Author: Marcia Meara

Dialogue Tags and You

/ Marcia Meara / 10 Comments

Sorry to be running a day late, but I still want to be sure none of you guys miss John Howell’s great reminder of how important it is to use dialogue tags (or not use them) correctly. Check out his post on Story Empire and you’ll see what I mean. And if you would, please consider passing it along on social media so others can enjoy it, too. Thanks, and thanks to John for reminding us that it’s critical to do this well! Great post, John! 🙂

John W. Howell's avatarStory Empire

Hello SEers. It’s John with you again, and today we are going to discuss dialogue tags.

Dialogue tags Photo from Pixabay

Hold on. Before you run off or decide to take a nap give me a moment to introduce the subject.

Dialogue tags Photo by Pixabay

We all know dialogue tags are intended to make it very clear who is doing the talking. Especially if there are more than two people involved.

Dialogue Tags Photo by Pixabay

Many authors also use dialogue tags for emotions or other indications about how the words are delivered. There is nothing wrong with this but the chance of overdoing it to a point of complicating the action and confusing the reader is always present.

Dialogue tags Photo by Pixabay

So, what do I want to accomplish today? My objective is simple. I want to cause a little thought about dialogue tags. “Yes, the person with the raised hand. You have a question?” “Why…

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#FirstLineFriday Submissions Are Now Closed! Here’s the Answer to Our Quiz, and the Name of Our Winner!

/ Marcia Meara / 16 Comments

Submissions for #FirstLineFriday are officially closed now. My thanks to all who emailed me with their guesses. Today, I’m sorry to say we have only one winner: Jeanne Owens.  Congratulations, Jeanne, and I hope you enjoy your download of Harbinger.

Jeanne’s Author Page can be found HERE  

And now, here’s the answer to today’s quiz:

“If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads.” is the opening line of Mary Poppins  written by P. L. Travers in 1934.

Mary Poppins, a series of eight children’s books written by Australian-British writer P. L. Travers , was published over the period 1934 to 1988. Mary Shepard was the illustrator throughout the series.

The books center on the magical English nanny Mary Poppins, who is blown by the East wind to Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane, London, and into the Banks’ household to care for their children. Encounters with pavement-painters and shopkeepers, and various adventures ensue, until Mary Poppins abruptly leaves, or “pops out”. 

The books were adapted by Walt Disney into a musical film titled Mary Poppins (1964), starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. It received both critical acclaim and a total of 13 Academy Awards nominations, including Best Picture – a record for any film released by Walt Disney Studios – and won five: Best Actress for Andrews, Best Film Editing, Best Original Music Score, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Song for “Chim Chim Cher-ee.”

In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.  Mary Poppins is considered Walt Disney’s crowning live-action achievement, and is the only one of his films which earned a Best Picture nomination during his lifetime.

WHAT AMAZON SAYS:

From the moment Mary Poppins arrives at Number Seventeen Cherry-Tree Lane, everyday life at the Banks house is forever changed.

It all starts when Mary Poppins is blown by the east wind onto the doorstep of the Banks house. She becomes a most unusual nanny to Jane, Michael, and the twins. Who else but Mary Poppins can slide up banisters, pull an entire armchair out of an empty carpetbag, and make a dose of medicine taste like delicious lime-juice cordial? A day with Mary Poppins is a day of magic and make-believe come to life!

Buy Mary Poppins HERE

And that wraps up #FirstLineFriday for this week. Will be back as soon as time allows with more great and inspiring first lines for your contemplation. Stay tuned!

#FirstLineFriday #GiveawayContest #FreeDownloads

/ Marcia Meara / 17 Comments

I apologize for the long delay since our last #FirstLineFriday post, and hope you’ll understand that it wasn’t for lack of interest in offering one. I’m just way, way behind on everything. But, having said that, here I am today with one I hope you’ll enjoy.

Not sure whether this one will be ridiculously easy or crazy hard, but I have no doubt the answer won’t be unfamiliar to you.  So here’s your chance to try your hand at #FirstLineFriday, our little quiz designed to help us appreciate some of the best opening lines in literary history. As always, from the classics of long ago to the latest best-sellers, no matter how old or how recent, everything is fair game on #FirstLineFriday. Let’s see how many of you recognize this one.  

Also as always, the rules are simple:

  1. Be one of the first five people to email me before the game ends at 4:00pm, with the title and author of the correct book. 
  2. Do not reply here on the blog. Email only: marciameara16@gmail.com
  3. Honor System applies. No Googling, please.
  4. Submissions end at 4:00 P.M. EST, or when I receive 5 correct answers, whichever comes first.
  5. Winners who live in the U.S. may request a free download of any one of my books for themselves, or for someone of their choice. OR, if they’ve read all of the offered books, they may request a free download of my next publication.
  6. Winners who live elsewhere may request a mobi or PDF file of the same books, since, sadly, Amazon won’t let me gift you from the site.

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for! Put on your thinking caps, because here is today’s opening line:

“If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads.” 

Remember, email answers only, please. Thanks! And now off I go to await your guesses. 

Aristotle Gave Us More than Philosophy

/ Marcia Meara / 5 Comments

An absolutely wonderful post today on Story Empire from Staci Troilo, regarding Aristotle and the true definitions of Comedy vs Tragedy. Hint: it isn’t necessarily what you think. Do yourself a favor and check it out, then if you would, please consider passing it along so others can, too. Thanks and thanks to Staci for teaching me something brand new today! 🙂

Staci Troilo's avatarStory Empire

Comedy TragedyCiao, SEers. Have you ever heard the term polymath? I had to dig deep into my college days to remember the definition. (We won’t discuss how long ago that was.)

A polymath is a person with knowledge in a wide range of topics. Polymaths go far beyond the Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none level of understanding and experience. These are experts in multiple fields. We often think of the Renaissance when we think of polymaths, Leonardo DaVinci being among the most famous. But there have been several throughout history. And Aristotle was one of them.

We tend to think of him as a philosopher. But among his many fields of expertise were arts, sciences, economics, politics, and metaphysics.

As this is a writing site, we’re going to talk about Aristotle’s contributions to literature. Not his work itself, but his defining of the terms comedy and tragedy.

Aristotelian Comedy
In an Aristotelian comedy, the…

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Expansion Pack: The Crucible

/ Marcia Meara / Leave a comment

A most excellent post on Story Empire today from C. S. Boyack, regarding putting your characters “in the crucible” to give them challenges that will “remake” them and change the direction of their lives dramatically. Check it out, and then, if you would, pass it along so others can think about this, too. Thanks, and thanks to Craig for giving me some serious food for thought. 🙂

coldhandboyack's avatarStory Empire

Hi gang, Craig with you again. Most of my posts seem to be about characters, so why should today be any different? Today, I’m going to share a little tip to help your main character get that all-important character arc.

Every person out there has an idea of who they are. There are things they take pride in, enjoy, that motivate them. There are also things they hate, loathe, and demotivate them. I’ll refer to this as the character paradigm. It’s the whole of who that person is.

Our job as authors is to put those characters in the crucible to make sure they have a way to change over the course of the story. One way to do this is to destroy the character paradigm.

I don’t consider this plotting, pantsing, or something in between. All of us do some kind of character development. Maybe you use Character Sheets

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How to Publish with KDP: Part Twelve

/ Marcia Meara / 7 Comments

If you are at all confused about formatting your book for publication on Amazon, Harmony Kent’s step-by-step post today will sort things out for you beautifully. Check it out, and then, please consider sharing far and wide, so others can learn some of these tricks, too. Thanks, and thanks to Harmony for such a terrific series! 🙂

Harmony Kent's avatarStory Empire

Image courtesy of bigstock.com

Hello SErs. Harmony here.  As promised, here is  part twelve in the post series dedicated to taking a step-by-step look at how to get your finished manuscript from your computer and on sale on Amazon in both ebook and paperback.

If you’d like to take a look back at the previous posts in this series, please click on the links at the end of this post.

So, here’s Part Twelve: How to Edit Your eBook.

If you need a recap on how to get your Word doc ready for conversion in Calibre, you can see an older post of mine HERE (How To: From Word to Book).

This will take you through all the formatting steps you need to complete before importing into Calibre.

Once you’re ready, you can check out another step-by-step post HERE (Transforming Your Book). This shows you how to convert from Docx…

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Where was I? #multitasking

/ Marcia Meara / 3 Comments

Are you, like most of us, plagued by too many distractions and too much multi-tasking? I highly recommend taking a look at Mae Clair’s interesting post today on Story Empire. I’ll bet you can identify! And I hope you’ll also consider passing it along so others can ponder this nearly-universal condition, too. Thanks, and thanks to Mae for a super post! 🙂

Mae Clair's avatarStory Empire

Hi, SE friends! Thanks for visiting. You’re with Mae today. Do you remember when no one uttered the word multitasking? When, in the (dinosaur) days of business, projects were conducted one at a time? That manner of productivity seems to have gone the way of roller skate keys and S & H Green Stamps. Who among us doesn’t multitask? I do it on my day job and as an author. It can be mentally exhausting, stressful, and not as efficient as we think.

The other day, I left a simple two-line message for a group I’m connected with through a social platform. Eleven words total. When I went back and looked at it later, I realized there were two typos. Not the end of the world, but it’s embarrassing, and I find myself doing it more frequently. Throughout my (day) career, I have been known as a perfectionist, yet…

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What’s Up With This?

/ Marcia Meara / 37 Comments

Sometimes you just have to wonder what the heck is going on in people’s minds. I’d say this isn’t for real, but it’s been in this range for several months.

You think maybe these stores are having a hard time finding someone who wants Finding Hunter this badly? (Especially given that it is not out of print and is still available on Amazon for the low, low price of $13.99. )

Hey. Maybe these are signed copies! Oh, yeah. That would explain it. (Insert derisive snort here.) 😀 

Don’t get me wrong. It is a great book, of course. (Just ask me.) But get serious!

 Anyone else find things like this now and then?  Just curious. 😀