Amazon's New Error Free Book Policy - How it May Affect All of Us

March 11, 2016!

What's that saying, Hell is paved with good intentions? While I wouldn't call Amazon Hell (not today anyway) their new stated policy to take down books with an excess of typos/mistakes might create a hellish scenario for those of us who put the time, money and effort into trying to create professional, high quality books.  How you ask? It's simple.

Amazon has stated that they will take down books that have reviews complaining about mistakes. Some reviewers complain about mistakes in nearly every review. Some think there are mistakes where there are none. Sometime, in our greater creative wisdom (ahem) authors make up our own words and a reader without vision might see those creative tidbits as mistakes.

I've already had a conversation with a very sweet lady who tended to mark all her reviews down a star and mention typos as the reason. She admitted my books were really pretty clean, but she found one or two things and didn't think anything of mentioning it in her reviews. Like a lot of people who don't write books, she assumed that books which had been professionally edited should be entirely clear of mistakes. She doesn't know how impossible this is.

As proof, I give you this story. A group of editors once decided that they would finally do the impossible and release a completely error free novel. They put the book through a hundred different edits with several different editors. When the day came that they finally thought the book was ready, they released it. Within the hour they got the dreaded feedback...there was an error. The title had a typo in it. LOL I feel their pain.

None of us likes to find out we've used the wrong word or have a typo in our work. I, for one, will go right in and fix whatever's wrong immediately and resubmit the book. (One of the great benefits of publishing your own work!) But realistically, nobody can expect perfection. Well, apparently nobody but my reviewer. LOL Unfortunately, when reviewers mention a typo it's kind of a permanent fixture in a book's review bank. And if you get a few of these, you're going to draw the attention of Amazon's grammar police. Hopefully they will take the time to check the actual quality of your work before gonging you, but they've stated that they'll be using actual human type people to check for errors. And Amazon has how many books on its cyber shelves? It seems there might be some mistakes made along the way. In fact if you go with Amazon's history of trying to manage (read control) reviews, you KNOW there will be mistakes.

My advice is to let your readers know how their absolutely reasonable observation about a typo in a review might affect you. Do as I did and very politely ask the favor of getting an email outlining the mistake instead. And hopefully your reviewer will be as kind and wonderful as mine and do you that favor. If you take great care to put out the best possible work, you should be fine. But we all know how best intentions can bite you in the boohind. So a few precautions might just be in order!

Happy reading/writing everybody!

Juggling Multiple Projects - Could you? Should you?

Available Now! 

I can't believe it's the end of June already. Suddenly my writing schedule for the year is starting to feel a little cramped. It's all my own fault of course, I have so many ideas and so much trouble saying no...  Or it could just be that old adage that whatever amount of time you have, you're going to fill it up.

I'm currently working on trying to finish up a book I really should have completed last year, but it just kept being shoved off the calendar to make way for something new and shiny. #:0) I'm also starting work on another book which will go into a box set in late Summer. In addition, I have two more series books that need to be written waiting in the wings and another couple which aren't promised or scheduled, but which I'd really like to finish because they're fun projects.

Add to all that a six book series that I got the rights back on, which needs to be re-edited, revamped, and rebranded before launching again by the end of the year...and you can maybe see why I'm panting a little bit. LOL

Right now you might be asking yourself if I'm just a tiny bit crazy. The answer to that would be, yes, of course I'm crazy...I'm a writer! But seriously, I do sometimes get feeling a little overwhelmed, but the feeling generally has little to do with my writing world and more to do with juggling the real world with all my writing projects.

So why do I do this to myself, you might ask? I would jokingly tell you I have writer's ADD and can't focus on one project for any length of time. That's only partly true. #:0) I actually like being busy, and I also like being productive. In addition, I generally write totally different types of projects at the same time, so I can use one as kind of a brain freshener when I get stuck on the other.

Moving back and forth from sci fi or paranormal to mystery or suspense keeps my brain fresh and agile. The wide creative shift enables me to totally slough off the kinks in the first project and tackle the next project without any hangover from the first one. The shift from one to the other builds creative elasticity. Yes, I'll occasionally put the wrong names into a book because I'm fresh from writing another story, but this doesn't happen as often as you might think.

In the course of doing this over the years, my brain has become a well-toned athlete (except when it isn't, LOL), performing a daily high wire act that rarely finds the net far below. Sure I still get stuck once in a while and, when nearing the end of a book I find I'm unable to shift away from it, but for the most part the system works for me, both short term and over the long haul.

Should you...could you...try juggling more than one writing project at a time? Only you know the answer to that. Not everybody is wired for project shifting. But I can tell you that it has its own challenges and definite rewards. If you're willing to give it a try, you just might discover your own athletic brain along the way!

Happy writing!

Felicity Chance returns to Sinful looking for a message from her father. Following a trail of clues Felly hopes will help her find him, she enlists the invaluable…and distracting…aid of Swamp Team 3. Unfortunately their search is complicated by the usual things—Carter and new mayor Celia Arceneaux have made it their mission to keep a close eye on Swamp Team 3 plus 1. The team also finds itself running from the Russian Mafia as well as the local bad guys. Will Felly and the Swamp Team find her father before all the bad guys do? Or will she get bogged down by the swamp, and sucked into the muck of her father’s shady past?

BUY BUBBA

Tagging Along

If you’re a writer, you know what a tag is. It’s that little statement at the end of dialogue that indicates who is speaking. For instance, in this snippet of dialogue, “I am going for a walk,” she said, she said is the tag. Most believe that using said for the majority of tags is the best word, because readers skip over the phrase without consciously noting it’s there, unlike other words such as answered or told or responded.

Writers can also get in bad habits by adding a bunch of action to the tag. An example would be:

“Don’t you ever come back,” she screamed as she threw a hair brush at him and missed, hitting the wall. It’s much better to separate the two, and in this case, get rid of the tag altogether. “Don’t you ever come back.” She threw her hair brush at him and grimaced as it missed and hit the wall.

If you have three or more characters in a scene, you will need to use occasional tags and use the names of the characters more often instead of the pronouns he and she to identify which he or she is speaking. Here is a short example from Coming to Climax, my suspense novel coming in September:

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Carroll.” Margaret walked forward to shake his hand. She handed a small brown bag to her friend. “Here’s your vanilla, Cindy.”

“Thanks.” Cindy took the bag. “Actually, he’s Doctor Carroll.”

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Palmer.” The man shook hands with her, a solemn expression on his face.

“Are you the local Family Practitioner?”

“I am if I’m helping your pet.”

Cindy laughed. “He’s a vet. Chris and I were just talking about a young guy who got shot.”

“You’re the vet who patched up Andy and Carolina? Thanks so very much.” She shivered. Maybe one more valium was a good idea . . .

“I knew it was Carolina,” Cindy said. “Just didn’t want to blurt it out in case you hadn’t seen her yet.”

“It’s okay. I just left her. All the time I kept thinking the person who shot Andy and nicked Carolina’s ear might be the same guy who killed those men.” Margaret sat down in a chair. “It makes me positively weak-kneed just thinking about it.”

“I hope they reported it to the sheriff. Please tell your niece I don’t think that was a stray bullet from a hunter.” He glanced back at Cindy. “Well, got to go. Kate says I have a Beagle with diarrhea and a Lab puppy who ate part of a garden hose waiting on me.”

Though the conversation changed back and forth ten times, only one tag was used.

If there are only two people in a scene, you know by your paragraph breaks who is speaking. Tags can be minimal or not there at all if you replace them with action by the character. Here’s an example from my latest Briny Bay mystery, The Marriage Murders, with tags and then without them.

With the tags:

“I hear you,” Trixie said. “Just how much extra-curricular activity have you done anyway?”

“As in sex?” Roxie asked.

Trixie sighed. “No, I meant Scrabble,” she said. “Of course I meant sex, you ditz.”

Roxie’s eyes narrowed and said, “Don’t demean me.”

“Stop the temper tantrum,” Trixie said. “I got tired of that when you were six. Spill. Have you two been to bed?”

“The time just hasn’t been right,” Roxie said.

“Bingo!” Trixie exclaimed. “Men’s minds wander at date six or earlier. Mark my words, he’s off shopping the catalogues, not admiring the old purchase.”

“Between you and Greg, I’m starting to feel like I’m ready for the glue factory,” Roxie said.

Trixie leaned down and stared into her sister’s eyes. “What’s with you?” she asked. “You’re the one who made whoopee with a California foreigner in a shed and Greg who is the obvious recipient of your pitty-pats doesn’t get as much as a bounce on the bed?”

“It’s because I admire him a lot,” she said.

“Admire is something you do to a president or a Mother Theresa or a Nelson Mandela, but it sure ain’t what you want to do to your sweetheart,” Trixie told her. “Not unless you’re laid back in a euphoric fog , smiling at how much you admire his motion of the ocean.”

“Motion of the ocean?” she asked.

Trixie shrugged and said, “You know it’s not the size of the wave, but the…”

“Right, got it,” Roxie said. “You are such a nag. You know how I am. It’s just like how I was about Christmas when I was a little girl. You’d already sneaked and opened all your presents and wrapped them back up, but I wanted to open one at a time during the day. ”

“I shoulda’ caught on you were brain-damaged then,” Trixie told her. “Get the car in gear sugar, or your sweetie will be trading you in on a new model.”

Removing the tags:

“I hear you.” Trixie placed one hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I suggest you get his mind off kids. Just how much extra-curricular activity have you done anyway?”

“As in sex?”

Trixie sighed. “No, I meant Scrabble. Of course I meant sex, you ditz.”

Roxie’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t demean me.”

“Stop the temper tantrum. I got tired of that when you were six. Spill. Have you two been to bed?”

Roxie stared at the floor. “The time just hasn’t been right.”

Trixie slapped the counter. “Bingo! Men’s minds wander at date six or earlier. Mark my words, he’s off shopping the catalogues, not admiring the old purchase.”

“Between you and Greg, I’m starting to feel like I’m ready for the glue factory.”

Trixie leaned down and stared into her sister’s eyes. “What’s with you? You’re the one who made whoopee with a California foreigner in a shed and Greg who is the obvious recipient of your pitty-pats doesn’t get as much as a bounce on the bed?”

Roxie bit her lip. “It’s because I admire him a lot.”

“Admire is something you do to a president or a Mother Theresa or a Nelson Mandela, but it sure ain’t what you want to do to your sweetheart. Not unless you’re laid back in a euphoric fog , smiling at how much you admire his motion of the ocean.”

Roxie looked up. “Motion of the ocean?”

Trixie shrugged. “You know it’s not the size of the wave, but the…”

“Right, got it.” Roxie exhaled. “You are such a nag. You know how I am. It’s just like how I was about Christmas when I was a little girl. You’d already sneaked and opened all your presents and wrapped them back up, but I wanted to open one at a time during the day. ”

“I shoulda’ caught on you were brain-damaged then. Get the car in gear sugar, or your sweetie will be trading you in on a new model.”

I hope this helps any beginning writers out there and would love to hear from readers as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bobbye Terry writes mystery/suspense, romance, fantasies and dystopian fiction. Her most recent release is Honey Blood and the Collector, written as Daryn Cross, Turquoise Morning Press.  Walk Right Back, also written as Daryn Cross, is soon to release from L&L Dreamspell. For more about Bobbye, visit her at www.BobbyeTerry-MysteryHappens.com and http://www.datyncross.com/ .

Now That's a Mystery

I read a review the other day that said most fantasies don’t have a mystery in them, and I began to wonder about that. I’m not sure that’s true, because to me it seems most fantasies have the hero/heroine searching for something. If they don’t know what it is, isn’t that a mystery? Even in my romantic comedies, the main characters are searching for a fundamental truth.

But, I have noticed as I write more straight mystery novels and turn to higher adventure fantasies, that the two become inexplicably combined in my fantasies (maybe a touch of magic even shows up in my mysteries).

In a recent new series that I have, strange things start to happen and even the earth angels involved can’t figure out how they’re occurring. For instance, what’s going on when a car appears to have driven by itself, no driver, or when lions suddenly appear in the back yard? What’s with the huge buzzard that keeps crashing into windshields? Then there’s the mysterious question of why the main character’s mother-in-law is being guarded by an archangel.

In my latest co-written work, This Magic Moment, released in December, the hero and heroine are searching for a love that has evaded them their whole lives. More importantly, they are searching for that one thing that will make them truly happy in their own skin. At the beginning, neither person is filled with wonder but beaten down by everyday life. To make matters even more interesting, mysterious things begin to happen, like everyone seemingly knowing what they’re doing all the time. How? Photos show up they didn’t know were taken. It appears someone is manipulating them so they’ll stay in the same rooms at night. Who could be behind all the mysterious occurrences they are now experiencing?

Piqued your interest? This Magic Moment is available now exclusively at Amazon.  The print copy is also available. The other series I mentioned, Walk Right In, is out now in e-book and print, released by L&L Dreamspell, and the sequel, Walk Right Back, will be out any time now. You can read more these and others on my website, www.DarynCross.com . For now, just remember that if someone says there’s no mystery in fantasy, you can ask them if they know how it will end when they begin. Not that’s a mystery.

He Said She Said

Wouldn’t it be nice if men and women understood each other better? But alas, she’s from Venus and he’s from Mars. So, let’s use it to its best advantage in writing. When a misunderstanding comes, milk it for what it’s worth by amplification of their miscommunication. I go for the humor, but you can also use it to amplify the frustration and the angst. It’s your call.

Sometimes it’s the man who misunderstands and sometimes it’s the woman. Here are two examples. In example one from Mr. Wrong by Terry Campbell, Roarke, the hero, is coming to find Kat and bring her back to the hospital where her daughter is from drinking Ipecac in an attempt to bring her mother home and into Roarke’s arms. The little girl wants them to be married. Kat is off on a holiday with a wealthy man she thinks is marriage material despite her overwhelming attraction to Roarke, whom she has labeled as Mr. Wrong. Her time with the wealthy man has been a disaster in which she has led him into injuring himself multiple times. So, let the fun begin…

Easing out of his car, he headed around the side of the house. As he entered the rear gardens, he spotted the kitchen lights, aimed for the stone patio and stopped.

“Pull it and you’ll get the treat of a lifetime.”

“Slippery little devil, isn’t it?”

Slippery little devil? He was too late.

****

Kat jerked the tab. The shell separated from the crab and sailed through the air like Tory’s Frisbee.

Jason’s hand flew to his cheek.

“I’m sorry.” She battled tears as blood seeped from under his fingers. “I can’t seem to do anything right.” It was a good thing Jason wasn’t Mr. Right. She doubted he’d survive marriage to her, assuming he lived long enough. Guilt-ridden, she stood and moved cautiously toward him.

He bolted to his feet. “Stay where you are.” He edged around her and started to the bathroom.

She advanced. “I know what to do. After all, I am the mother of a six-year-old.”

“She’s lived that long?”

Tears of held-in laughter streamed down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.” Her fingers touched his newest wound as a noise caught her attention. She turned and glanced at the open French doors. Rourke stood in the threshold looking like a savage warrior bent on murder. Her hand dropped to her side, and she offered a tentative smile as he moved toward them. “Rourke? What are you doing here?”

“Thank God. I’m saved.” Jason said, seconds before Rourke’s fist connected with his jaw.

“Get your stuff. Tory’s in the hospital.”

She stared at his disappearing back. “Wait.” she screamed. “What do you mean Tory’s in the hospital?”

Four minutes later and after hurried explanations, Kat stood beside the open passenger door and watched Rourke toss her bags into the trunk and slam the lid down. “You don’t understand.”

“I said get in the car, Katherine.”

She slipped into the passenger seat and jerked the door closed. This was ridiculous. She hadn’t done anything to deserve this frigid treatment, and Tory wasn’t in danger. Of course, Rourke saw everything in black and white.

“Thank you for coming out here. I’ll feel better once I see Tory’s okay for myself.” At his glower, she winced.

“That’s nice. God knows we all want you to feel better.”

A sharp retort threatened, but she bit her lip and watched in silence as he threw the car in reverse. “I realize she’s dehydrated, but it was Ipecac, not poison.”

“Which she drank because she wanted you home, not off for a weekend of love with your flavor of the month. Or is it, the week?”

“That’s unfair and out of line. Yes, Tory didn’t want me to date Jason. But that’s because she wanted us together.” She glanced at his grim mask and sighed. “Of course, kids dream the silliest things.”

He jerked the steering wheel to the right and pulled to the side of the road. “You discussed Jason and this trip with her?”

When he turned that slate-gray glare on her, she nodded. “I tried to explain—”

“I don’t want to hear it.” He faced front, put the car in gear and went from zero to seventy in six seconds. “That’s always been your problem, Katherine, you don’t think.”

She wasn’t sure which was worse, his burning glare of disgust or his cold frost of disdain. She’d never liked her name, Katherine, and now she hated it.

“You couldn’t even wait to make it out of the living room to start jumping the man.” He snorted and shook his head. “I’m glad you didn’t take me up on my offer. I’m not into S&M or having my bed partner draw blood.”

“Now wait a minute. That isn’t what happened. Jason was showing—”

“His equipment.”

She gasped. What an arrogant bully. Boy, was he going to be embarrassed when he discovered the truth. “No. I was learning how to pull—”

“A zipper. I can’t believe you called his equipment a ‘slippery little thing.’ I thought I taught you not to attack a man’s ego.”

Now here’s another example of our heroine misunderstanding the hero. In The Marriage Murders, my latest book written under my real name, Greg, the hero, wants to explain that he has just discovered he has a grown daughter from a love affair he had when he was very young. Roxie, the heroine, thinks he’s telling her he had an affair with the town’s new femme fatale . Roxie’s especially upset about his timing because she came to their date fully equipped with sex toys and a box of After Dinner Weanies.

“I have to come clean about something. It’s not like me to keep secrets, but I thought this was going to upset you, and I didn’t know exactly how to break the news.”

Finally, now, of all the odd and unexpected times, he was planning on unloading about his affair with Marlowe. Like she really needed to hear it on the night she’d hoped for a chance to check out his bed herself.  “I see. You may not have to tell me Greg. I think I already know.”

“You do?” He frowned. “How could you? No one around here knows.” He sighed. “I should have known you’d discover it. You always find out what going on. I want you to understand, what happened happened many years ago. If I’d known what I do now, it never would have occurred, not in a million years.”

She nodded. “I’m sure that’s true. When we’re younger, our hormones get the better of us. I would never have married Billy if I’d known about Georgia being pregnant.”

He stared at her, concern showing by the set of his jaw. “I understand exactly. But in all fairness to Billy, sometimes the woman doesn’t know what she really is doing to a long term relationship. You know, Georgia could have baited Billy, not told him the truth about birth control, even lied to him that she wasn’t pregnant, or worse yet, told him she’d aborted.”

Roxie grabbed the back of the seat cushions and stared at him in disbelief. She dug her nails into the fabric and wanted to gnash her teeth to powder. “You’re telling me you got her pregnant? You actually fathered a child with that woman?”

“That’s what I was trying to explain, but I didn’t know at the time. Now you’re sounding surprised. Look, I don’t know how you found out about this. Did Justina actually tell you?”

Her eyes widened in shock. “Justina? Who exactly is Justina?”

His mouth fell open and he stared at her like he’d lost all his senses.  “You said you knew. I just thought my daughter had somehow met you before I saw her.”

Roxie jumped to her feet. “This is worse than I ever thought it could be. You had an affair with her and now you tell me you have her daughter? Greg, you are not at all the man I thought you were.” She grabbed her paper bag and held up her hand, palm forward. “Don’t say another word. I’m leaving before I bite off the real version of the mints I have in my bag.”

See how the misunderstanding become worse, fueling the fire for more action? Try it in your writing, and please tell me about examples from your own writing.

Bobbye Terry writes mystery/suspense, romance, fantasies and dystopian fiction. The Marriage Murders, Bobbye’s Book 2 in the Briny Bay Mysteries series, was just released. Bobbye and Linda Campbell, writing as Terry Campbell, have a new cozy mystery short story collection, Slam Sisters of Serendipity, that released through Eternal Press.  For more about Bobbye, visit her at www.BobbyeTerry-MysteryHappens.com and www.BobbyeTerryRomance.com .

Nail-Biting Tension

You know what’s it like. You’re reading a book on the edge of your seat. No bathroom break, no sir and you hope you don’t have to call for a catheter. Whatever happens, people better get ready to take care of it, because no way are you leaving this story. The tension in your shoulders is so tight, you can feel your muscles throb. Yet you turn the pages. Oh, my word, what will happen? How can the hero escape? How can he stay alive? Tension like that, my friends, is what you want to read. And it is, most assuredly, what you want to write. But how?

For me, it’s all in knowing how to crank it up. Here is a list to help:

The law of three-I find this very useful when writing suspense. To me, it means two separate things.

First, when writing a suspense or thriller (or any fiction, really) raise the stakes three times. You take a bad situation and make it worse. Then, just when you think how much worse could it be, kick it up one more notch. But it can’t happen all at the same time. That’s where pacing comes into play (stay tuned). For example (from Coming to Climax, releasing September 5^th): Margaret is going back to Climax for the first time in twenty-plus years to resolve her argument with her niece. She doesn’t know how she’ll ever face Blue, who married her sister on the rebound all those years ago. Margaret worries and frets, even orders three little bottles of Scotch on the plane. Can she pull it off and save face (the stakes)? Their meeting will be tense. But what if…you then find out Blue’s adopted daughter is really Margaret’s child? Will Blue forgive her and will she alienate Caroline forever? The stakes are raised again. But what if…the crimes in the town have something to do with those she loves and may lead to her death, or worse, Blue and Carolina getting killed? The stakes are raised again. Now you’re ready to feed in the tension by hitting the hot buttons, her stakes. Each time, the tension escalates.

Now thanks to Margie Lawson, think of the repetition of three items. By repeating words or phrases in a work, it brings emphasis or punch to the segment. That will be demonstrated at the end of this article.

Pacing and sentence structure – Don’t use long flowery sentences when in the middle of a tense scene. Think in shorthand and see the scene through the eyes of the person who has the POV. You’re seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting in snippets of sensation. Actions are choppy and hurried.

Reappearing images, phrases and sentences - One technique that pulls your book together and gives you a gotcha moment is to introduce something early in the text and then repeat it later with a twist. This could be a scene in a calm location, such as a thinking place or the security of one’s home. Later the same scene is colored with the ominous presence of the villain who seeks to kill the hero. Like Chef Emeril says, “kick it up a notch.” Similarly you can use a phrase or object that was used in an early violent or tense-filled scene and reintroduce it much later in another such scene, but this time involving a main character or the hero himself. For instance, in Nick of Time, the sequel to Coming to Climax, the book opens with two evil characters trapping a woman in a net they set up to capture her deep in the forest. One of the characters says. “Easier than trapping the Easter bunny.” Much later in the book, a prominent secondary character is trying to get away, and is also caught in a net. The same evil character says. ““Easy trapping, but you ain’t no Easter Bunny.” See? Gotcha’!

Atmosphere and Setting-I talked about this earlier when I explained about the calm scene becoming the violent one later. That’s setting. Use everything, the weather, the lighting, the location. For instance, my really threatening scenes in the Climax books normally take place in the deep forest with low lighting and obstacles to running, in abandoned buildings, even around a graveyard. Take time to describe the scenery. Paint a word picture so the reader can feel the dark mood and the somber tone.

Now, see if you can spot some of my techniques in this snippet (now unedited) from Nick of Time, coming in January 2012:

The guy vaulted at him, grabbing his shirt. Luke jerked loose, the fabric ripping. He lunged for the door. The man’s hands, talons, grabbed his shirt. Exerting unearthed power, Luke wrenched free and ran.

Ran from the trailer, primed for evasion. Ran down the path, terrified of capture. Ran like the hunted, straining to survive.

He darted into the woods, his breath coming in ragged gulps, his mind racing like an over-wound toy. The shadowed forest of a slowly setting sun dotted his view with dark patches of hopelessness. Run for escape. Run to the dark. The man won’t see me there.

Hiding behind a dense thatch of trees, he heard nothing. Maybe I lost him. He stayed silent, trying to calm his heaving chest. Maybe he left. His heart whammed against his ribcage, pounding anger at his foolishness. Where did he come from? His mind slapped him, laughing at his ignorance. He should have known.

I hope my insights will help someone on her quest to writing success. And for the reader, now you understand a bit about what goes into that novel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bobbye Terry writes mystery/suspense, romance, fantasies and dystopian fiction. The Marriage Murders, the sequel to Buried in Briny Bay, is slated for release on July 4^th. Bobbye and Linda Campbell, writing as Terry Campbell, also have a new cozy mystery short story collection, Slam Sisters of Serendipity. Kenada, a “Ladies of the Chronicles” novelette in the Cash Chronicles series releases in just a few weeks.  For more about Bobbye, visit her at www.BobbyeTerry-MysteryHappens.com, http://www.daryncross.com/  and www.BobbyeTerryRomance.com.

Did Bridget Jones Die?

Got your attention, didn’t I? Still, I’m asking a valid question. It appears that the oh-so-once-popular chick lit has now died on the vine. It didn’t even get a proper burial. No more new journals for Bridget. Then again, perhaps the claim is erroneous. Could it be that these books still exist but are masquerading under new euphemisms?

I did a Google search to see what chick lit is being called and read some interesting and somewhat comical discussions about how to term such a work-in-progress so an agent or editor will read and consider it. One writer suggested  “upmarket fiction.” Another one pointed out that upmarket fiction is meant to describe work that falls between literary and commercial fiction and chick lit isn’t really that “upscale.” That left me thinking the formerly designated chick lit was somewhere between the “how-to” instructions for your latest purchased gizmo (you know, the instructions you never read) and last week’s junk mail.

I finally came to the conclusion that “downmarket fiction” would be a more appropriate title, but that depresses me even more because it makes me think of the stock market and the current state of economic affairs. To name my literature in such a manner would doom it to never even being purchased, much less read.

Most of the posts I found agreed that former chick lit books were now being referred to as “women’s fiction.” What on earth does that mean? I don’t know what you think of it, but, honestly, I find that to be incredibly boring. It sounds like a department in a megastore. As a result, I think we need to rename this type of literature. While we’re at it, let’s try to get rid of the stereotypical heroine image of stiletto heels and frilly fru-fru or skin-tight outfits. How can we bring justice to the genre when it gives credence to its don’t-get-no-respect appearance?

One writer, Jon Eaves, said it better than me in a guest blog at Novelicious, http://www.novelicious.com/chick-lit-genre:

The cover will invariably be pale pink or baby blue. The title will be written in a curly, a whirly or even possibly a squirly font.  There will, without exception, be a smattering of either silvery stars or shiny red hearts or, in the worst case scenario, purple butterflies. The cover illustration will be a stylised colour drawing of the thin, pretty heroine wearing deep red lip gloss and very pointy shoes.

So here is my list of the top five must-haves in the new “chick-lit” yet-to-be-named:

1.      Independent, not some run-home-to-live-with-mom-and-dad sappy, spineless heroine.

2.      The heroine is a good friend but capable of having lunch or drinking a coffee-shop drink without her double-sided-tape chums.

3.      In at least one scene in the book, the heroine is dressed wearing flats or ratty slippers. Under no circumstances should she own any shoes or handbags with names the average American can’t easily pronounce.

4.      There is more on the heroine’s mind than the hero, the way she is going to spend her time off and the state of her friends’ love lives.

5.      The heroine is not in her twenties, slim with a fabulous wardrobe and living in the middle of the glamorous neighborhood of a metropolis.

Here’s to forty-year-old heroines with weight issues in suburbia who are divorced or never married with mortgages that swallow half their incomes and a desire for a night life they don’t have. Wait! I have the perfect name for the literature. Reality fiction.

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Bobbye Terry writes the new yet-to-be-named “chick-lit” as well as romantic comedies, cozy mysteries, suspense, fantasies and dystopian fiction. Her latest work is Rose, Book 1 in The Lipstick Girls series.  The sequel, Rusty, will be out in late June. Bobbye and Linda Campbell, writing as Terry Campbell, have a new cozy mystery short story collection, Slam Sisters of Serendipity, debuting through Eternal Press on June 7^th.  For more about Bobbye, visit her at http://www.bobbyeterryromance.com/ and www.BobbyeTerry-MysteryHappens.com.