We Want Your Opinions

This is bonus giveaway month at NovelMatters! First there’s the extraordinary opportunity to have your own novel in the hands of a top literary agent – that’s the point of our fantabulous big contest. Though it will run for several months, your best chance is to submit early so that you will get a thorough, non-deadline-bleary-eyed look from the six of us who will pre-qualify the finalists. Click here for the rules.

In addition, to celebrate with you wonderful readers the release of my first novel, Latter-day Cipher, I would like to offer five of you (who don’t already have it) a copy of my book. Plus I’ll send those winners some “Fiction Samplers” from Moody Publishers for your friends, as well. The samplers contain the first chapter of my book and also the first chapter of Debbie Fuller Thomas’s Tuesday Night at the Blue Moon.

Here’s what I ask you to do:

1) Send me an email at consult at parkeastinc.com. (You know the drill about where the @ sign goes.) Put “NovelMatters Cipher Contest” in the subject line.
2) Copy five friends who are not NovelMatters readers on that email.
3) In the email, tell me what you think of my book trailer. The first five people who do this will receive an autographed copy of the book.

Now, one reason that I want you to look at the book trailer – and have your friends look at it – is that I’ve taken some substantial risks with it. It’s not your usual Christian-book trailer. I told a friend that the book – and the trailer --are probably PG-13. It’s well-produced but admittedly jarring.

Katy Popa wrote a very insightful post on Monday about ethics in writing. Specifically she referred to the dilemma faced by Christian writers in depicting the way that their characters come to faith.

But there are other ethical decisions to be made as well. One of them is the decision about how much – and how graphically – to depict violence. Of course, Christian publishers have parameters they enforce. Yet many of us want to acknowledge some of the gritty issues that our readers face, from the perspective of a Christian worldview – when contemplating those disturbing issues.

What is your “compass” in determining how far to go in reading or writing Christian fiction depicting disturbing issues?

Topic of the Week: Branding

Hello and top of the week to all you stimulating readers! Have we told you lately how much we enjoy interacting with you?

Don’t forget that if you post a comment on any of our topics this month you are in the running to win a Patti Hill library of four books. This lady was nominated for a Christy Award. She’s a terrific writer!

Our topic of the week is branding. Patti, Sharon, Katy, Debbie and I all attended a retreat last fall in which Jeanette Thomason gave a terrific presentation on branding. She identified it as 1) identity, 2) positioning or position in the marketplace and 3) distinctiveness.

On Wednesday, Sharon will give some wonderful insights about branding in general, from her own struggles with the concept and from Randy Ingermanson. However, for today’s post I’d like to examine the idea of a branding statement.

Jeanette said that such a statement should include key components (though not necessarily all) from the following list:

place in time
audience or market/s
category or types or genre
unique tone or tribe or flavor
topics or themes

When I wrote my branding statement (found in my January 19th post), I had to try to corral an established career that has covered all kinds of topics in many different genres. (I’m nothing if not versatile.) What did all this have in common? The fact that when I tackle a topic, I attempt to look it “straight in the eye." That idea became the core of my branding statement.

The publicity team at Zondervan loved my branding statement and are using it in publicity for my upcoming non-fiction, The Mormon Mirage. It had to work equally well, however for my upcoming novel Latter-day Cipher.

How about you? Do you have a branding statement? Or do you know of an effective one used by another author?

Getting to know Sharon K. Souza

Conflict is central to fiction, but how do you create a work of fiction that is tense, difficult, and sometimes even frightening, yet make it a place readers want to go to, spend time in, and get to know well?



It's funny that in real life we do all we can to avoid conflict, yet in fiction, as in movies, we're all about conflict. To paraphrase James Scott Bell, from Plot & Structure, we are to get our protagonist up a tree, then throw rocks at her. That one sentence helped me grasp the importance of conflict in fiction, and gave me license to be as heartless as I needed to be for the sake of the story. (Gotta love that!)

If there's nothing at stake, there's nothing for our readers to invest in, nothing to hold them to the story. We need to bring them to the place where they're saying to our characters, " Don't believe that!" "What are you thinking?!" That's what I aim for.

Where is the strangest place that you had a brainstorm and had to stop and write down an idea or snippet of dialogue?

When I go to bed at night, while I'm in that relaxed state before sleep, that's when inspiration most often strikes. I used to be like popcorn, jumping up to rush to my office to write down the ideas -- because I will forget -- maybe a dozen times a night. Popping up, popping up . . . Then a friend, bless her, gave me a pen that lights up. I keep it and a notepad by my bed and write my thoughts without having to get up. My husband can always tell what kind of night it was by how much is scrawled on the tablet.

I've jotted down ideas during a sermon, written ideas on napkins in restaurants, and on anything handy while riding in a car. But as for the strangest place, I sold my first article from an idea that came to me at a funeral. It seems I never get very far away from my stories.

Which one of your characters most resembles you and how did you draw from your life to create them?

My family tends to recognize me in my characters before I do, so judging by their input I'd say I'm not the character the reader would most like to be. But I do think I'm the character who eventually learns from her experiences. In defense of my family, they see me in a better light than I see myself, and they'd like that reflected in my writing. Sorry, guys, that's not likely to happen.

Tell us about the relationship between your writing and your spiritual life.

It's difficult to separate the two, because my writing is do deeply connected to my spiritual life. When I'm dealing with people who haven't yet connected with Christ on a personal level I tend not to be preachy. I usually ease my faith into the conversation, then always wonder if I've failed the Lord by not being bolder. I'm much the same way with my writing -- try not to be preachy or holier than thou. I just want to present an honest picture of Christ as I know Him, to share the love of the One who loved us enough to go to the cross. It's up the Holy Spirit to convict.

When you sit down to write, who is your audience?

I picture my audience primarily as women who have faced the hard issues of life and lived to tell it. I write about illness, infidelity, doubt, death, because most of us will walk through one valley or another before it's all over. I want women to know it's okay to get mad, cry, even laugh -- especially laugh -- in the midst of our trials, but at the end of the day to look up, because we're never alone. God is right there to take our hand if we'll let him. He is the most faithful friend we'll ever have.

How do you know that you have achieved what you're aiming for in a particular passage you're writing? (That is, before showing it to someone else - what rings your internal chime?

I'm really never sure until someone else has read it and, hopefully, responded the way I intended. But if I can go back after a while and experience the emotion I was shooting for, then I'm satisfied that I've done the best I can do.

Think of a novel you have not written - yet - but would like to one day. The best thing you will ever write before you die. Don't tell us what it will be about, but instead, tell us how it will make the reader feel.

It will cause her to smile though her tears, and linger, unable to close that last page, because it's like saying goodbye to a friend you may never see again.

Okay, we promised GIVEAWAY CONTESTS, and here is our first:
Leave a comment on anyone's post between now and Jan 30 for a chance to win Every Good & Perfect Gift or Lying on Sunday by Sharon K. Souza. Because Sharon writes stories about extraordinary friendship, tell us about your best friend.

Thank you for sharing your time with those of us at Novel Matters. Please come back, and let us know what you're thinking. We love to hear from you.