Welcome

Margie Grad,

Darynda Jones,

author of

FIRST GRAVE ON THE RIGHT

and

SECOND GRAVE ON THE LEFT

Trying to read just one page of a Darynda Jones' novel is worse than trying to eat just one bite of a warm chocolate chip cookie. Her writing is keep-reading-to-the-last-page addictive. On every page, Darynda writes fresh, keeps the pace up, and the power on.

~ Margie Lawson

FYI:  Darynda took my courses before she sold. And when she sold, she got an uber-enviable three-book-deal.

Darynda emailed me and thanked me for teaching her how to add power to her writing.  ;-)

From Darynda's web site:

Publishers Lunch Weekly (8/24/09)

RWA Golden Heart winner Darynda Jones’ FIRST GRAVE ON THE RIGHT and two subsequent novels featuring a heroine who is a private investigator and has a side job as a grim reaper, to Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martin’s, in a six-figure deal, in a pre-empt, by Alexandra Machinist at Linda Chester (NA).

I've never met Darynda face-to-face. But I'm excited we get to connect when I present a full day Master Class in Albuquerque in November. Yay!

Keep reading, and you'll see why Darynda earned a Golden Heart, and a golden contract.  :-)

First Grave on the Right is a phenomenal debut! This series opener has it all-- rollicking humor, sizzling sexual tension and a spine-tingling mystery.  ~ Kresley Cole

The Best debut novel I've read in years! Hilarious and heartfelt, sexy and surprising...I'm begging for the next one!!   ~ JR Ward

Winner of the 2009 Golden Heart® for Best Paranormal Romance for her manuscript FIRST GRAVE ON THE RIGHT, Darynda was born spinning tales of dashing damsels and heroes in distress for any unfortunate soul who happened by, annoying man and beast alike. After the Golden Heart final, she pimped herself as best she could, landed an amazing agent and sold to St. Martin’s Press in a three-book deal. Darynda lives in the Land of Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, with her husband of more than 25 years and two beautiful sons, aka the Mighty, Mighty Jones Boys. She can be found at www.daryndajones.com.

Excerpt from SECOND GRAVE ON THE LEFT, Chapter 3

Excerpt 1: Charlie Davidson, the Grim Reaper, is in her shower talking to a dead guy who doesn't talk back.

Just as I turned off the water, he looked up. I looked up, too. Mostly ’cause he did. “What is it, big guy?” When I glanced back, he was gone. Just disappeared as dead people are wont to do. No good- bye. No catch ya on the flip side. Just gone. “Go get ’em, boy.” Hopefully he’d stay that way. Freaking dead people.

I reached past the curtain for a towel and noticed droplets of crimson sliding down my arm. I looked back up at a dark red circle on my ceiling, slowly spreading like the bloodstain of someone who was still bleeding. Before I had time to say “What the f—,” someone fell through. Someone large. And heavy. And he landed pretty much right on top of me.

We tumbled to the shower floor, a heap of torsos and limbs. Unfortunately, I found myself plastered underneath a person made of solid steel, but I recognized one thing immediately. I recognized his heat, like a signature, like a harbinger announcing his arrival. I struggled out from under one of the most powerful beings in the universe, Reyes Farrow, and realized I was covered in blood from head to toe. His blood.

Deep Editing Analysis:

Overall:  Compelling Cadence. Read that excerpt out loud. You'll train your Cadence Ear. 

Paragraph 1:

Just as I turned off the water, he looked up. I looked up, too. Mostly ’cause he did. “What is it, big guy?” When I glanced back, he was gone. Just disappeared as dead people are wont to do. No good- bye. No catch ya on the flip side. Just gone. “Go get ’em, boy.” Hopefully he’d stay that way. Freaking dead people.

Establishes a "Yes Set,"  a universal behaviorial set. She looked up because he did. Subconsciously, we all agreed with that premise.  Humor Hits. Telling what doesn't happen. Light tone. Sentence frag thoughts.

Paragraph 2:

I reached past the curtain for a towel and noticed droplets of crimson sliding down my arm. I looked back up at a dark red circle on my ceiling, slowly spreading like the bloodstain of someone who was still bleeding. Before I had time to say “What the f—,” someone fell through. Someone large. And heavy. And he landed pretty much right on top of me.

Uses setting to pull reader into bloody scene. Short phrase followed by two short sentences. Makes the read more imperative. Started two sentences (back-to-back) with "And," which draws the reader in even more.

Paragraph 3:

We tumbled to the shower floor, a heap of torsos and limbs. Unfortunately, I found myself plastered underneath a person made of solid steel, but I recognized one thing immediately. I recognized his heat, like a signature, like a harbinger announcing his arrival. I struggled out from under one of the most powerful beings in the universe, Reyes Farrow, and realized I was covered in blood from head to toe. His blood.

Used heat to identify Reyes. Fresh. And it SHOWED the depth of their relationship, without TELLING.

Darynda didn't have to use an internalization that we've all read before, about how much Reyes meant to Charlie.

Used rhetorical device, conduplictio. No one has to remember the names of the 30 rhetorical devices I teach in Deep Editing. Just remember how and when to use them.  ;-)

See how Darynda intentionally echoed "recognized" here:

. . . but I recognized one thing immediately. I recognized his heat . . .

Darynda created a compelling cadence by echoing "like," too. Read this section out loud:

. . . but I recognized one thing immediately. I recognized his heat, like a signature, like a harbinger announcing his arrival.

Hear the two sets of intentional echo words? They enhance the cadence, enhance the read. Just like I did by echoing the word, "enhance."  :-)

Darynda slipped nine words of BACK STORY in the middle of a bloody action scene in a shower:

. . . one of the most powerful beings in the universe . . .  

Such a smooth and tight way to share back story. Smart Darynda!

Excerpt 2: From Chapter 3

A paragraph later:.

My heart thundered against my chest. “Reyes, please,” I said. I patted his face, and his lashes, now dark crimson and spiked with blood, fluttered. In an instant, he turned on me. With a growl, his black robe materialized around him, around us, and a hand thrust out and locked on to my throat. In the time it took my heart to beat again, I was thrown against the shower wall with a razor-sharp blade glistening in front of my face.

“Reyes,” I said weakly, already losing consciousness, the pressure around my throat so precise, so exact. I could no longer see his face, just blackness, the undulating robe that was so much a part of him protecting his identity even from me. The world blurred then spun. I fought his hold, his grip like a metal brace, and as much as I wanted to believe I fought the good fight, I felt my limbs going limp almost immediately, too weak to hold their own weight.

I felt him press against me as a total eclipse crept in. I heard him speak, his voice winding around me like smoke. “Beware the wounded animal.”

Then he was gone and gravity took hold and I collapsed onto the shower floor once again, this time face first, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it was going to suck.

Woohoo! Powerful passage!

Overall:  Perfect cadence. Lots of specificity. Lots of power words. A fast-paced read.

Paragraph 1:

My heart thundered against my chest. “Reyes, please,” I said. I patted his face, and his lashes, now dark crimson and spiked with blood, fluttered. In an instant, he turned on me. With a growl, his black robe materialized around him, around us, and a hand thrust out and locked on to my throat. In the time it took my heart to beat again, I was thrown against the shower wall with a razor-sharp blade glistening in front of my face.

Visceral Response, in my EDITS System, it's PINK: My heart thundered against my chest.

Showing Charlie's visceral response and having her pat Reyes' face, Darynda amped the intimacy between Charlie and Reyes. Then Darynda did the unexpected, a reversal. She had Reyes attack Charlie.

Aack! Scary, scary!

Read those last two sentences (above) out loud. Cadence. Power. Cadence. Power. Can you feel it?

Paragraph 2:

“Reyes,” I said weakly, already losing consciousness, the pressure around my throat so precise, so exact. I could no longer see his face, just blackness, the undulating robe that was so much a part of him protecting his identity even from me. The world blurred then spun. I fought his hold, his grip like a metal brace, and as much as I wanted to believe I fought the good fight, I felt my limbs going limp almost immediately, too weak to hold their own weight.

Love this piece: . . . the pressure around my throat so precise, so exact.

When I read that piece, I feel the pressure around my throat, so precise, so exact.

I could go through each phrase and compliment them one by one. Beautifully written.

Paragraph 3:

I felt him press against me as a total eclipse crept in. I heard him speak, his voice winding around me like smoke. “Beware the wounded animal.”

Darynda used touch, followed by two examples of fresh writing: . . . a total eclipse crept in, and . . .his voice winding around me like smoke. The description of his voice in a Dialogue Cue. More about those below.

Paragraph 4:

Then he was gone and gravity took hold and I collapsed onto the shower floor once again, this time face first, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it was going to suck.

That's one l-o-n-g sentence. And, it works well for me. It reads like stream-of-consciousness. He's gone, she collapses, again, face first, and she knew it would suck.

Darynda may not know she used polysyndeton in the beginning, with that series of three linked with two "and's" and no punctuation. Again, no need to learn all the Greek names of the rhetorical devices. But it's good to know when and how to use them to add power.

A structurally strategice dynamic in this paragraph, is backloading with a humor hit.

Darynda bookended this high-intensity passage (including excerpts 1 and 2) with humor. That's one of the promises she gives her readers. Her books will make you laugh. More about humor in the Q & A below.

Darynda's writing carries a deceptively smooth power. Easy to read and want more. No speedbumps.

This quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne zipped into my mind.

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Deep Editing Q. & A.

MARGIE: I know it’s been years since you took Empowering Character’s Emotions. What are a few of the writing tools that you learned from me that you feel made a difference in your writing--and helped you sell?

DARYNDA: Your class did help me sell, period. I learned so much about how to ‘show’ character emotions rather than ‘tell’ them. It was exactly what I needed to give my manuscript just the right amount of sparkle to grab an agent’s and editor’s attention. I cannot tell you how important fresh, crisp writing is for an aspiring writer. Plot is great. The overall concept is super important. But the writing is what sells your work. It all boils down to the words you choose and the order in which you arrange them.

I think one tool that really helped was to step back from the emotion and think about it from another perspective. How does one show sadness without using the word sad? Is it in the withering set of your character’s shoulders? The lack of sparkle in her eyes? Her gray, lusterless skin? Or maybe it's a smile like I gave Cookie that wavers between appreciation and horror.

Your class showed me how to transform emotion into the barest hints of description, just enough to clue the reader in without beating her over the head with it. Unless, of course, that’s what you’re going for. :)

I Love your Humor Hits!  Charlie Davidson could beat Stephanie Plum in a “Makes Readers Snicker, Chuckle, and Roar Contest.”

BLOG GUESTS: Here are a few of the hundreds of Darynda's make-Margie-laugh lines.

The first three examples are Cliché Play.

I would hate for him to catch my bachelorette pad on hellfire.

She eyed me like I was part blithering and part idiot.

“I’m going to tell you something,” I said, hoping that leap of faith wouldn’t come to a crash landing in a cactus patch.

How did she always know I was coming? I was pure stealth. Smoke. Nigh invisible. Like a ninja without the head wrap.

I widened my smile, which in my experience could open more doors than an AK- 47.

Note the PERFECT CADENCE in the examples above, and in all of Darynda's lines.

Writing humor is funny-bone tricky. I cover writing Humor Hits in the Advanced Deep Editing course i teach in November.

Questions for Darynda: On Writing Humor

Do most of the quips and witticisms fall on the page on your first pass? Or do they pop into your wacky brain on subsequent passes?

Both, actually, but for the most part, they are there on the first pass. Sometimes something funny will hit me later and I’ll go back and throw it in. My brain never stops, so that happens often.

Do you review some scenes and realize you focused on getting the story out, and the dialogue right, but forgot to let Charlie’s humor fly?

It does happen, but rarely. Charley is so ingrained into my brain that even in the most serious scenes, she has some inappropriate comeback falling off her tongue. Every so often, I’ll go back and realize her humor faded into the shadows for a little while. Sometimes, I let it stay that way because it works for the scene. Others, I’ll throw a little something in. I try very hard not to make it sound forced.

Do you have any cautions or tips for writing humor?

Humor is so subjective, not everyone is going to get what you are peddling. Others will be offended when what you meant no offense whatsoever. Those are the stakes. You have to be able to stand up for yourself and what you’ve written. Comedy pushes limits, makes people uncomfortable, and is a natural reaction to the environment. Otherwise, as I said, it is forced. Let it flow and give your characters permission to cross a line or two, but only if you can take the heat afterward.

Moving on to Visceral Responses:

Anyone who has taken one of my writing craft courses knows visceral responses rule!

If a writer keeps the POV character in their head at critical points, and neglects to include some visceral hits, the reader experiences the scene intellectually. It doesn’t carry a full load of emotion.

The challenge is writing visceral responses in fresh ways. Darynda soared over my raise-it-high fresh writing bar.

My pulse accelerated by a hairsbreadth, just enough to cause a tingling flutter in my stomach.

Reyes jerked the blade back and sheathed it inside his robes as I tipped awkwardly toward the wall, my heart stumbling over its own beats.

I tried to release a loud sigh but couldn’t get enough air in my constricted lungs.

My heartbeats tumbled into each other, as if racing for a finish line.

The thought of Reyes being taken down by a group of marshals clamped and glued my teeth together for a long moment, squeezed the chambers in my heart shut.

Questions for Darynda:  Writing Visceral Responses

Do you push yourself to write fresh visceral responses?

Absolutely! It’s all about the freshness, and the more you do it, the better you become at it.

Do they start out more clichéd?

Very often, they sure do. I go back and try to freshen up scenes. And sometimes I’ve just said something silly and I have to tone it down.

Any cautions or tips for writers?

There is a difference between fresh and weird. You never want to throw your reader out of the story. Keep it fresh but natural.

Margie Grads know that a Dialogue Cue is the term I coined to describe how the dialogue is delivered.

A Dialogue Cue shares the subtext of the dialogue. It is NOT just a dialogue tag.

I’m sharing a few example of Dialogue Cues. No questions for Darynda. Just enjoy her talent.

“How do you know that name?” he asked, his voice soft, dangerous, as if it were more a threat than a question.

“Don’t,” he said, his voice sharp, menacing. “Don’t ever feel sorry for me.”

Then Reyes was in front of me, the warning in his voice so desperate, so determined, it sucked the already fleeting breath out of my lungs.

But then Dad spoke, his voice crystal clear in the recording, each note strained each syllable forced. He hadn’t said a word when Caruso mentioned Denise or Gemma, but when my name came up, he broke. “Please,” he said, his voice hoarse with the emotion he held at bay, “not Charley. Please, not Charley.”

Pantser? Plotter?

DARYNDA: LOL, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I plot like there’s no tomorrow, baby. I barely start a book without three distinct outlines.

The Skeleton Key: This answers four basic questions: Where are we? What time of day is it? What major event happens in this scene or series of scenes? And in what order does the story unfold?

The Outline: This is a brief synopsis of the entire book. It is usually about 5-9 pages long and is what I send my editor for approval before actually starting the book.

The Detailed Outline: This is where I take the skeleton key, plug the outline into the appropriate areas, then add any details I’ve come up with including specific scenes, little extras I want to reveal here and there, funny lines or situations I want to use, and even internal and external motivation. These outlines usually run between 40 and 60 pages, but remember that part about adding scenes? Yeah, by this point I’ve already written a nice chunk of the book.

Next, I take the final detailed outline, copy and paste it into my manuscript, and delete as I go. This way I never stray far from the conceived story. I don’t wander around aimlessly, wondering where I’m going. I know exactly what is coming next, and very often, if it’s a “hard” scene (meaning I’m too lazy to write it at that moment), I’ll jump to another scene. I don’t get bored and/or stuck very often and I rarely pull my hair out by its roots. I’ve tried pantsing it. It wasn’t pretty. I had writer’s block by the time I got to page three.

*NOTE: Let me just say that I write ALL over the place. I do not write linearly in any way, shape or form. By having such a detailed map of where I’m going, I can write on chapter two one day and chapter nineteen the next. Another (possibly more important) advantage to this technique is that there’s never a dull moment. Each scene has a purpose. Each scene moves the story forward. This makes the book tight, the pacing strong, and the story smooth. Just sayin’.

Dirty first draft? Edit as you go?

Depends on how much time I have. If I am racing to meet a deadline, I can force myself to write a very dirty first draft, but if I have more time, sadly, I edit as I go. I wish I didn’t, but I do. I get so much more writing done if I just let go and write.

Do you strive to complete a first draft in a certain time frame?

Since I’ve sold, yes. Before, I would set goals. Sometimes I’d even meet them. Now, it just depends on how much time I have according to the deadline.

How long do you allow for deep editing a complete manuscript?

One third of my allotted time is saved for the first draft. The next third is saved for general rewriting. The next third is set aside for deep editing. It doesn’t always work that way, but in a perfect world…. I’ll give an example. Because I was under a huge time constraint, Third Grave Dead Ahead, the third in the Charley Davidson series, too me 15 days to write the first draft. (This was after, of course, two weeks of plotting.) The next two weeks were spent rewriting and the next two were spent in deep edits.

Wow! You're as fast at writing as Charlie is fighting.  ;-)

THANK YOU for being here today! I bet our blog guests have some questions for you.

BLOG GUESTS:  My challenge for you today, is to learn as much as you can from Darynda. Review her comments and examples and dive in.

Post a comment, and you'll be in the drawing to win a copy of SECOND GRAVE ON THE LEFT.  Good luck!