Category Archives: Kindle Bargain

How to Knock Their Socks Off on Page One – Ask Alice Saturday

Kindle Bargain, Storytelling, Writing Tips

Socks Knocked Off imageQuestion: How do I write an opening that knocks their socks off?

Answer: Let’s talk about openings that keep the footwear solidly in place.

This is my second “Ask Alice Saturday” post about story openings. This should tell you how critical I believe they are. This is also “Ask Alice Saturday” happening on Friday because I’m on the road tomorrow debuting a new workshop called WE’VE GOT THE POWER: How Choice Changes Everything about Publishing Today. Wouldn’t it be great to see you there?

Back to story openings. First there’s the nineteenth century standby – the weather. Contemporary writers too often forget what millennium we’re in and default to this outdated opener. As a general rule weather is a non-starter start – a wheel spinner – a bore.

UNLESS – the weather is actually foreshadowing. A haunting hint at what’s to come that sets the reader on edge. OR – a blatant contrast with what’s to come that sets the reader up to be shocked and surprised. In each of these cases there’s a plot purpose for the meteorological beginning. Otherwise it’s just – ho hum – the weather.

Ho hum no-no number two. Transportation scenes. On a plane or in a car are the transportation alternatives most popular with writers. Unfortunately cars and planes are confined spaces. This dooms your opening scene to a static bit of non-business. Talk talk talk and little action.

UNLESS – the vehicle is involved in a chase. OR – is about to crash. OR – is being hijacked. OR – is the setting of a truly traumatic character interaction. All of these are high tension situations that serve the purposes of a taut story line.

A high tension situation gives your story and your reader a slam bang start. Slam bang is the pace to pursue when crafting the opener for any piece of writing – fiction or nonfiction. Start slam-bang into the middle of things where the action is for fiction. Start slam-bang into a high interest anecdote for nonfiction.

Don’t ease us in. Drop us in. Straight to the thick of things before we have a chance to get away. Or put the book back on the bookstore shelf. Or stick the magazine back on the newsstand rack. Or switch the device to a different screen. Hook us into intensity before we can make any of those dismissive moves.

Do this and we’ll be hanging on your every word and hungry for more. Plus we won’t want to walk away and leave our knocked-off socks behind.

RR

A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – Mark & Hailey’s Story. Launches with summer on June 22nd at amazon.com/author/aliceorr. This is my 13th novel and by the end of the Prologue you just might be barefoot. Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

 

 

Make a Plan – Hear God Laugh – Orr What? Wednesday

Great Read, Kindle Bargain, Promo Tip, ,

 

God Laughs image“If you want to hear God laugh – make a plan.” I’ve heard that so often because I say it so often. Too bad I apparently didn’t listen to myself saying it. I went made a plan for launching my next book. A well thought out and specific plan – maybe even foolproof – or so I believed.

I alerted everybody. The wonderful women at The Killion Group Inc. who design my covers and format my books and get them into print. My website developer who is also at Killion. My brand new newsletter designer. And of course my controlling self.

“Let’s all be on the same page.” That was the message. We’d be coordinated and ready on the same day – Monday June 22nd  – absolutely not a minute before. I sincerely believed I could make that happen just because I said it would happen. Has anybody ever heard of Hubris?

I happened to be on line last week at the amazon.com site and there it was. The print paperback version of A Year of Summer Shadows. It’s been there since April. You can see for yourself at http://amazon.com/author/aliceorr. Not supposed to be there but it is.

What the hey! I say. The closest I was allowed to cussing back in the North Country when I was a kid growing up where my story’s also set. Let’s put out the eBook early too. Except – at last sighting – amazon had missed my memo. Print book and eBook aren’t on the same page.

I hear laughter. I can’t tell if it’s on high or only inside my head. I made a plan. I convinced myself it would work. Most foolish of all – I believed it made a difference. I forgot that when it comes to writing stories and putting them out into the world only one thing matters.

“You find your readers one person at a time.”

Remembering that jolted me to my senses. For one thing the words strike me as absolutely true. For another thing they prompt me to ask myself how we do that. How do we attract readers one at a time?

The only conclusion I can come up with is this. We must each turn the question toward ourselves individually. “How do I do that? How do I find my readers one at a time?” Which prompts other questions also.

#1. What is the special gift I have to offer others – one potential reader at a time?

Maybe it’s humor. Maybe it’s expertise and insights. Maybe it’s simply telling a damned good story. We must open our kitbags and examine the contents closely. What is in there that others might need? What is in there that others might want? Then we must resolve to give it away.

#2. What access can I create for giving my gift away – one potential reader at a time?

When searching for resources – we must first step outside our own front door and look up and down the street. Start local. Cultivate that ground. Plow on from there. Our own front door being any repository of information about people we actually know – or almost know – firsthand.

#3. What if someone says this is too slow to go – one potential reader at a time?

Personally I do my best every day to fight back that fear. Because I know full well in this internet place I am a single voice among a thundering avalanche of voices. But as a giver of my gifts to each single soul I am singular as well – as are you. And that single number counts.

So we keep on Facebooking and Tweeting and Uploading and all the rest. We keep on making plans. Maybe God is laughing but I believe that laugh has an affectionate ring. Meanwhile – down here in this crowded world – we would do well to keep in mind and heart the best plan of all. To have some fun as we reach out toward one reader – one person – at a time.

RR

A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – Mark & Hailey’s Story. Launches with summer on June 22nd – or whenever – at amazon.com/author/aliceorr. This is my 13th novel and while God may be laughing I can’t help but smile. Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

A Year of Summer Shadows – Riverton Road Monday

Great Read, Kindle Bargain, Romantic Suspense, ,

 

A DELETED SCENE

A Year of Summer Shadows - Final Cover -JPG file smallThe memory rush didn’t happen immediately.  Todd unlocked the door while Hailey stood behind him on the wide veranda.  He swore softly as he fumbled with the key.  He’d had some trouble getting it in the hole, and when he did the key wouldn’t turn.  She wondered if he might have had a drink or two earlier, before the club.  She took a step backward and pretended to look out over the vast lawn toward the street.  She didn’t want him to know she’d observed his fumbling.  She was that careful of people’s feelings, at least some people’s feelings.

He turned and looked at her, a fleeting glance in the dim light from the carriage lamp wall fixtures on either side of the double, glass-paned door.  Each of the two panes was etched in a smoky pattern of scroll shapes around an M for Massey in script at the center of the design.  Hailey didn’t so much see as remember that monogram in the dim light, but she could see the expression on Todd’s face.  His eyes were uneasy and his smile unnatural, as if to convey that everything was all right while he felt anything but.  Hailey understood then that his problems with the key had nothing to do with how much he’d had to drink.  Todd was nervous.

She wondered if he might be thinking about how she’d never been invited to this house when she was growing up in Riverton.  She and Todd had gone through junior and senior high school together.  He and his family gave lots of parties in that time, but Hailey hadn’t been on the guest list for any of them.  She wasn’t the sort the Masseys wanted in their circle, not back then anyway.  She felt a stir of anger, not untinged by triumph as he finally succeeded with the key.  She was here now, wasn’t she?  If there was ever to be a concrete Riverton affirmation of her current status as a successful woman, a hometown nobody who made good, standing here on this veranda just might be one.  Walking over the thres­hold into the Massey house was another.

She had actually been here once before, but that didn’t count because she was only tagging along with Julia at the time.  Her mother Virginia had insisted on it as one of her very occasional attempts to make a silk purse out of Hailey’s sow’s ear.  The evening didn’t turn out well, but the full picture of its disas­ter didn’t become a visual recollection until Hailey was inside the house and Todd had switched on the lights.  They were standing at the top of the two carpeted oak steps that led down into the gra­cious living room.

Hailey didn’t remember this room at all.  She’d been a junior in high school at the time of her one previ­ous visit.  She imagined the place had been redecorated since then, maybe more than once.  Mrs. Massey had always been known for her exquisite home.  She was most likely the type who updated that exquisiteness, and added a notch to her reputa­tion as a decorator, regularly.  What Hailey guessed to be an Aubusson carpet on the living room floor attested to that reputation being well de­served.

Hailey turned away, partly to squelch the distaste she generally felt in reaction to shows of wealth.  That was when she saw the staircase and the memory picture came.  She’d brought her friend Lucy with her that one other time she was here.  Hailey had understood she was the poor friend Julia had been forced to drag along to the Massey party. Hailey would be on her own once they got here.  The thought of that had terrified her.  What if nobody spoke to her?  That was entirely possible among the snobby types Todd and Julia hung out with.  Hailey knew how humiliating such a snub would be.  Her solution was to bring Lucy.

Even at the time, Hailey wasn’t sure why she’d picked Lucy for that honor.  Maybe because Lucy would jump at the chance to rub shoulders with Todd and his rich friends.  Hailey had been right about that. Lucy was in her glory, or so she thought.  She’d come dressed in her version of high style – a low-necked, tight-bodiced, short-skirted dress and too-high heels.  Her toothy smile clearly signaled that she was ready to make that shoulder-rubbing quite literal with whatever guy might indicate an interest.

Hailey only half-noticed Lucy’s mention that she was going upstairs to “powder her nose” before she’d hip-swayed off and Hailey suddenly realized she was alone.  Just as she’d feared, nobody spoke to her.  Nobody seemed to notice she was there.  Julia had long since disappeared into a crowd of her cronies.  By the time Lucy started back down the staircase from the second floor powder room, Hailey was anxiously awaiting her return.  She smiled upward at Lucy whose own smile swept the room in accompaniment to what she obviously intended as a grand entrance.

Lucy’s smile faded only a little when the slip first happened, and a slip was what it had to be.  If she’d caught her heel in the stair runner, she would have pitched forward.  Instead, she went down backward, onto her rump, but she didn’t stop there.  She continued to slide down the stairs, from one to the next in a bouncing motion, all the way to the bottom.  Hailey should proba­bly have run to the rescue, but she didn’t.  All she could think of at the time was how much she hoped no one would remember she’d come to the party and how much more likely it was that they’d never forget.

RR

 A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – Mark & Hailey’s Story – Launches with summer on June 22nd at amazon.com/author/aliceorr. This is my 13th novel. When you read it see if you can figure out why this scene didn’t make the cut. Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.