Comments (10)

By Galen, March 8, 2010 4:02 AM

Hooo Raaay!! We have winners, three actually.  They are: Elspeth, Jan (AKA, Crazy Jane) and Carolyn! Congratulations. I’ll contact each, get their mailing address, and sometime around the end of March, mail each a copy of Hearts. 

I know you’re dying to learn the mystery picture answers. Each of you who guessed did way better than I would have done; I promise you. Great job.

Here are the official answers…. and a few more, just for fun!

Comments (11)

By Galen, March 5, 2010 6:06 AM

4….

5….

6…..

7…..

8…..

9….

Okay, these were hard!  Harder than I intended.  Still, I know you did well. Contest closes Sunday…See you again on Monday.

Comments (11)

By Galen, March 3, 2010 4:39 AM

Giveaway “Contest” Update:  Lots of great suggestions from the other day.  Thanks to all.  Further, in a surprise to me, the contest has begun! So much so, we’ve already had two winners—with more to come.   I’ll list winners at the beginning of each post, and probably create a page (link above in menu bar) or sidebar widget for them, as well.

The two winners are: 

• Jane Kennedy Sutton of Jane’s Ride, and,
• Eric Stallworth, of Working My Muse. Eric, please email your address. 

Jane wins because, in another life, she lived in Korea! Cool.  Eric wins because he’s a hardworking, diligent blogger who is one of life’s honest to goodness nice guys. I recommended their blogs for regular visits.

Both these folks will receive a copy of Hearts of the Morning Calm by the end of March/first week in April.  All I ask is they mention the “win” in some future post and link that mention here so others can win as well. That’s it.

More winners to come…I have a feeling, one of them will be YOU!

Now, to today’s scintillating content…

The components of a novel that readers care about most are, in order: story, characters, theme, atmosphere/setting.

I found that sentence in this article written by, Laura Miller. She notes that if you start at the beginning of the list, and eliminate each factor one-by-one, you’ll still have a readable, interesting book–until you reach a certain point in the novel.  This point is different for each manuscript.  At that point, the book, as an entity, will no longer capture or hold a reader’s interest.

This sounds reasonable.  I’m wondering, however, as you write and create your fictional world, populate it with characters, and put them into motion, is the:

• Story,
• Characters,
• Theme,
• Atmosphere/Setting…

order how you’re thinking?  Is it how you conceptualize your novel ideas?  Are all elements present when you put metaphoric pen to digital paper? Is it how you strive to write, once you’ve outlined? If you don’t outline, how do you address these elements? Do they, like the final product, just sorta happen?

I’d be interested to hear your take on Laura’s assertions and if you think it’s valid, or at least valid for you.

By way of Props to Laura…

About Laura Miller

Laura Miller is a senior writer at Salon.com, which she helped to co-found in 1995. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review, where she wrote the Last Word column for two years. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and many other publications. She is the author of "The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia" (Little, Brown, 2008) and the editor of "The Salon.com Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Authors" (Penguin, 2000). She lives in New York.

Twitter: @magiciansbook

Email: lauram@salon.com

Author site: lauramiller.org

Thanks for stopping by, see you again on, Fun Friday.  Galen.