Essay Online

Have you given much thought to the voice of your narrator? Perhaps you assumed the narrator in your novel should remain neutral. Many writers believe that the narrator should have little in the way of identity and the use of a narrator is essentially a necessary means of moving the story from one scene to the next.

It may come as a surprise to learn that your narrator can, and SHOULD, have a distinctive voice. The narrator should be used to do more than simply take the reader on a guided tour of your story.

The technique used to add life to your narrator is called ‘Voice’. How you ultimately choose to define the character of your narrator can add a new dimension to your work. By adding a unique personality to your narrator the reader has a chance to visualize the story through the eyes of someone that intrigues them. They may not particularly like the narrator, but the voice you choose help the reader find a new facet of interest in your story.

Your narrator could have a strained relationship with the main character and might make occasionally negative comments as they unfold the story. The reason for the animosity could be explained and resolved as the story unfolds.

The Disney movie “Emperor’s New Groove” was narrated by the main character who interjected humor, sarcasm and arrogance that allowed the viewer to gain a clearer picture of the primary character, the conflict his actions created, and the ultimate need for him to lose some of his pride. What is interesting is the narrator’s voice also allowed the viewer to actually enjoy the Emperor’s character even more.

In western fiction the narrator often provides range-hardened wisdom during the course of the narrative that leaves you feeling as if you’ve saddled up a horse and are paired up an agreeable partner that has much to teach you.

Some writing intentionally portrays the narrator as distant and rather formal in their story telling. In this case the writer does not wish to have the narrator play a significant role in the storyline and only wishes them to fill in the blanks with no commentary or personality showing through.

Determining the voice of your narrator can be an important element in the development of your story. Choosing the ‘voice’ of your narrator may be best achieved early in the story-writing process to avoid needless rewriting.

Love songs are everywhere. But does anyone have a definition of love, which &ndash people claim &ndash makes the world go around? Sure, it’s easy to tell when you’re in love with someone. [The heart pounds and you act like an idiot.] But it’s much harder to say if you actually love someone.

Enter the mind of Harry Jenkins, as he is about to make love to Natasha,

And then he laughed at himself as he sank beneath the covers. No sane man would question such free and voluptuous pleasure, as if it could only be valued through thought. Only an idiot or a fool would try to analyze love and passion.

Nonetheless, like the fool, I seek a definition. Perhaps it is the lawyer in me. On the subject of love, Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, is a sobering read. All of us, supposedly, carry within us, an animus [if you're female] and an anima [if you're male], which is the idealized image of the person you love. And so, when you are in love you are projecting this idealized image on a real, live person who might be naturally quite entitled to be different.

After the honeymoon, those annoying little cracks in the image appear, which could certainly explain the high divorce rate. When you find the real person doesn’t exactly match your superimposed ideal, what do you do?

All of these thoughts led me to explore people’s ideas of all kinds of love, not just the romantic variety, in Final Paradox, the second in The Osgoode Trilogy.

Harry Jenkins is the lawyer protagonist throughout the trilogy, which contain story lines of murder and fraud. He is in the thrall of the beautiful Natasha. His aging father, who abandoned him as a child, has just asked his forgiveness. Harry can’t seem to find that in his heart. Natasha asks him&ndash

What do you think love is?

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s about wanting someone as part of your life. Wanting them always with you.” He looked into her eyes. “Why? What do you think?”

“I think it’s about getting outside yourself and seeing another person’s life from their point of view. At least that’s a start,” Natasha replied.

Harry heard his father’s words. It’s all about you, is it? Would he always be the kid, he wondered?

Another character musing about love is Norma Dinnick &ndash an elderly client of Harry’s who trips back and forth between lucidity and madness. She recollects her stew of feelings for various men.

Going back to her hotel, Norma tried to understand. She knew about affection and caring from Arthur, her husband, who kept her safe from the emptiness. But she did not understand this business of love, which David talked about. She did know that such emotions gave her a sense of power. The sheer lust she experienced in the presence of George made her feel weak and vulnerable.

Norma simply doesn’t understand about love and neither does Bronwyn &ndash another character. An embittered soul, she has married a gay man and on her honeymoon - She wandered the narrow beach of sand and stone where the boats ferried back and forth to the grottos. No Peter. But then she saw him at a distance on the beach walking slowly with a younger man she did not know. Where had they come from? Right from the start, she had known. Of course, the bargain was unspoken, but well understood. For money and security, Bronwyn had sacrificed any chance for love.

But in the end, Harry does begin to get it. In bed with the lovely Natasha, he was

…transported outside his own body, he was overcome with the desire to know the dreams, fantasies and mysteries she held within. He would enter her world with love and understanding and never leave. The awe he felt in her closeness made his breathing slow and deepen in rhythm with hers. He watched his hand reach out of the shadows to smooth the sheet. She was at last in his bed and, fearing a mirage, he dared not wake her. In the past two weeks, his world had been shaken. His mind had become a jumble of colliding, conflicting events and consequences. Now he felt her power to draw his life together. A still peace gently settled over him like a silken web of meaning.

(Reprinted from Final Paradox by Mary E. Martin with permission).

One day when I had nothing to do (well, actually, I had a lot to do, but I didn’t want to do any of it), I decided to play the Google game. This is the one where you input your own name or something else into the field in quotes to see how many search results you get. Because my most recent book, Queen Geeks in Love, was coming out soon, I decided to search the term “geek.” What I found astounded me.

I got more nearly 70 million hits from the word “geek.”

That’s million.

So, I figured that most every term would fetch that many results, or close to it. I started with what I would assume is the antithesis of ‘geek’: the “gossip girl’, which yielded 3,560,000. ‘Beauty Queen” yielded 1,750.000. Glamour came the closest to geek, with 44,600,000, but as you can plainly see, being glamorous is nothing compared to being geeky, statistically. Even the trendy “fashionista” only turned back 5,590,000 results.

So what does this mean? Is Google a valid measurement of popular culture? I suppose it’s not extremely scientific, but it does seem to be in indication of how many sites mention the word, which, by the way, originated as a circus term for a person who bit the heads off live animals. Thankfully, that particular aspect of geekdom seems to have faded out, unless you count Ozzy Osbourne in his former glory days.

If you look to the true measure of what’s out there in the zeitgeist, check your local television listings. This fall, every new show seems to be supernatural (which is within the realm of the geek.) We have Moonlight, a vampire tale. We have Journeyman, Supernatural, Ghost Whisperer, and Medium. The biggies&ndashLost and Heroes&ndashsell DVD collections in droves. Geeks are no longer hiding in their cyberclosets.

As early as 2001, the term “geek chic” began to be used, and in fact, a London clothing company ran a campaign using that very term to market its clothing. Fast forward to last year, when ABC premiered a show called Ugly Betty, with America Ferrera starring as an anti-fashion uber-geek. Well, guess who was on the October 2007 cover of Glamour Magazine? That’s right. The geeky girl. Of course, they glammed her up, but still, I couldn’t help but feel that someone from my team finally made it to the big leagues.

Gloria Baume, a fan of Ugly Betty and a fashion editor at Teen Vogue, told the New York Times that Betty’s “geek-chic look could trickle down.” In the New York Times article, she added, ”I’m obsessed with the nerd look right now,” adding that a number of designers appear to be similarly taken with all things dorky. ”Paul Smith did it in London,” she said. ”Lacoste did it here in New York. Luella also did the geek look. In her own kind of funny, twisted way, Betty has her own sense of style. It’s kooky, but it’s totally her.” (New York Times, October 2006).

USA Today even noted that “Knowledge is power and geek is chic. If you’re a cyber whiz who is plugged into the pop-culture world of sci-fi, fantasy, comic books and cult horror, maybe even the master of a Web shrine devoted to such once-arcane matters, you don’t just rule. You rock.”

Scholars are even on the geek bandwagon. One Danish scholar wrote a dissertation on geek culture and cited it as “the third counterculture” after hippies and yuppies. “The geek culture is changing the norm, transforming mainstream culture,” writes Lars Konzack in his thesis, titled “Geek culture, the third counterculture” ” Not long ago nobody would have known outside the geek culture what was meant by player character, experience points, level gain, and hit points. Now it seems like everybody knows. The geek culture is transforming mainstream cultures and it’s just the beginning of a general cultural change in that direction,” Lars Konzack, Aalborg University, Denmark.

In my own novels, Queen Geek Social Club and Queen Geeks in Love, the self-professed geeks of the title are girls who unapologetically are themselves. They like science and science fiction, but they also like fashion and guys. They want to change the world, but they also want to enjoy it. I like to think of them as the geek I never was in high school&ndashconfident, comfortable, clever. They know who they are, and although they struggle with self-doubt and anxiety like all teenagers, they use their intelligence and the support of their geek sisters to get through it all. In the end, it’s a great message to send to girls (or guys), and it reminds me of something someone once wrote in the margin of my yearbook: “be the way you are and you’ll go far.” Go geeks.

I have no idea how many books are crammed onto bookshelves all about the subject of marketing, there must be many millions. It is a subject well understood, how do you make someone buy your Widget as opposed to the other guys Widget? Marketing is the answer, but, marketing comes at a price. How much can you afford?

I have a friend who is a retired BBDO exec, and in his mind, marketing that widget should cost the same as the national debt of a small country. Most small businesses can hardly manage to pay the rent and other expenses, never mind a TV spot on The Superbowl.

David Mason has done a very fine job of encapsulating the important aspects of marketing into a very short read. While I am not sure that he has introduced anything new, he has put it on paper that even the most book ‘resistant’ company owner could manage, at a scant 121 pages this should not scare even the skittish book reader.

Of course there is a downside with using such a short format, in a word ‘lists.’ My wife knows me very well, and she always has stuff for me to do. But she also knows that giving me a long ‘To Do’ list makes my eyes glaze over. If the list has less than than 5 items, the chances are good that I will at least attempt a few of them. David Mason prefers longer lists, I believe one was 16 items long! That I found a little of a turn-off, my wife knows better than to try a list that long on me!

On the plus side, he makes very convincing arguments. Arguments that make sense. It is important that every business has a ’slogan,’ David Mason calls it the USP (Unique Selling Proposition), but slogan or banner is what we are talking about.

How do you attract customers? You have your slogan, but if it only exists on your computer or in your head, who is going to hear the message? Many people have small companies, some sell niche products, some sell niche services, how do you sell your idea? Newspaper Ads might work, but only for the day, a Magazine might work for a month, radio and TV spots last for seconds! How about the internet?

David Mason explores all of the potentials, all of the advertising mediums have their up’s and down’s, cost, effectiveness, even the number of eyeballs that you get your message in front of are important considerations.

The last part of the book I found really helpful, he has included some samples of headlines and opening lines that the small business owner could use in his advertising campaign, and some simple worksheets to assist in customizing the slogans to your own specific needs.

Marketing You Small Business For Big Profits is small enough to be a quick and easy read, but large enough to contain the vital elements important to run an effective advertising program. The author also takes a very down to earth approach in offering advice on implementing the strategies. ‘You don’t have to do them all, just start with one and see what happens.’ In other words you don’t have to do everything, just do something.

Today, Norm Goldman, Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com is pleased to have as our guest, Rob Costelloe, author of Coinage of Commitment.

Good day Rob and thanks for participating in our interview.

Norm: When did your passion for writing begin? What keeps you going?

Rob: I wrote earlier in life, including a teeth-cutting first novel, then I abandoned writing altogether. But I continued to study romantic love as a potential source of fulfillment in people’s lives, and I enjoyed studying love stories in books and films. In 2005 I read an otherwise well written novel whose denouement was so suddenly despairing that I felt outrage on behalf of all the women readers who were disappointed by this disjointed outcome. Within twenty-four hours, I started writing Coinage of Commitment.

Norm: Will you share a little bit about Coinage of Commitment with us?

Rob: Sure. Coinage of Commitment offers a different kind of love story, a drama of characters who love at a higher level than what we see all around us. But this is not portrayed as just a case of spontaneous feelings conquering all. Rather, our lovers develop a hunger and capacity for higher love by reflections and experiences they have before and after meeting. The story gives a glimpse into the unique challenges such a pair would face in striving to reach the zenith they seek. The plot does feature a love triangle, so the novel is actually two love stories that culminate dramatically in a surprise ending.

Norm: How did you get the inspiration for this book? Did you have a hard time fleshing out characters initially?

Rob: The inspiration, or at least the creative energy for the project, was driven by this concept of love at a higher level, one requiring a thinking basis as well as an emotional one. Some nonfiction books that offer advice for improving relationships deal with this issue extensively, but fiction has not risen to exploring love that’s anything higher than merely spontaneous emotions.

You asked about character development and, yes, it was difficult. These are not characters who would ever be mistaken for plain vanilla. The male protagonist had to be recast from the first draft to realistically portray the conflict he experiences before the lovers find union.

Norm: How much real-life did you put into your book? Is there much “you” in there?

Rob: My contribution was that I’ve experienced love at a higher level and for a long enough time that I could define its elements from experience and inject them into a story of lovers who have class, financial, and religious differences to overcome, as well as opposition from both families, before they can reach the destination they seek.

Norm: It is said that if you want to write a good story or novel you need to create struggles of powerful descriptive individuals and not just issues. Through their accomplishments and travail, we very much comprehend the issues. How is this applicable to your book?

Rob: I agree with your premise and that’s why I put a lot of effort into refining and, in some cases, redefining the main characters so that the story would center around them more than the plot elements. At the same time, they need to be believable and appealing to readers who want and deserve to be immersed in characters they can relate to. But as you’ve indicated, it is really the setbacks and challenges the characters must resolve that make them all they can be in a story. Watching them struggle onward, never losing that certain air that we ourselves admire, is what makes them memorable to readers.

Norm: What kind of research did you do to write this book? What are your hopes for this book?

Rob: I had to get acquainted with the Penn and Drexel campuses, where the story is set. In a way, the research was more difficult because the story takes place in the late 1960s, and many of the settings I used no longer exist, or have changed. Cavanaugh’s Restaurant, realistically set in the first chapter near 31st and Market in Philly has since moved. The movie theater used in the Chapter seven date scenes was real, and I used it because it was very popular at the time. But it has since been torn down. Recovering its address was quite an adventure. Little things can be challenging: like researching the legal driving age in California in the early sixties.

You asked about my hopes for the book. In a way, Coinage for me was a labor of love, an attempt to give something back for the life I’ve been blessed with. My hope for the book is that it will sell well, that readers will enjoy it, feel enriched and uplifted by it. So far, reader feedback has exceeded my expectations.

Norm: What motivated you to write a book pertaining to romantic love, and what is your definition of romantic love? How does it differ from other kinds of love?

Rob: Believe it or not, one thing that got me started on this journey was a case of bad science. Sometime during the sixties, a widespread notion got established that romantic love did not exist except as a trivial permutation of the sexual impulse. Instead of being viewed as a unique emotional capability that is obviously separate from the sexual impulse, romantic love was derided as this maudlin quirk of the sexual impulse itself that teenagers experience and then grow out of as they mature and grow up.

I kept reading these articles, by Ph.D.s who should have known better, claiming that romantic love was an illusion, produced as an unfortunate byproduct of sexual chemistry, and that the sooner one got over it the sooner one could settle into an “adult” relationship based on calculated mutual benefit and, of course, sex. Yes, this was a kind of underside of the sexual revolution. I grew alarmed that people were lowering their expectations about what romantic love could provide in their lives because of crackpot science. I also watched it affect our literature, as stories featured more sex and a more watered down, primitive sort of love, one based mainly on impulse and sexual attraction. I started writing, partly to contribute what I could in the way of damage control. It was painful to watch the needless harm that was done to millions of emotional lives. And it took another whole generation for science to finally condescend to legitimizing the same romantic love that flourished in the Middle Ages.

You asked about a definition of romantic love. Well, let’s see. Romantic love is that affection between the sexes that augments and usually stimulates the sexual urge. Often an initial sexual upwelling serves as an emotional attractant, and the couple falls in love. It is more volatile than others kinds of love–such as maternal love–and it has been known to change from adoring affection to murderous hate in a matter of minutes (given the right kind of adulterous news). It can burn brighter than any other kind of love, and often does, but it is hard to maintain. The higher love I write about is an attempt to examine how that brighter state might be enhanced and sustained by intellectual and behavioral means, while also giving readers a good story to enjoy.

Norm: I read where Dr. Helen Fisher, author of Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love believes that romantic love is a universal human feeling that produces specific chemicals and networks in the brain. Do you agree with Dr. Fisher?

Rob: I agree, but really…how could romantic love not be a universal human feeling? From literature, we’ve known about it since ancient times. The Bible even has a book of poetry dedicated expressly to it. And on top of that, from the Middle Ages through the nineteenth century, a well developed and very feminine-flavored form of romantic love was a feature of Western culture that distinguished it from all others. The Russians ridiculed it during the cold war; the Japanese adopted it as one of the first things they copied from us after World War II. As far as chemicals and networks in the brain are concerned, I am happy to see this kind of quantitative progress. I am especially happy to see the scientific community catching up to reality and verifying a feature of our basic humanity that many of us have long viewed as indisputable.

Norm: Can you tell us how you found representation for your book? Did you pitch it to an agent, or query publishers who would most likely publish this type of book? Any rejections? Did you self-publish?

Rob: I never did come close to landing an agent. The agencies tend to be hidebound conservative, and I was peddling a love story unlike any other. And it is written in a more emotionally vivid style than is currently fashionable. The sales figures tell me that that works well for readers, but the agencies wouldn’t touch it. I went through five hundred rejections in three months until I came across a group of small royalty publishers who have sprung up in the last five years. They do not accept returns, they provide little in the way of promotional help, and they sell mainly through Internet outlets–although their books are carried by the major distributors. Among this group, I ended up with three contract offers. I went with Saga Books because they offered the best contract, and they thought the book good enough to publish it in three months on a fast track basis.

Norm: How have you used the Internet to boost your writing career?

Rob: Without the Internet, the publisher who produced my book would not exist. Many of the watchdog groups that have sprung up to protect writers from shadier elements of the publishing universe are Internet-based. They helped me greatly, and I offer them my thanks, especially Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware. The Internet has helped create an environment closer to a truly free market festival of ideas and expression than we have ever had.

Norm: Is there anything else you wish to add that we have not covered and what is next for Rob Costelloe?

Rob: I will be writing fulltime starting next month. My next project, another love story, is about one-third drafted and should be ready before mid next year.

Thank you for this opportunity to reach out to my readers. This was my first interview as an author, and you made it fun as well as educational.

Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors.

This is to say the least an interesting and entertaining read that covers far more ground than the title implies. Told with a huge amount of humor we follow Dodie on her sojourn to Thailand, where things do not work out as planned. As she ruefully reflects on in the final chapters, what seems like a great opportunity at the time, had enough flashing warning lights that she should have spotted early on.

The story opens with our heroine working a mundane office job during the day, and helping out part time at a local golf course in the evenings. Here she meets he husband to be, the club Pro Dick. Although not exactly swept off her feet in passion, they do eventually become lovers. It transpires that Dick prior to becoming a Golf Pro has had considerable experience in the construction world. Happenstance puts Dick and Dodie in a position where a two-year contract for a construction project in exotic Thailand is theirs for the taking. A free house, bags of tax free money, what more could you ask for? Of course there is one minor hitch, for Dick to get the full company benefits, he must be married.

Whats a fun loving, adventure seeking gal to do? Well if your name is Dodie Cross you of course get married, and start packing! Minor things like ‘love’ can be worked on later!

It doesn’t take our adventurous author long to discover that the ‘land of smiles’ may well be full of smiles, but the company compound where everyone must live is anything but Eden. A repressive management, or to be exact the manager’s wife, has created her own version of hell on Earth. Endless lists of rules and regulations, the company not only owns the employees, but their wives and families as well. Must-attend meetings, shopping trips, card games, and parties are all part of the social calendar.

None of this sits well with Dodie, and she of course decides to buck the system, even worse she discovers that Dick is a 60 year old sex maniac! Stress at home, stress from “the bosses,” all start to weigh heavily on Dodie, an unexpected medical problem also adds to her growing list of issues.

A Broad Abroad In Thailand is a great read, it is written in a very humorous style, I particularly enjoyed the Pigin English dialog with the local Thai people. That on its own makes this book a hit! Dodie, undaunted by minor and in some cases major setbacks,’bags and crashes’ her way through life. This is a must read book for anyone contemplating living and working in a foreign land, from marital to medical, the problems are so much greater than being at home.

About Dodie Cross: she is a freelance writer who has received numerous awards for her writing and poetry, among them the prestigious Southern California Writer’s Conference First Place Award for “Best Nonfiction,” as well as First Place in their inaugural Poetry Award. She has accrued first and second place prizes in her published articles. Dodie has traveled the world, writing about her life in foreign countries such as Iran and Thailand, as well as American locales such as New Orleans, Orange County, California and Lake Chelan, Washington. Look for her next book: One Strappy-Sandaled Foot Ahead of the Mullahs: An Expat’s Life in Iran Before and During the Revolution.

Whether you’re an author publishing through traditional means or delving into self-publishing, you are going to want the feedback of a good editor or perhaps more than one. The difficulty for authors, especially those choosing self-publishing is when do you take an editor’s advice and make changes and when do you determine you’ve gotten enough feedback? This can be a tough call, and it often comes down to the author finding a happy medium.

The first thing writers need to consider is how many editors are too many? In writing and researching Shades of Darkness, Shades of Grace, over the duration of the project seven editors reviewed the manuscript. Some of them were extremely helpful, taking an objective approach and offering suggestions that made for a better book. Others seemed to check objectivity at the door, letting their personal likes and dislikes influence how they felt the story should develop. By the time the book was completed, I felt as though I had let too many cooks into the kitchen, all fussing over the same pot, either adding spices or removing them.

What I learned from the editors I consulted were two simple things. One, you cannot make everyone happy. It’s just not possible, so you write the best work you can, one that as many reader’s as possible can relate to. Number two, as an author you ultimately have to decide if the suggestions editors make are enhancing your work, or turning it into the work of someone else. Again, it goes back to the idea of authors finding a happy medium that improves the work, but is still your own.

The first editor I contacted was probably the most beneficial. Prudy loved the book, but thought it should begin with the wedding because she believed this was where the story truly started. She also suggested plotting the story on a calendar over the specific number of years the novel took place. In this way, real life events could be woven throughout the narrative, giving the reader not only a sense of place and time, but information that might arouse their interest in other areas related to the story.

Another editor’s feedback was more helpful regarding ways to improve my writing, rather than this particular story. She pointed out little tics in my style &ndash for example using the same word too often, advice which I didn’t just apply to the novel, but every other piece I’ve written. Her observation helped me expand my vocabulary and fine-tune my work. Two suggestions I took issue with was the fact that in the novel Kay and Tim don’t have any children, and that as a minister’s wife, this editor felt Kay should be shown in church more. I thought both points had nothing to do with the story and verged on stereotyping. I made this decision from my own experience of knowing childless couples where a spouse works in ministry.

One positive aspect of consulting multiple editors is that enough voices may convince an author to make a significant change. Out of seven editors, six wanted to see the ending beefed up providing the reader with an enhanced sense of satisfaction and closure. The one holdout was a good friend and her argument was that by expanding the ending, the author was taking the reader by the hand, when she felt their imagination could do the rest. Of all the decisions I made regarding Shades of Darkness, this was by far the toughest. Eventually I relented and significantly revised the ending.

Authors may also find themselves confronted with one editor who changes something, only to encounter another who changed it back. This was particularly true when dealing with the grammatical aspects of the book. The second editor was an old-school English major, so her placement of commas was more extensive. The fifth editor removed what she believed were too many commas and thus we had a full-scale “Comma War.” When the last editor reviewed the manuscript, edited commas were being replaced. What I strongly recommend is authors select a specific grammatical style (such as the Chicago Manual of Style or Modern Language Association) and stick to it.

Ultimately, regardless of what an editor suggests, as the author you need to remember this is a subjective process. The final editor made a suggestion that would have entailed rewriting the entire manuscript in a way that I felt was not beneficial to the story. But because I thought the suggestion had some merit, I compromised and trimmed the scene to a point where I felt comfortable, thereby finding a happy medium.

I never considered myself a particularly spiritual, or for that matter, a religious person. But I’ve found that in writing The Osgoode Trilogy, particularly the third, A Trial of One, that compassion has become very strong theme which runs through all three novels.

I just found this quote from Thomas Aquinas &ndash “I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it.” Surely, this must be the difference between the understanding of the head and the heart.

In the first novel in the trilogy, Conduct in Question, we have a man dubbed by the media as the “The Florist” who is a serial killer &ndash so named because he tries to capture the easy flow of the line of the master painter, Matisse, in his carvings on his victims. He is a sadistic killer with an artistic bent.

You may feel [as I do] that the world has plenty of novels with serial killers and so, rather than detailing his rampages, I wanted to add some provocatively human touches to the character of the “Florist.” More than anything else, he wants to experience the emotion of compassion.

When he speaks to his mother, who is long since dead, he says in frustration &ndash “I know what the word compassion mean, mother, but what does it feel like?”

As the story nears its conclusion, the “Florist” gets his wish &ndasha fleeting sense of compassion. About to murder his next victim, John, who is a truly simple soul &ndash the church caretaker &ndash the “Florist” is overcome with a compassionate sense and decides to spare him.

When the Florist silently stepped into the room, a strange sensation passed over him. Was this what Mother spoke of? As if disoriented, he stopped and shook his head. Was this compassion?

“It’s you!” said John, his smile radiating a sweetness the Florist had never seen before. He saw the muscles of the huge man flex; John’s damp white shirt was matted to his skin. He saw the thinning but baby-fine hair, neatly combed in place. Suddenly he saw the simple man as more than an obstacle in his path. He thought that life could not have been easy for such an imbecile. He should be spared. Mother would be proud of his act of compassion.

In Final Paradox, our hero, Harry Jenkins learns that compassion means stepping into another’s shoes and understanding what it feels like. Easy to say &ndash hard to do! When Harry was eight, his father withdrew from almost all contact with his family after the death of Anna, his daughter &ndashHarry’s sister. Now, years later, while his father is in surgery for a brain aneurysm, Harry waits in the Quiet Room trying to understand how his father could have abandoned him as a child.

At the very moment of his asking, Harry gets his answer as he witnesses the following played out before him.

Harry caught his breath. An unearthly wailing came from the hallway. The door to the Quiet Room flew open. A tall, bony woman, wearing a mauve dress and yellow shawl, clung desperately to the arms of two men. One was old and hunched and the other muscular and attentive.

The florescent lighting illuminated the woman’s face raw with agony.

“No! No!” As if possessed, she shook violently and her voice slid up octaves. “By the blood of Christ, no!” Clasping her hands to her ears, she began to moan, her eyes ricocheting about the room.

She screamed at the ceiling. “Why have you cursed me? He cannot be taken so soon.”

Harry pressed his hands against his face. With all his heart, he wanted to pray. He had just witnessed the unholy wrenching of the spirit at the loss of a child, caused by blind hatred. As he touched the tears on his face, he began to understand. “God forgive me,” he whispered. “I have known nothing! My father died along with Anna. I did nothing to help.”

And that’s exactly where Harry begins to understand his father and compassion &ndash by actually experiencing his pain and loss. True, you may study compassion and quote clever sayings about it, but if you never feel another’s pain and suffering in your heart and your gut, as if it were your very own, you do not know what it is.

Do you think some people are naturally more compassionate?

In A Trial of One, Harry’s beloved, Natasha has her own struggles with compassion. She is forced to choose between two people she loves &ndash Harry and her friend Sheila. Natasha recollects a conversation, years back, between her mother, Renee, and her Aunt Mila. The boss has demanded that Renee sleep with him so she can advance in the business.

“Oh, Renee! You poor kid!”

After a long silence, her mother said softly, “Once we’d done it, his eyes looked so sad and ashamed, like being him just wore him down.”

Mila was aghast. “You felt sorry for him?”

“No, not really. But I can see how loneliness can make you crazy.” Afterwards, we talked a bit, sitting on the bed in the motel. He was living all alone there because his wife had run off with the kids.”

Natasha’s compassionate nature makes choosing between Harry and Sheila so difficult for her. Hurt and angry, Sheila has betrayed Natasha who now considers her next step as she wanders the beach.

Natasha turned and walked slowly past the riot of weeds and up to the cottage. Soon she would drive back to the city. She knew Harry was her passion, the one who had awakened her to herself. But she still heard Sheila’s cry &ndash one of all humanity &ndash because it hurts! Sheila’s pain, from fear of loss, was a pain shared by the whole world. She did not reach it by reason, but she knew there was only one thing she could do &ndash act with love, care, and compassion.

Talking about love and compassion… having to decide between two people who love her, [Harry and Sheila] Natasha must find that balance between passion and compassion. Easy to say: hard to do!

Food writer, or Foodie, as they are known in the trade, Nora Franke is overfed and overwrought over a recent breakup with her long time boyfriend. “We need a break” he tells her, Nora decides that spending some time away from the bustle of New York is just the tonic she needs. Her solution is to take a temporary job as recipe consultant at a ritzy and very exclusive Spa in Baja. Nora is ecstatic, three months in a beautiful location and able to combine her love of food with the ever pressing need to shed the results of too many gourmet adventures in New York.

Life at a Health Spa is much like life on a Cruise Ship, time becomes compressed, most of the guests are only there for a week. Friendships that would normally develop over weeks or months, develop in minutes, alas also do animosities. Nora finds herself more accepted by the guests than the staff, and is quickly drawn into a group of loosely connected friends that come to the Spa every year for a few days of relaxation and reflection. This group of opulent and seemingly wealthy friends readily accepts Nora as if they have known her since kindergarten.

The setting seems idyllic for something bad to happen, and Helen Barer is just the author to do it! Helen herself is no stranger to the world of writing, she has a number of cook books to her credit, but this is her first foray into the murder mystery genre.

The first cracks in the Louis Vuitton luggage occurs the next morning when the body of Alan is found, in what appears to be a climbing accident on a nearby mountain. What Nora notices is the different reactions from the members of the group, from grief, to indifference, to maybe something more sinister. In the 50 years that the exclusive retreat has been in existence this is the first death the ranch has ever experienced, sprained ankles, and a mild heart attack from over exertion held the previous record.

There is a second death, one that can not be explained away as an accident. Now Nora is pulled into the web of deceit, what is going on, and who is responsible for these two deaths?

Nora is on the scent! She has no investigative training, just a dogged thirst to find the truth. Of course this may not be the best ‘recipe’ for a long life!

I liked this book a lot, I think this is a very fine first time effort, small enough at 200 pages to be a quick read, but long enough to develop the characters well. I suspect that we will be seeing more of Nora Franke in future books by Helen Barer. If you are looking for a fun and fast murder mystery I can recommend that you try Fitness Kills.

Fitness Kills is the first in a series of cozy mysteries by Helen Barer. Helen spent many years as a writer of non-fiction material, ranging from cookbooks to television documentaries. She is presently at work writing her next Nora Franke mystery.

There is some beautiful literary styles that thrive on the repeated use of words and phrases. The language is poetic and beautiful. This, however, is not an article that encourages the use of repeated words.

Unless you are writing in a style that demands the use of repetition it may be in your best interest to read through your text and determine if a word or phrase is overused.

Example:

Bad

The purpose of this exercise is to find the purpose of the repeated use of a word and then purpose not to use that word so much.

Good

The purpose of this exercise is to discover the objective of the repeated use of a word. After which you resolve not to use that word continually.

Both sentences said the exact same thing, but one was infused with different, but related words that allowed a more readable flow.

Many writers work on a first draft by simply attempting to lay down the ideas in a coherent fashion. It is only after they toil through their first draft that they begin to notice a repetition of phrases or words.

Many writers utilize a tool that provides a benefit in saying something a more unique fashion &ndash that device is a thesaurus.

A thesaurus can be used to take a sentence like the following and transform it into something new.

Original

Taking part in the school play was hard for Tammy because she was so shy and awkward.

Enhanced

Participating in the theatrical production at school was challenging for Tammy since she was so reserved and self-conscious.

Many word processors provide a tool function that allows you to highlight a word and it will provide a list of word choices that you can use to replace an overused or ill-fitting word.

If you have a greater interest in writing longhand you should consider the purchase of a thesaurus that may assist you in your writing. You might be surprised at how a thesaurus can help open up new avenues of creativity and expression in your writing.

Sometimes a word will have more than one meaning and a good thesaurus can help provide words in context of the original meaning giving you flexibility in the application of any given word.

So the next time you stumble across a word that has seen lots of appearances in your writing, break out a thesaurus and expand the possibilities.