Wednesday Wonders: JESSE'S NIGHTMARE

Today's Wednesday Wonders features P. A. Estelle and her western historical novel, Jesse's Nightmare.

About the novel:


Ginny and Jesse are expecting their first baby. It's almost April and even the snow that continues to fall doesn't dampen their moods - until something starts ripping apart the livestock.

But when Jesse comes home during a blizzard and finds his wife and daughter missing, his happiness turns to a fear that he hasn't felt in a long time!

Excerpt from Jesse's Nightmare:

She was making supper when Jesse came in. “You’re home early.” She didn’t look his way.

“Yea.” He put his hat on a peg and hung his jacket, watching her the entire time. Ginny was always there with a smile and a kiss when he came home. “Everything okay?” She didn’t answer, just nodded. “Ginny?”

When she looked up, her brown eyes were dark pools of unshed tears. She ran into his arms, sobbing.

“What in tarnation is wrong?” He held her as she cried. Finally he set her away from him so he could look into her face. “Is Sarah okay?” 

“Yes. This is silly.” She wiped her eyes and sat down at the table. For the first time Jesse saw the gun laying there. She met his eyes. 

“What happened?”

 

About P. A. Estelle:

 

My name is Penny Estelle and I was an elementary school secretary for 21 years. I heard every excuse and story in the book when kids would be sent to the principal. I promised myself when I retired I would write stories about kids and that is just what I did.

I am retired with my wonderful husband and we live on a fifty-four acre ranch in Arizona on solar and wind. I am the "greenest" person and I know, even if I don't want to be!

I am so excited to have stories out for kids and adults. Hike up Devil's Mountain, A Float Down the Canal, and five stories in The Wickware Sagas - Billy Cooper's Awesome Nighmare, Ride of a Lifetime, Flash to the Past, Bumped Back in Time, and soon to be released, Riches to Rags! All for the tween in your life.

I have a newsletter that goes out for new releases or sales.  If you would like to be notified please sign up @ http://eepurl.com/388Xr

AUTHOR LINKS:

WEBSITE  *  BLOG  *  FACEBOOK  *   TWITTER  *  PINTEREST  *  GOODREADS

AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE

PURCHASE LINK:  AMAZON 

Posted by Robyn Echols at 8:23 PM

Musings About Genres-Part 1

I have been studying my craft by reading within what I think is my genre, HISTORICAL WESTERN ROMANCE. The novel I'm working on is HISTORICAL. It is set in the WEST (okay, what was the West in the 1870s--Abilene, Kansas, plus part of it is in Indiana). And, it is a ROMANCE. But, I am not sure it fits in the HISTORICAL WESTERN ROMANCE genre.

It is important for an author to categorize his or her work correctly. People have certain expectations about their genres of choice. I recently learned of an author who was slammed on a bunch of reader reviews because her novel was billed as "inspirational." Several readers, I believe, interpreted that to mean it was a "Christian" novel. They indicated in some of the negative reviews that they gave the book low marks because they did not feel the book fit in the Christian genre. I don't think it fit in that genre either. However, it was a good novel with some interesting plot and character development. The lesson I learned from seeing that happen was this:

Be careful how I bill my novel because book reviewers can be vicious with their feedback if they think I have listed my book in the wrong genre.

I know that there are really only about 24 different basic plots. I think I have a list of them somewhere. No matter in what genre we writers write--contemporary romance, action-adventure, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, etc.--our stories will fit in one of those plot selections. What makes each story different and worth reading are the details. Oh, yes, the skill of the author plays a big role, too.

My novel is definitely not a mail order bride romance. I've read several of those lately. They are starting to run together in my head. The names and places are changed, but, with only a few exceptions, the plots are getting a tad too cookie cutter for me. Time for me to read something different.

Other examples of that genre I've read lately have pretty simple plots and are like pulling petals off of a daisy: Does he love me? Does he not? Does he love me? You get the point. I don't like it when that seems to be the beginning and end of the plot "conflict." 

Some of these novels read like they've been dashed off on the computer pretty quickly. I know about the "write your novel in 30 days" principle, but that is not me. Besides all the editing I do as I go, it takes me days, sometimes weeks, to do my research, set up my timelines or calendars and write up my character descriptions before I really get into writing my story. Thank goodness, I don't have much of a problem with writer's block.

Yes, my little contemporary Christmas feel-good novel I recently finished is only about 51,000 words. But, I get nervous when I consider reading a genre novel with stats that show well under 200 pages or 55,000 words. Some of the historical Western romance genre books I have been reading are not very long. That tells me the plot must be pretty simple if the story can be told in that few words. On the other hand, I'm worried my novel is going to be well over 85,000 words and maybe pushing 100,000 words. So, does my novel "fit" in this genre?


I've read some comments by historical writers to the effect that they don't like the history to get in the way of their story. I think on the other end of the scale. The main reason I like to read historical novels is to get a feel for the history, attitudes and the conditions in which the people of that place, time and society lived. To my way of thinking, if an author is not going to do the research and try to as accurately as possible bring in the history and social customs and conditions of a time and place, why not write that same story in a contemporary setting?

Maybe part of my problem is that I like to be educated as well as entertained when I read historical novels. I think a historical novel, especially, needs a little more setting development to give it substance for readers who may not be history experts. Maybe I'm over thinking things for this genre.

Okay, most blog readers, including myself, tend to have short attention spans and/or time restrictions. I will continue my musings in a future post.

Started Abilene Gamble

Please read my post under the "Trails and Rails" tab above to learn more about a new historical western romance novel I am writing.

Family Pedigrees for Book Plots

I described in my Trails and Rails blog entry titled "Start At the Beginning" how I used pedigrees charts to help me plot the families in each of the three novels. Even though I have my timeline, I still needed the visual to get me past the writer's block that developed. I fell in love with the characters and plot of book 2, Wyoming Promise, FIRST and had trouble developing all the characters and plot for the first novel, Nebraska Sunrise. (See the blog for my new historical western romance series by clicking on the tab Trails and Rails located at the top of this blog.)

I decided against using my Legacy database program I use for my own family history research and which I have used for my multi-generational series. I started with my word program, using the vertical bars and underscore keys to make connections. A lot of work, but it looked like this:

Family pedigree developed in Word

It was a hassle, especially keeping everything lined up and tabbing to get the form formatted. Actually it was not too bad until a child from each family decided to get married. Then again, isn't that what romance is all about?

Fine, but for putting together a pedigree chart by hand, I decided I needed to do the hourglass/butterfly design, and the size and nature of the Word characters did not cooperate too well with that venture.                                                            

Same family pedigree on a spreadsheet

So, copied and pasted what I had into a spreadsheet program, moved the information in the cells around and came up with this.

Instead of vertical bar marks, I used the cell outline feature that is part of my Windows 7 Excel program.

I like it better because it more clearly shows the marriage between the two families.

Next, I copied and pasted this family pedigree from the spreadsheet program into a Word document....

And I ended up with this.

IMHO, much better!