the same fate as those family members
who had gone before.<br />
<br />
In the second article dated 1973,
the Navajo people in one region believed that a chindi rode the back of a
wild palomino stallion. Any time he and his wild band were near, the
people huddled in fear, believing that the devil rode the back of the
“spirit horse” and that someone would die before morning. And someone
usually did. <br />
<br />
But the Navajo people had not always
lived in fear of the magnificent animal. When the stallion first escaped
its owner and fled into the wild, many tried to catch him. But their
attempts to tame him were futile. He turned savage. When the rope
settled over him, he screamed, bucked, kicked, and broke through
barriers until he was free again. Efforts continued until someone did
indeed capture him and manage to get on his back. But the stallion
immediately threw him to the ground, then, enraged it turned on the man
and crushed his body with his forefeet. This time no one went after the
horse. There was no doubt that he was possessed by an evil spirit. <br />
<br />
As
the superstition around the stallion grew, he continued to roam the
region, stealing mares and making runs through villages. No Navajo dared
shoot him because they were afraid the chindi would retaliate. They
tried to get white men to kill him. They even tried to kill the man
whose mare had foaled the devil horse. People were so afraid that when
they heard the horse “running with the wind” in the night, they loaded
their belongings and fled before the chindi could catch them. <br />
<br />
They
finally convinced a white man to kill the horse. But when the stallion
came into his gun sights, the man could not bring himself to pull the
trigger on such a magnificent creature. He fired several times, but
purposefully missed. <br />
<br />
The horse disappeared after that,
and the Navajo in the area thought the white man’s bullets had surely
killed the stallion. But the white man knew better. He believed the
horse was bound to surface again, so he went looking for him. He was
relieved to find the stallion grazing on a distant range. Then, a month
later, the horse’s body was found by a rancher. Someone had hung the dry
carcass on a fence where everyone could see it. The white man believed
the horse must have died from a disease, or perhaps poison, and no one
else came forward taking credit for the horse’s death. <br />
<br />
There’s
nothing more alluring than a wild stallion, roaming free with his
mares. Such a sight has always stirred the blood and the imagination,
and in the case of these stories, clearly the fear and superstition of
some. As my reincarnation story came together, I decided that my
stallion would not be a killer or an evil spirit; he would be a guardian
spirit whose purpose was to reunite two people whose previous lives
together had ended in tragedy. His purpose would be to give them another
chance at love. And so was born <i><b>Firelight</b></i>.<br />
<br />
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Purchase from <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Linda+Sandifer?_requestid=2989896" target="_blank">Barnes & Noble </a>Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-59285451852771979202020-02-27T09:41:00.001-07:002020-02-28T14:04:08.157-07:00The Inspiration for Desire's Treasure<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPOXlr79-Fxrp3IzYBj33otuKloQ9XccuXsLbpbEdClzFV4WJstVmdbN8MDUGMPNamxa7Z0yLhI0hN5xA7P8RbJa_NRro1Cys_dbkFnHXaExSXjTzeMKomJlqXU8aiE8ICalMS84riKZE/s1600/DesiresTreasure2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1354" data-original-width="841" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPOXlr79-Fxrp3IzYBj33otuKloQ9XccuXsLbpbEdClzFV4WJstVmdbN8MDUGMPNamxa7Z0yLhI0hN5xA7P8RbJa_NRro1Cys_dbkFnHXaExSXjTzeMKomJlqXU8aiE8ICalMS84riKZE/s200/DesiresTreasure2.jpg" width="123" /></a></td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Story</span></span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Paris McKenna had her father's treasure map concealed in her saddlebag and her beauty hidden beneath a nun's habit. Lawless Arizona territory was no place for a young woman alone, and desperate men would kill for the lost riches she'd come to find. What she needed was a guide who could stand up to any outlaw. What she got was dangerously attractive bounty hunter Nate Brannigan.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nate didn't have a job when the pretty nun stepped into the cantina with her proposal. Despite the fact that he had some unholy thoughts about "Sister Frances" he took the job to guide her into the Sonoran Desert on her quest to find the lost Mission of Santa Isabel, which he was positive didn't exist. That is until he discovered who she really was . . . and until he discovered that the treasure was cursed and sought after by every varmint west of Texas. But he couldn't stop her, shoot her, or resist her as they discovered a different kind of treasure in the wild, untamed territory of their hearts. <br /><i> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpbZ6hbFzXNKb7WtW3bCtGBnp5GTNaLd6lJShrd8CT65DyAUM-LfN-_hpgnVK-HPl6K7_5AkgHgQMPEoES4SG6miGSAHexot9fATNInSE5Rb8iA0bHZITUisMgW3220e0f7pzj5tM1D5Y/s1600/Desires-cover-nook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1143" data-original-width="750" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpbZ6hbFzXNKb7WtW3bCtGBnp5GTNaLd6lJShrd8CT65DyAUM-LfN-_hpgnVK-HPl6K7_5AkgHgQMPEoES4SG6miGSAHexot9fATNInSE5Rb8iA0bHZITUisMgW3220e0f7pzj5tM1D5Y/s200/Desires-cover-nook.jpg" width="130" /></a></td></tr>
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</i></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Behind the Story</i><br /> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Some of the best discoveries are those you stumble onto quite by accident. Such was the story of the lost Mission of Santa Isabel and the eerie legend that lives on in the American Southwest. It is a region rife with mysteries, ghosts, witches, lost gold mines, and all manner of things that can give you a chill even in the heat of the desert. The legend has been passed down for generations and is a common tale around campfires. Many stories are told of people who have mysteriously died while searching for the mission and the treasure purported to be hidden within its adobe walls. While the legend has placed the mission in many locations from California to Arizona to New Mexico, its favorite location seems to be in the Sonoran desert, and it is always hidden deep in a mountain canyon.<br /> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Many missions were built in New Spain by the Jesuits in the 16th century. Around 1687, Father Eusebio Francisco Kino lived in the region known as Pimería Alta (present-day Sonoran Desert), founding over twenty missions. But in the mid-eighteenth century, the king of Spain became worried about the power the Jesuits wielded in New Spain, and he sent out an order to expel them from the country. They would be replaced by Franciscan priests, considered to be more manageable.<br /> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Jesuits had accumulated incredible amounts of treasure: golden candlesticks, vessels, altars, jewels, and bags of gold and silver coins. They were afraid they’d have to hand it over to the king, so some of Jesuits along the western coast of Mexico, gathered fifty loyal Yaqui Indians to help them remove the treasure from dozens of churches and move it inland to its destination–the remote Mission of Santa Isabel. They believed it would be a temporary hiding place and that they would eventually be able to return to reclaim it. When the task was completed, they played on the superstitious nature of the Indians by placing a curse on the treasure to keep them quiet and keep them from taking it for themselves. It is said that El Maldeción de Isabel–Isabel’s curse–still strikes terror in the hearts of the Yaqui Indians.<br /> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As far as the legend goes, there are indeed some who have stumbled onto the lost mission, but they have never lived long enough to pocket her treasure, or to tell the tale twice.<br /> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Reviews<br /> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"A plot bursting with action and adventure combines with Sandifer's wonderful characterizations into a splendid read. <i>Desire's Treasure</i> deserves a cherished place on your bookshelf." Affaire de Coeur<br /> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"A sensual, rousing adventure. Sandifer knows exactly what it takes to tantalize and please readers." Romantic Times<br /> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"This novel as it all--a witty, wild battle of the sexes, buried treasure, curses, and sexual tension that singes the pages. Definitely one to be enjoyed again and again." Rendezvous<br /> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"<i>Desire's Treasure</i> is the best western I've read this year! Funny, suspenseful and sensual, this book has it all!" Rawhide & Lace</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=linda+sandifer&ref=nb_sb_noss" target="_blank">Purchase from Amazon</a><br />
Purchase from <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Linda+Sandifer?_requestid=2989896" target="_blank">Barnes & Noble </a>Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-44632273879558547202014-08-30T09:22:00.003-06:002014-08-30T09:22:57.849-06:00A Chat With Linda SandiferMy local writers group is conducting a chat with each of its members. To see the members' interviews to date, you can go to <a href="http://bluesagewriters.blogspot.com/">Blue Sage Writers of Idaho</a>. To see my interview go to <a href="http://bluesagewriters.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-chat-with-linda-sandifer.html">A Chat With Linda Sandifer</a>. <br />
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<br />Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-50964542497728040522013-10-24T15:14:00.000-06:002013-10-24T18:19:35.792-06:00Myths, Legends, and Lies (Part III)<i>Fiction's Fine Line of Truth</i><br />
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As a writer of Western tales, your story is only one fraction of the whole, and it should be perceived within itself as a believable part of the whole. The writer of Western fiction–or any fiction that deals with history–should remember first and foremost that he is writing for the audience of his time. The writer is always dealing with current knowledge and sensitivity acquired through hindsight and through history itself, not necessarily knowledge and sensitivity of those who lived a hundred or two hundred years ago.<br />
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The reality of the Old West has never changed, only the ongoing contemporary perspective of it. A study of movies and books will reveal that the plots reflect the opinions and attitudes of society at the time the work was written. You can, and should, read old journals and diaries, but if you try to write true to how the people of that era felt and believed, you’ll find yourself in hot water. We live in a world where political correctness rules, so even if you want to be one hundred percent historically accurate, you can’t be. There are things written just twenty or thirty years ago that are no longer accepted today. A secondary character, who might end up being the villain or an insensitive bloke, can say or think what was completely true of the time, but your hero or heroine had better follow the PC of today’s world or you’ll hear about it from readers. That is, if it gets past an agent and editor first!<br />
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The writer of Western fiction not only has to be politically correct, but he needs to study extensively and continually the genre for which he wants to write, or for which he does write. What he writes today will be influenced by certain formulaic demands that may have very little to do with what actually took place in the West. And ten years from now, or twenty, those demands will likely change again.<br />
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The old dime novels, as well as current literature of the West, fall into what is termed, "romantic fiction." By definition, romantic fiction is escapist literature and depends on exaggeration to obtain the desired effect. Romantic fiction is very well suited to the image of the legendary West. Readers have demanded, namely, that the protagonist has a definite problem to solve, sets about solving it through heroic means, meets plenty of villains and obstacles along the way, and in the end successfully fulfills his original objective. A couple of books that go into greater detail about the structure of romantic fiction are, <b>The Writer’s Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers</b>, by Christopher Vogler, and <b>The Hero’s Journey</b>, by Joseph Campbell.<br />
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The West is the mythical land of the American people and continues to fascinate not just Americans, but people all over the world. For all its romance, though, today's reader won't accept implausibility and historical ignorance or inaccuracy. Nor do they want to be cheated of their romantic notions of the place, the people, the era. They want that which they <i>perceive</i> was real (the myth), and that which <i>was</i> real (the truth). You, the writer, have to walk the fine line and give them both. Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-58639015572420998822013-10-17T16:17:00.000-06:002013-10-24T14:06:01.191-06:00Myths, Legends, and Lies (Part II)<i>How the Legends Began</i><br />
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Dime novelists of the late nineteenth century can be given the credit–or the blame–for starting the Western myth, and readers ever since have demanded it, so writers ever since have perpetuated it. While the West was being settled, the East was also undergoing changes, facing financial crisis, incurable diseases, and deadly illnesses. People in the East saw the West as something new and exciting, an unknown. And because it was an unknown, they could make of it what they wanted. They heard stories, and they allowed those stories to grow with each telling. Writers picked up the stories and put them in print. In the fantasy world of the West, the hero always emerged as the victor, and the villain always met a proper and satisfying end in accordance to his crime.<br />
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From the early 1800s on, the West easily embodied all the elements for the mythological land of one’s imagination. With its vast spaces and stunning landscapes, its danger and adversity, its colorful heroes and heroines soon became symbolic of morality, courage, loyalty, generosity, strength, and good prevailing over evil. Through a deluge of "escapist fiction," the West was heralded as a place of excitement, a place free from the devastating truths of reality, of financial desperation, daily drudgery, and oftentimes sheer hopelessness. It was a place of new beginnings, a place where anybody could do anything he or she wanted to do with few restrictions. A person could even take on a new identity if he wanted to. No wonder dime novelists had a hey-day with their fictional characters, and no wonder the Eastern public gobbled it up like home-made apple pie.<br />
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But the romance of the West was not sheer fantasy created by dime novelists; they got their sensational ideas from true exploits performed by real people. Heroes, in any country and in any time, are created from events and circumstances that force people to engage in heroic deeds and superhuman feats for the mere sake of survival. Think of King Arthur, William Wallace (Braveheart), and Joan of Arc–just to name a few. In American legend, recall the astonishing story of a mountain man named John Johnston, who became known as “Crowkiller,” and “Liver-eating Johnson,” and later became known to us as Jeremiah Johnson in the movie of the same name starring Robert Redford. The truth of what John Johnston did has been largely lost to legend, among both the whites and the Indians, but the legend started because he did something so astonishing that it became a topic of conversation around the campfires of the mountain men, the Crow Indians, and the Blackfeet Indians. Soon writers took the stories, added and subtracted from them to suit their individual purposes, and the legend grew until fact and fiction became hopelessly entangled. Such is the nature of all legends.<br />
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So how do you, as a writer of the West–or any other historical era–separate the myths from the lies? The facts from the fiction? And <i>should</i> you? Join me next week for Part III, "Fiction's Fine Line of Truth."Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-20209311342962526832013-10-11T18:04:00.000-06:002013-10-24T14:06:19.865-06:00Myths, Legends, and Lies (Part I )<i>The Old West</i>.<br />
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Those three words immediately bring to mind images of cowboys and ranchers on big spreads; Indians chasing buffalo on the Great Plains; pioneers in covered wagons seeking a better life; trappers and miners reaping their fortunes in furs and gold; gamblers and prostitutes in lawless towns; robber barons connecting the East and West with the Iron Horse; outlaws reaping what they sowed; and indomitable men and women engaged in superhuman feats against Mother Nature to put food on the table. The scenes one could conjure are endless.<br />
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Increasingly, however, we hear new historians–revisionists–declaring that over the decades of the twentieth century, writers of both Western fiction and nonfiction have consistently portrayed the West, its romance, and its people inaccurately, creating a myth–a legendary lie. These revisionists tell us there was nothing romantic about it to warrant our pride or capture our imaginations. They seem to want to make us see only the bad parts of history and none of the good. In short, they want to dismantle our heritage and take away our heroes. <br />
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But just how much of this so-called fantasy is actually reality, and how much is only based on reality? Why did the Old West become legendary in the first place? And how should those of us who write about the West, deal with this alleged myth and revisionist history?<br />
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History is based on the particular view taken by the person who recorded it, and therefore it is subject to that person’s interpretation, his perception, and possibly even the role he took in the event. Oftentimes, first-hand accounts of events are reshaped, even expanded to larger-than-life proportions if the writer wanted to make himself look good, or heroic. And, as time goes by, <i>history is almost always rewritten to conform with changing attitudes and opinions</i>. <br />
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When we study history, and begin to read conflicting reports, it becomes clear that what we read might not be absolute truth, either from old sources or new. But just as historical events are never one hundred percent true, neither are myths and legends entirely fictitious. There are many, many layers to lift and set aside. Historians–and writers–should keep an open mind and study each layer carefully and from all perspectives to get the full picture of any given event. There are, after all, always two perspectives to every story. Sometimes even dozens.<br />
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One would naturally ask why the West and its people developed to such legendary proportions in the first place, even before the door had been closed on the era, and even before the people who made the legends had died. Join me next week for Part II: "How the Legends Began."Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-38996604709895632432013-09-26T16:58:00.001-06:002013-09-27T17:14:49.141-06:00The Peacemaker and Samuel Colt<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“God did not make all men equal, Colonel Colt did.”<br />
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A favorite quote of Westerners.<br />
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Samuel Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1814. He developed the first successful repeating pistol, or revolver. Around 1836, he opened Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company in Hartford. His weapons were used during the Mexican War and the Civil War. He died in 1862, a decade before his company developed the reliable and most famous Peacemaker in 1873. Over 350,000 of them were produced and the “six-shooters” his company made became famous throughout the West. <br />
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<i>Image courtesy of Pong at <a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/" target="_blank">FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></i>Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-28045429518122403042013-05-25T17:29:00.000-06:002013-09-26T17:18:03.434-06:00What Do Readers & Authors Want From Each Other?Things have changed a lot in the publishing industry since my first book was published many years ago. In those days, the author wrote a book and sent it off to a publisher (via an old-fashioned mail box). Many publishers, even the big ones, didn’t require an agent. I sold my first three books to Avon without an agent. There were a lot more publishers back then, too, so the odds of getting published were better. Once you got accepted, the publisher bought your book and they handled everything, including the promotion and publicity. They made sure your book was distributed to bookstores around the country. Authors were really only expected to do booksignings and appear (or speak) at conferences. If they were a big name, the publisher financed a book tour. Authors might appear on radio and TV shows if they felt comfortable with it. Believe it or not, but many publishers wanted authors to coordinate with them on all promotional plans. They didn’t want us “going rogue.” I guess they didn’t want authors to do something stupid or tacky that would hinder their sales or make them and the publisher look unprofessional. The author did a few weeks of this “face time” with the readers and then he/she went home, wrote another book, and answered fan mail.<br />
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Fast forward to 2013. Authors are expected to do ALL their publicity. They are not only expected to have a website but they’re expected to have thousands and thousands of followers on Twitter and Facebook, and they are expected to have an entertaining blog with hundreds of followers. Some agents and editors won’t even consider an author’s work if they don’t see these “built in” readers before they offer a contract. They want to know that the author is going to do a LOT of legwork to sell their book and bring in the bucks. Many serious authors are asking themselves, “When will I ever have time to write another book if I have to keep up all this social networking and do all this promotion?”<br />
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So I ask: <br />
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<b>What do readers want? </b>Would they just like us to spend our precious time writing another book they can enjoy? Would they be happy meeting us at a conference or a booksigning? Or do readers want to be “friends” with authors on all these social networking sites and know the intimate details of our lives? What does a reader gain or lose from getting to know a great deal about an author?<br />
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<b>What do authors want?</b> We all appreciate our readers for we know we’d be nowhere without them. We love hearing from readers who like our books. But how many authors genuinely enjoy spending a good portion of their day social networking? How many would rather spend their time writing another book and leaving the promotion end up to a publisher, interacting with readers only at booksignings, trade shows, and conferences? What does an author gain, or lose, from getting more personal with their readers?<br />
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All aspects of the book industry have changed and continue to change. What do you as readers and authors believe are the pros and cons of this new social networking world? Where do you think it will go in the future? What do you want, and expect, from each other now? Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-56292589352946322372013-05-13T13:24:00.000-06:002020-02-24T12:34:37.605-07:00Heroes and Anti-Heroes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One of the authors I grew up reading was Louis L’Amour. In his book, <i>Sackett’s Land</i>, he said, “A man needs heroes. He needs to believe in strength, nobility, and courage.” The heroes in L’Amour’s books all very much met this criteria. You could say that Louis’s heroes were the “white hat” guys, even (if they didn’t wear white hats). They didn’t have vices or demons or even insecurities and doubts. They walked a straight path and they always knew exactly where that path was going. The only time they got side-tracked was if they had to fight the bad guys or help out another good guy. Even the old westerns we used to see on TV in the 50s and 60s (okay, I’m giving away my age here), were all about the quintessential hero.<br />
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Then something happened. The anti-hero emerged. He was the hero who had goodness deep in his soul but he wasn’t perfect. He battled right and wrong and stepped over the line frequently because the line wasn’t always clear. He had vices and demons, and he’d made his share of mistakes in his life. As a matter of fact, he was still making mistakes and trying to overcome those vices and demons. He didn’t wear a white hat. He probably didn’t even own one. He was the imperfect guy all of us imperfect people could relate to. He was the bad boy the ladies fell in love with because they thought they could reform him. Some didn’t even care if they accomplished that; they just wanted him because he stirred their blood in a way the “straight and narrow” guy couldn’t.<br />
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In today’s literature and films, the anti-hero is predominant. And not just westerns, of course. But, as westerns go, he has appeared in such western movies as <i>Unforgiven</i> and <i>Lonesome Dove</i>. The TV series <i>Justified</i> and <i>Longmire</i> have wonderful anti-heroes. I’ve found first-hand this to be true with my own books. The stories with the flawed heroes are the ones the readers have liked the most: Seth Sackett in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Zebra-Lovegram-Historical-Romance/dp/0821745611/ref=tmm_mmp_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1368833220&sr=1-1"><i>Came A Stranger</i></a>; Nathaniel Brannigan in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Desires-Treasure-Linda-Sandifer/dp/0821748998/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368833036&sr=1-3&keywords=linda+sandifer"><i>Desire’s Treasure</i></a>; Jim Rider in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Ecstasy-Linda-Sandifer/dp/0821737295/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368833036&sr=1-7&keywords=linda+sandifer"><i>Mountain Ecstasy</i></a>. Tyler Chanson in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tylers-Woman-Linda-Sandifer/dp/038089792X/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368833036&sr=1-11&keywords=linda+sandifer"><i>Tyler’s Woman</i></a>; Keane Trevalyan in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Turquoise-Sun-Linda-Sandifer/dp/0821755412/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368833154&sr=1-17&keywords=linda+sandifer"><i>The Turquoise Sun</i></a>; and Dev Summers in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Rodeo-Linda-Sandifer/dp/098163320X/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368833190&sr=1-5&keywords=linda+sandifer"><i>The Last Rodeo</i></a>. They’re all men who have vices, demons, pasts that haunt them, or they have a little (or a lot) of that bad boy in their personality. <br />
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I’ll admit, I have an easier time making my men imperfect than I do my women, but it’s just as important for our women who have a few of their own inner struggles, dark pasts, secrets, and vices. Things they need to face or overcome in the course of our stories--or at least be dealing with successfully. So, make a conscious effort to bring imperfection into your characters. Anti-heroes and heroines are more fun to write about. And they are definitely what readers nowadays want in their characters.Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-33981462381568805132012-12-02T17:00:00.001-07:002013-09-26T17:13:59.372-06:00Sidekicks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Lone Ranger and Tonto. Laurel and Hardy. Han Solo and Chewbacca. Captain Kirk and Spock. Batman and Robin. Sherlock Holmes and Watson.<br />
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Did you ever wonder why a story’s hero or heroine more often than not has a sidekick? Now imagine that main character without the sidekick. It would be pretty dull, wouldn’t it? <br />
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A sidekick is one of those major secondary figures whose main purpose is to show the hero’s good side as well as his not-so-good side. They have to be a pretty cool character themselves and both you and your reader might find yourself liking them just as much as the main character. But they aren’t there to steal the show. They are there to make the show better. Their function goes deeper than just having someone for the hero to talk to. If they weren’t important, the hero could just talk to a horse, a dog, a cat, or himself. And, unless the horse is Mr. Ed or the cat is Midnight Louie, it can get pretty dull pretty fast.<br />
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A sidekick is a way to show your hero’s personality. How does he respond to the sidekick? Is he nice to him? Does he treat him with respect? Or does he act superior to him and treat him rudely? Will he die for him? Chances are if he won’t die for his sidekick, then he isn’t much of a hero. As a reader, we get to see the hero’s true personality simply by the way he interacts with his sidekick.<br />
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His sidekick can come from just about anywhere. He can be a friend, a servant, a business associate, a sibling, even a parent. He will act as a sounding board for the hero. Dialogue between the two is a good way to show the hero’s thoughts without long, boring passages of introspection or narrative. A lively interaction between a hero and his sidekick advances the plot. And it’s always a good idea to have somebody who has your back because we all know the hero is going to get himself into a pickle and somebody is going to have to rescue him. <br />
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The fun thing about sidekicks is that they are usually polar opposites of the hero or heroine. They can be combative, contrasting, or complementary, but they need a strong personality of their own that allows them to stand up to the hero who is often willing to push his weight around if allowed. The sidekick keeps the hero grounded. <br />
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Of course, you don’t have to have a sidekick. Your hero could just talk to his cat, but he’ll be much more interesting to the reader, and your story will have a rich layer it might not otherwise have.<br />
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*Image "Dancing Dogs" by Federico Stevanin courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-15606315682388834592012-07-29T17:07:00.004-06:002013-09-26T17:13:29.004-06:00Environment and Your Protagonist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Have you ever wondered how you would have turned out if you’d been born and raised in a different part of the world by different parents? Would you still behave the way you do, believe in the things you believe, have the same values, or would you be an entirely different person with an entirely different outlook on the world and an entirely different set of rules by which to live by? I would imagine a study has been done on this somewhere by someone and probably paid for with your hard-earned taxes. But all that aside, as a writer, you will want to consider your characters’ environments to help you understand who they are and why they are unique.<br />
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We often look at a past event, usually traumatic, to help define our characters in some way. This event might be the catalyst that has made them take a certain path or develop a certain opinion, emotion, or world attitude. It could even be a parent’s or sibling’s behavior that has made them determined to grow up just the opposite. A person’s entire formative years usually have the most impact on who they become later in life, but the picture is larger than one event or one driving influence. True, a person can break away from a bad childhood but something about those years will have still defined that person’s personality in some way. How the person deals with it is of utmost importance as well. <br />
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Let’s take two sisters, for example, raised on a ranch in Montana in the late 1800s. They seldom interacted with anybody but their family and a few neighbors a few times a year. Life isn’t easy out on the ranch; there are many hardships and many challenges that the family faces to carve out a living in this harsh land. One sister grows up to be completely self-reliant, loving the tall mountains and the vastness of this untamed land. She loves riding her horse along with her father and brothers, rounding up cattle and chasing wild horses. She could never imagine living anywhere else and hopes she can marry a man who will enjoy the same type of life. She can’t envision herself living in the confines of the city. For her, it would be a fate worse than death. <br />
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Her sister, however, hates being twenty miles from town. She longs for pretty dresses, the city, and sophisticated men in dapper suits. She has no desire for the rough cowboys she’s been around her entire life whom she considers uncouth at best. She doesn’t like to be involved in cattle drives or roundups and prefers to stays in the house with her mother cooking, cleaning, sewing, reading romance novels, and picking wildflowers. She resents the ranch’s isolation and the monotony of life that sees no change but that of the seasons. As soon as she’s able, she plans to leave, even if it means marrying the first man to come along who will take her away.<br />
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So how has this same environment defined each of these sisters? And why has each taken opposite ends of the spectrum? To take it one step farther, you could ask yourself what would happen to these women if they were forced to leave their comfort zones. What if the sister who loved the ranch ended up married to a rich man in the city? And the sister who wanted to go to the city ended up with a rancher she didn’t love on a nearby spread? Or take it another direction. What if they both found themselves in another country learning a few culture and a new language, forced to make a living any way they could? How would the environment of their formative years affect the way they deal with their new situation?<br />
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Environment can have a monumental impact on defining a character, but one has to ask if a person would develop the same traits had she or he been born and raised in a different environment. Are our good and bad traits inherent regardless of who raised us and where? Is it in our DNA to be honest, self-reliant, responsible, courageous, ambitious, optimistic? Or is it in our DNA to be a liar and a cheat, irresponsible, cowardly, gloomy and unsatisfied? Besides personality traits, don’t overlook the talents and skills your characters will develop that can come only from their given environment. These are also part of who they are and what they will become.<br />
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Your characters, like you, have more than one defining moment in their lives that have shaped their minds and their dreams and put them on the path they’ve chosen to follow. Despite what traits might be inherent in their DNA, the social and physical aspects of their childhood environment will have left them with attitudes, mores, and beliefs that could only come from those early formative experiences. Whether they hold onto these or rebel against them will be for you the writer to decide, but your characters will be richer if you delve deeply into the environments in which they were raised.Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-13145693149383476472012-03-10T17:31:00.001-07:002012-03-10T22:32:26.075-07:00The Flawed CharacterMany writers believe that if they can make their protagonist quirky or even flawed in some way, it will take the character from being flat to well rounded. For example, you could have your protagonist be a heavy smoker with a weakness for prune juice; a mad scientist who grows exotic green beans in the back yard for research purposes only; or a young woman who buys so many books she has only pathways through her apartment and has put herself dangerously close to bankruptcy. But quirks and flaws are not real characterization. They are not the thing that makes us care about a character or compels us to keep reading. They are only superficial traits unless they hold some relationship to, or involvement with, your main plot line. Not that your characters can’t be quirky or flawed, but those things alone won’t carry the story.<br />
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Another type of flat character is the one more commonly seen, the one who doesn’t have any flaws or quirks and seems to be simply in the story to move the action forward. He’s the stereotypical good guy and he’s doing everything a good guy is expected to do. He is handsome and brave and sexy and wears the white hat. Even if he wears a black hat there isn’t any dirt on it. He rides along throughout the book but it’s the action, not him, taking center stage. Maybe we’re supposed to feel sympathy for him because he got jilted ten years ago by the only woman he ever loved. But if the old love affair has nothing to do with the present action, it’s a torch we would just as soon he douse.<br />
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For a reader to care about a story, there has to be <i>something at stake</i> for each of your main characters, and whatever is at stake has to be directly related to the present story line. It is not only what that character might lose, but also what he might gain, for these stakes will drive him. They will <i>motivate</i> him. A character’s <i>goals, desires, and fears</i> should also be considered; these can create <i>inner conflict</i> as well as <i>exterior conflict</i> with other characters. Consider the <i>challenges</i> each character will face in achieving his goals and desires. <br />
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Scenes, even beautifully written, will not keep the reader’s attention if those scenes are filled with murky, shadowy characters who have no personal stake in the outcome and who appear to be there only as place holders to drive the action forward. We all love quirky characters, but remember that flaws and idiosyncrasies are only the icing on the cake. They will never be a substitute for the cake. To create truly “flawed" characters, start with what’s at stake.Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-70734005007410177542012-02-05T21:52:00.000-07:002013-09-26T17:18:51.683-06:00Your Writing AdventureOne of my favorite quotes pertaining to writing is by E. L. Doctorow. He said, "Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." That is how I feel when I start a new book. I might have the opening in my mind, and a few scenes in between, maybe the ending (which will usually change), but the rest comes as I travel that long, dark road with the “headlights” opening the way around each bend and over each hill, showing me things I wasn’t expecting and involving my characters in adventures I hadn’t planned.<br />
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Not all writers go about it this way. I am thoroughly amazed and impressed by writers who sit down and plot every last detail out before they put one word to paper. They use elaborate outlines up to a hundred pages worth--some even scene by scene. And there are those (it’s rumored) who even construct storyboards, sketches and all. <br />
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But this degree of organization not only boggles my mind, it makes me highly suspicious. Certainly these individuals run into some bumps in the road even with their detailed planning! <br />
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For me, every book idea is like a river, continually changing. Invariably, no matter the preparation I undertake beforehand, when I start writing, the characters say things I wasn’t expecting, do things I didn’t anticipate, open doors I didn’t know existed, and head down roads that weren’t on my map! Then along comes an intriguing character or idea that becomes integral to the story and not only puts my elaborate outline in the ditch but ultimately makes the book better and stronger. I always discover things about my characters and my plot that I simply couldn’t see until the writing began and the characters came to life. I’ve also discovered that these surprises are what makes the writing journey so challenging, fun, and rewarding. <br />
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In the end, it doesn’t matter how a writer gets from page one to the end. Some methods are better than others for each of us, but there is no right or wrong way. Do what works for you. One way or the other, all you really need when you embark on your writing adventure is a spare tire, a full tank of gas, and a really good set of headlights.Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-1673292053607766922011-12-03T14:18:00.004-07:002013-09-26T17:20:47.505-06:00Making Promises<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We’ve all known the person who says they’ll call but never do, or who says they’ll meet you at the restaurant at 1:00 on Tuesday but never show. And when you call them to see what happened, they don’t even remember having made the date. We quickly realize this person is unreliable and, consequently, we no longer want to do things with him or her and we cease believing anything they say. They made promises they didn’t keep and they lost our faith and trust.<br />
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What exactly do I mean by promises in writing? These come in the form of dilemmas, obstacles, conflicts, and twists and turns in the plot. In each scene you make a promise that something is going to happen in the next scene and then the one after that. You suggest something is going to go wrong to mess up your character’s plans for the future he envisions for himself. You hint at impending disaster. You create suspense in everything your characters do and say and in how they interact. As you fulfill one promise, make another one, until each promise flows into the next and until each one is fulfilled in the book’s final resolution. <br />
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Readers anticipate the best–and the worst–and they darn well don’t want to be let down. If you keep promising something, but nothing happens, you’re going to be in big trouble. You’re going to lose credibility.<br />
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This makes me think of the famous poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” by Robert Frost. Although it had nothing to do with writing, the words still might hold wisdom for us if we apply them to our situation and read between the lines. <br />
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“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.<br />
But I have promises to keep,<br />
And miles to go before I sleep,<br />
And miles to go before I sleep.”<br />
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It is fun but challenging to navigate the “lovely, dark and deep” world of novel writing. We do have promises to keep to our readers, and we should not rest until we meet our ultimate goal of successfully fulfilling each and every one of them. If we don’t deliver on those promises, we won’t have readers for long, and we will become like that unreliable friend who forgets her promises as soon as they leave her mouth. We should always strive to be the writer our readers can trust for a good read.Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-52056500786060722792011-10-22T16:18:00.000-06:002011-10-22T16:18:07.225-06:00You Don't Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression<i>This blog first appeared on the <a href="http://www.bluesagewriters.blogspot.com">Blue Sage Writers of Idaho</a> blogspot, October 3, 2011.</i><br />
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Most agents and writers have come to prefer email submissions to snail mail. It is decidedly easier for all parties and saves the writer a lot of money in postage. As a matter of fact, the loss of all those query letters, partials, and bulky manuscripts, along with return postage, could very well be what is causing the U. S. Postal Service’s financial demise.<br />
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Agents really like email queries because they can easily hit the “delete” button if they aren’t interested. And, you, the writer can easily choose 100 agents and send your query out to all of them simultaneously. Right?<br />
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Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.<br />
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It’s acceptable to send out multiple query letters. After all, if you sent out one at time, you might not live long enough to get through your list unless you’re twenty when you start querying. Granted, email does make it so you only have to wait weeks, rather than months, for a response, but it’s still not a good idea to get overzealous. I personally prefer to choose around five agents at a time and wait to see what sort of response I get. If it’s positive and they want to see more, I can assume my query letter piqued their interest. If I don’t get a response, or get all negative responses, then I realize I might need to rework the query letter. The same philosophy goes for a partial, and so on to the request of a full manuscript.<br />
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The bottom line is you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, so don’t exhaust all the agents on your list in one fell swoop. You want to leave your options open to rework your query, your partial, or your manuscript if each phase of submission isn’t garnering the interest to take it to the next level.Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-18043587331301456512011-08-03T15:46:00.001-06:002011-08-03T15:51:53.232-06:00Use Stereotyping to Your AdvantageWe have been told absolutely, under no circumstances, should we ever use stereotypes in our writing. But in life we stereotype people all the time. From the first moment we see or meet someone, we are stereotyping them. We “size” them up by the clothes they wear, the way they talk, the type of job they have, where they live, the car they drive, even the type of dog they pack around in their Gucci bag. And, ironic as it might seem, people really do fall into stereotypes – all of us. Certain “types” look and act and behave in ways that have become so predictable that a stereotype has developed.<br /><br />But there are times when stereotyping is exactly what the book doctor ordered. <br /><br />How can that be, you say? That would be breaking the rules. <br /><br />Enter: a minor character who is there as part of the scene and who is there to interact with the main character to advance the story or give insights into some aspect of our main character. But this “walk on” character will not take a role beyond that scene. If we stereotype this minor character, he will look and act exactly the way we expect. He will say exactly what we expect him to say. We won’t need to be told much about him because the stereotype will draw the picture for us.<br /><br />Here are some examples of stereotypes: the chatty hairdresser, the waitress with the perky pink uniform chewing on a wad of bubble gum, the old man in the alley with his bottle of wine, the harried mother in the grocery store with her screaming kids, the biker with his leather jacket and tattoos all over his shaved head, the absent-minded professor with the Einstein hair and bow tie, the gruff rancher walking into the feed store with manure on his boots, the sullen teenage girl ignoring her mother, the jock in the tight T-shirt flirting with the cheerleaders.<br /><br /> We immediately see this people and categorize them into a group that we are comfortable with and understand. There will be no surprises from them. And when the scene is over and they’ve served their purpose, we’ll stash them away to be easily forgotten, which is exactly what we should do.<br /><br />But stereotyping can be a powerful tool for your main characters too. For example, let’s take the biker with the leather jacket and tattoos all over his shaved head. Let’s show him parking his Harley in the Walgreen’s parking lot, striding uneasily inside and making his way self-consciously back to the pharmacy. Let’s see him asking the pharmacist for a prescription pain medicine called in by his mother’s doctor. Let’s listen to the pharmacist explain to him the dosage and then caution him that he needs to administer it to his mother himself because she might not be “thinking straight.” He hands the medicine to the biker with sympathy on his face and says, “I’m sorry to hear about your mother’s cancer. Tell her I said hello.” <br /><br />Instantly, the biker has stepped out of stereotype. He’s surprised us, piqued our interest, and has become a main player we want to know more about. He’s not the tough guy we might have thought he was. He has a dying mother and he’s out of his element in dealing with it. We immediately want to know everything about him from his childhood to the present.<br /><br />So, bottom line, if you want to keep a “walk on” character invisible and forgettable, stick to the stereotype. But if you want to hold onto your reader for the long haul, go ahead and stereotype your main characters, then throw a curve ball (or two or three) and make it work to your advantage.Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-4444579940244138762011-07-24T09:34:00.004-06:002011-07-25T07:59:49.293-06:00Brainstorming: Good for the Writing; Good for the Soul<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHMM7Pl5vrllWNRbSaQayY6-3yQscIddc9VzNPZ-CUd0XlkAeOdsT95LmeFu3_jCv3jY7-8EM56idb32RjPnADucBas2XsJsH_HHC86RJOJz-ZlAX0PTbTirE49ALJxE21B9NNfBjMmss/s1600/free_1680721.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 87px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHMM7Pl5vrllWNRbSaQayY6-3yQscIddc9VzNPZ-CUd0XlkAeOdsT95LmeFu3_jCv3jY7-8EM56idb32RjPnADucBas2XsJsH_HHC86RJOJz-ZlAX0PTbTirE49ALJxE21B9NNfBjMmss/s200/free_1680721.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632996007554336354" /></a><br />Face it. Sometimes when it comes to plotting our books, our brains get stuck in a gigantic rut. We get set on an idea or a direction and no matter what we do we can’t get beyond it to open the door to something new and better. I don’t know a writer who hasn’t faced this. (If you haven’t, there’s something wrong with you!).<br /><br />It’s been said a gazillion times that two heads are better than one. Get a bunch of heads together and it’s even better. This is the one time in writing when “talking heads” is acceptable. Sometimes all it takes is for a fellow writer, or engaged friend/reader, to ask some simple questions about your plot and, voila, the muddy road immediately dries out and you can pull right out of that rut and get back on the road. <br /><br />I have three daughters who also write, so it is very fun and productive for us to brainstorm our ideas. I just came back from a week-long visit with one of my daughters and after several BS sessions (i.e., brainstorming sessions) we were able to help her with a book ending she hadn’t been completely satisfied with, and I was able to see more clearly a book I’d wanted to write for years but couldn’t because of that danged rut that kept bogging me down.<br /><br />A good brainstorming partner should have the same qualifications as a good critique partner, but the main thing for both is someone who not only loves books but who understands writing, who understands you, and who will energize you so much that when you go home, you don’t want to do anything but head straight to your computer and start writing.Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-36657376456620508952011-03-02T16:30:00.004-07:002011-03-02T16:45:51.185-07:00Make Your Dialogue SpeakIn our daily lives we often engage in nonsensical dialogue and pleasantries, but if we do this in our writing, we'll never see our Great American Novel in print.<br /><br />Authentic dialogue starts with interesting characters who have their own voice based on their personal history. Beyond that, it needs to flow naturally and not sound stilted, dull, or too proper. Reading it aloud or "acting it out" will help you determine if it sounds natural.<br /><br />Just as narrative can go on for too long, so can dialogue. Whatever the issue, don't drag it out for pages. The reader will want your story to keep moving forward. If characters get caught in an argument, or perhaps they are bickering over a decision that needs to be made, don't keep rehashing the same point. Bring the topic to a conclusion in good time. Say what needs to be said and move on. <br /><br />Also, don't be point-blank, unless that is one of your character's known traits. Most men wouldn't walk up to an attractive woman and tell her she's hot. He'd show his interest in more subtle ways. People in real life often dance around what's really on their minds and, for the most part, your characters will too. <br /><br />Avoid "info dumps" via dialogue (or narrative). Shifting the content of the dialogue from one thing to the next in the same scene, especially if the content isn't tied together, could be more than the reader wants to digest in that particular setting. If the reader becomes confused or can't absorb all the information, he could be confused later because he missed something.<br /><br />Dialogue needs to move the story forward by imparting information pertinent to the plot and the characters. Each piece of dialogue should be there for a reason and each scene should have a point. Like your narrative, it should "show" rather than "tell." It should impart an "action/reaction" mode from your characters. <br /><br />Pick a piece of dialogue from a favorite book and analyze each line, asking yourself what information it imparts. Here is dialogue from my own book, <span style="font-weight:bold;">The Last Rodeo</span>. Dev Summers, a rodeo bull rider, has just completed his last ride on a savage bull named Satan 101 and walked away, but with injuries. Here's the conversation between him and his dad.<br /><br /> <span style="font-style:italic;">"What do you mean, you're done?" Jake Summers spoke with that familiar sharp edge to his voice. "You'll have plenty of time to get healed before the next event. I can tell you one thing, that shit you pulled today on Satan damned near got you killed, and you'd better not do it again."<br /><br /> "I rode him."<br /><br /> "If you want to call that a ride."<br /><br /> Dev lifted his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow with his shirt sleeve. His dad's response was so typical. "I stuck to him until the buzzer sounded, and I got the top score for the night. Isn't that what you wanted, damn it?"<br /><br /> "And look where it got you–crippled up again. You'd have done better to let go. A man has to know when to let go."<br /><br /> "My point precisely."<br /><br /> "So that's what the suicide wrap was all about? To rub my nose in some imaginary shit you've been packin' around."</span><br /><br />This scene's purpose is to show the ongoing discord between Dev and his father. It reveals the father's disapproval of the bull ride. His dad thinks he should have known when to let go instead of sticking to the bull with a suicide wrap that ultimately got him injured. But at the same time he disapproves of his son not going to the next event because of the injury. It shows something of the two personalities–of the father who can't give praise, sympathy, or understanding, and the son who is tired of trying to please his father and thus rebels by intentionally knocking himself out of the running. <br /><br />Just as dialogue arouses your characters' emotions, it should reveal growth, discovery, and truth about themselves and others. In real life we often walk away from a conversation and kick ourselves for not saying something smart or clever, or for not sticking up for ourselves and saying what was really on our minds. As writers, we have all the time in the world to help our characters say those perfect words and say them in exactly the right way.Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-92104120720557778742010-12-17T16:28:00.003-07:002013-09-26T17:23:08.342-06:00Building Your Platform<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXQFSU1BLtNcu0QaV54FADc5kp930-cjAOC-crpR1YLlR7xlos9-hdXnWvI84mmD2jSAbkXbByx_-lcnja3L7mOP-YVjUKtI1OcilBMO7Kr_E8FaPXQpKvuqPTpOexDmyTMpXoUJjwVp4/s1600/dreamstimefree_536579.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5551803101215281122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXQFSU1BLtNcu0QaV54FADc5kp930-cjAOC-crpR1YLlR7xlos9-hdXnWvI84mmD2jSAbkXbByx_-lcnja3L7mOP-YVjUKtI1OcilBMO7Kr_E8FaPXQpKvuqPTpOexDmyTMpXoUJjwVp4/s320/dreamstimefree_536579.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 236px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">I wrote this blog for <a href="http://g-i-t-productions.blogspot.com/">Get It Together Productions</a> blogspot, where it first appeared on November 26 2010.</span> <br />
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We writers continually face the challenge to not only to keep our writing fresh for today's readers but to also be knowledgeable about new technology and marketing trends. We are expected to be able to describe our book and its concept in one line and to state our a platform right up front. The platform has, in fact, become increasingly important to agents and editors before they will consider a contract. They want a ready-made audience and a way to create a buzz for your book. In this tough market, it isn't sufficient anymore to assume the publisher will handle the marketing so you can sit back and write your next book. They want you involved. <br />
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So what is a platform for a writer? According to Merriam Webster, a platform is simply "a plan, a design." It is: (1) "a declaration of the principles on which a group of persons stands," (2) a "device or structure incorporating or providing a platform," and (3) a "place or opportunity for public discussion." <br />
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We spend months, sometimes years, plotting our books. When the book is finished, it's time to take a good hard look at ourselves. What have you got going for you--other than having written a marvelous book--with which to get readers' attention? If you look through Writer's Digest Magazine, you'll see some of the "Breaking In" writers state their platforms as social networking; i.e., a blog and an audience on Twitter and Facebook. This might also include doing guest blogs and having a website. Some writers write articles for magazines, ensuring a byline. Other writers speak at conferences and talk to writers' and readers' groups, or they teach writing classes. It's always smart to join a writer's organization that reflects your genre. This will open more doors with which to reach readers. If you have special expertise pertaining to your book it will give you more credibility. For example, you're a doctor and you've written a medical thriller.<br />
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What if you feel you don't have any particular expertise with which to build your platform? No title behind your name. No Masters or PhD. Does it doom you and your book? No, just dig deeper. Be creative. Perhaps you did an incredible amount of research for your book. Perhaps you spent a year talking to locals and exploring the Australian outback where your book is set. Is there a way you can "brand" yourself? To identify yourself in some unique way?<br />
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A platform boils down to any means you have to get your name and your book out there. Start building your platform early on, even before your book is finished. A solid platform will help you get published and maybe even become a "name brand" writer. But, first and foremost, write the best darned book you can! Everything else aside, your book will stand on its own legs. It will be the foundation for your platform.Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389327110471665949.post-65277039396605684962010-11-16T12:01:00.005-07:002013-09-26T17:23:25.878-06:00In Defense of ProloguesThere seems to be quite a buzz lately about prologues. Many agents and editors have apparently developed an aversion to them. Some agents have said on their blogs that if they get a submission that contains a prologue they will automatically reject it because they see it as laziness on the author's part, the "easy" way out to present backstory. Others have said they will not read the prologue but go straight to chapter one and see if it makes sense without the prologue. (And, no, it probably won't make sense because the author wrote chapter one knowing that certain things were explained in the prologue. Why explain them again in chapter one?) One agent says that to have a prologue means the reader has to start the book twice because there are two beginnings.<br />
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As a writer, I disagree with all of the above. I'll explain in more detail. But first, out of curiosity, I decided to see how many authors took the easy way out by using a prologue. I looked through thirty-six books I have laying around my office. They were in a variety of genres. I found it was divided right down the middle: half had prologues, half did not. Some of the authors who used prologues and made their readers start the book twice were Mary Higgins Clark, Karen Marie Moning, Tami Hoag, Barbara Delinsky, Carla Neggers, Wendi Corsi Staub, Dorothy Garlock, and P. J. Parrish. I felt much better about my own prologues after seeing that I was in good company with these bestselling authors!<br />
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Now, let me explain from a writer's perspective why we use and like prologues. (By the way, I got feedback from other writers as well to ensure that I wasn't completely wrong in this belief.) I can sum it up in three reasons: prologues are effective, easy, and they show (don't tell). How many times have we had the latter pounded into our thick skulls? <br />
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Okay, so why are prologues effective? A prologue is indeed backstory, but it portrays an event from the past that will directly affect your character's life in the present. It can be hundreds of years ago, or minutes ago, but it should lead to a turning point in a character's life, something that will change your character's life forever. The turning point is the reason the rest of the book exists. <br />
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From a writer's perspective, it is much more effective (and easy) to put this event into an action scene, often in a prologue, that immediately engages the reader and allows him to "see" the backstory and be thrust right into the crux of things rather than to be "told" about it in the first two or three chapters through boring introspection, narrative, and contrived dialogue. By showing this all-important event with action, the reader is immediately engaged and inherently understands the emotions, the motivation, the conflict, the stakes–everything–without being told. Even movies use the efficiency of prologues. <br />
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As for starting a book twice, I've never heard a reader complain that they had to start a story twice because of a pesky, gosh-dern prologue. If anything, it whets their appetite and they burrow down deeper into their chair and dive right into chapter one because they are now invested in the protagonist on every level. They understand inherently what is driving the story and the characters.<br />
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Sometimes prologues are <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> necessary because they are nothing more than a character's history. And sometimes they really are too long. I won't argue either of those points. But, as a writer, I believe prologues can be a good and simple tool with which to hit the ground running. Call it lazy if you will, but if prologues didn't work so well, writers wouldn't use them. Many times they just make good sense for choosing the best, the easiest, and the most effective way to engage your reader and "show" your story.Linda Sandiferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699964503061146458noreply@blogger.com9