Ruth Ann Nordin's Author Blog

I have enjoyed a lot of the stories I’ve been reading lately. It’s been a real pleasure getting back to reading for the sake of enjoyment. Most of the books I read over the past few years have been geared to writers. While it’s been educational (and, I admit frustrating since most marketing advice does not work), I forgot what it was like to read for fun. There’s definitely a benefit to taking time to just enjoy what you’re doing, rather than doing something because you feel like you have to.

Anyway, as I’ve been reading more thrillers and horror stories, I’ve noticed three specific things, and I thought I’d mention them because I love to blog, and it’s fun to share what I’m learning about storytelling. Granted, these things do not happen in every thriller or horror story, but they happen often enough that they’ve gotten my attention.

As a disclaimer, these are all traditionally published books that you’ll find in any brick-and-mortar bookstore and your local libraries. So this means big publishing houses are just fine with these three things, which also means these editors are allowing these things to get a pass. So next time someone clowns indie publishing, just remember that big publishing houses aren’t perfect, either.

Okay, so these are three things I’ve noticed:

1. “I won’t tell anyone. I swear!”

I have lost track of how many times a victim in a book has cried and begged, “Please let me go. I promise I won’t tell anyone that you’re a psychotic killer. I swear!” Since when has this tactic ever worked? I have yet to read a book (or even see a movie) where the killer decides to let the person go. The killer knows the person is lying. There’s no point in using this line unless the killer actually lets the person go.

It’s best to leave this empty threat out. Because, let’s fact it. If the person does manage to get away from the killer, they’re going to tell. They’ll get cops involved. They’ll get journalists involved. They’ll get their crazy relative with a shotgun involved. They’ll get a monster involved. Somehow, someway, they will get something or something involved because they won’t want that killer coming back to get them. That is why the killer never falls for this empty promise.

Now, I think it would be refreshing to read the person tell the killer something like, “If I ever get out of this, I’ll tell the entire planet what you’ve done!” That would be hilarious, and, given the right emotional buildup, a satisfying f-you to the killer.

2. The “will they or won’t they” romantic subplot

Honestly, I am just fine reading thriller and horror stories that have no romantic elements in them. I actually find them more enjoyable because the author focuses strictly on the main plot. I don’t know why, but it seems like most authors in the thriller and horror genres have no idea what a “romance” actually is. They seem to think romance is simply a “will they or won’t they” equation.

This is how it goes. Character A and Character B are obviously attracted to each other. The reader doesn’t need to be told this. The reader can see this setup right away. But instead of the author just delivering on this pretty quick into the story, the author will drag the whole thing out until the story is almost over. It is exhausting, and quite frankly, I end up skipping this stuff because it does nothing for the plot.

So what am I talking about? Let me explain. Character A almost tells Character B how they feel. For whatever reason, Character A chickens out by “saying enough but then not enough”, or, if Character A is still talking, the author throws in some generic interruption into the conversation, such as another person enters the room or something falls from the ceiling and almost kills everyone. Another variation of this is when Character A does actually/finally admit their feelings, but Character B assumes these feelings aren’t sincere. For example, Character A proposes, but Character B thinks Character A is only proposing to save her from financial ruin, not because of true love. So then Character B can’t say yes but then proceeds to mope or cry about it when alone. Ugh. Why not just ask Character A for clarification if it’s needed? Why assume something? How hard is it to just sit down and have a conversation? Then we’re freed up to get to the story we came here to read. Last time I checked, someone does not pick up a thriller or a horror novel to read a romance. They are there for the thrills and chills.

Now, I will add an exception to the above statements. If the book is a thriller or horror novel where Character A loves Character B but doesn’t know if Character B is the killer, then the “will they or won’t they” makes sense. It’s a vital part of the plot.

3. A lot of women in thriller and horror stories are “impaled” by their love interest.

Just about every single thriller and horror story that contains a sex scene will have the man “impale” the woman. At first, I thought, “What a weird choice of words.” All I could think of was Vlad the Impaler, a real life person who went around impaling people. I was ready to forget the word when I came across more of them in different books by different authors with different publishing houses. These were all consensual sex scenes where the woman wanted to be there. She wasn’t forced into it.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the word “impale” on Google. This is what it means in verb form, to “pierce or transfix with a sharp instrument”. This is an example given in how to use it in a sentence: “His head was impaled on a pike and exhibited for all to see.”

Since when is a penis “sharp”? Last time I checked my husband, his penis did not end with a point. With that fact aside, the word “impale” conveys brute force that is painful. I have read a lot of romances, and there is not a single one I’ve come across that uses the word “impale” to convey sexual intercourse. I know we’re not in a romance novel, but it’s still important to use the right wording if you’re going to have a sex scene. A better word would be “enter”. Just say, “He entered her.” Or you can use the words “penetrate” or “went into”. Sex scenes are not complicated, but the right words do matter. You don’t want a reader to pause in the middle of the story and think, “Ouch. That would hurt.”

***

That’s all I got for now. Despite the things above, I have enjoyed the stories themselves. They don’t take away from the overall experience. I just thought they were amusing and wanted to mention them.

I love the movie Inception. It’s one of my all-time favorites. But there is one subplot in the movie that has never resonated with me. That subplot is Cobb and Mal’s love story. No matter how many times I’ve seen the movie, I have never “felt” that they loved each other. The actress is convincing, but the actor is not convincing. I don’t care how many times the actor winces or tears up or gives that “I can’t give her up” look, it is just not convincing. The other day as I watched the movie, I think I figured out why. In real life, the actor who plays Cobb has a reputation for only dating young women, like 25 and under, though I did a quick search and saw he broke the record with a couple of them actually being 27. I am not here to badmouth the actor. (That’s why I’m not giving his name, though the movie is so popular that I’m sure most of you know whom I’m talking about.) I am here to point out that I believer there is a connection between the actor’s real experience with love and his movie portrayal of love. In real life, he just goes from one woman to another. You can’t build a foundation for a deep, meaningful love while doing that, and I believe that is showing in this movie. He tries. I can see he’s trying. But it’s just not landing.

And then I think of writers, because ultimately, my mind goes toward writing.

The process of writing fiction requires the writer to tap into their emotions. If you are going to be in the character’s head, you also have to be in their heart. It doesn’t matter what the character says and does. In order to flesh the story out, there must be emotion. Emotion is the “why” of what a character says and does.

Emotion comes in a range, of course. This requires you to be open to the highs and lows of the human experience. I know we’re tempted to overlook the negative emotions, but they’re just as important as the positive ones.

I’m going to go into an example in my own past because I think it best illustrates this in light of me being a romance writer. When I was 12, I began writing romance. I asked my mom to read some of the stuff I wrote, and she said she had trouble connecting with the characters. “I don’t feel anything for them,” were her exact words. I struggled to get into the characters’ emotions for the next couple of years, but no matter how hard I tried, the depth of emotion just wasn’t there.

Then when I was 16, I began to date. At 17, I had a boyfriend I was crazy about. He was my first love. I experienced all of the flutters and thrills of being in love because of him. Then I moved from Ohio to Florida, and that forced us to break up. (Back in 1993, you could only keep in touch by snail mail and phone calls. After a few months of that, the distance took its toll.) I took the breakup hard. Being in love with him was the highest pleasure of emotion. Breaking up was the greatest sorrow I had ever gone through at the time. It took me a long time (like years) to finally get over him.

I look back on that time, and I am grateful for it. All of it. The highs and the lows. If I hadn’t had that experience did I was a young adult (and super dramatic about everything), it wouldn’t have impacted me as much as it did. When I was 25 and serious about marriage, I was a lot more level headed. I made the decision on which man to marry based more on “what kind of man” he was than how many flutters and thrills he gave me. But I will add that I made sure I picked someone who gave me flutters and thrills. I fell in love with my husband as much as I had fallen in love with my ex-boyfriend. Only, since I was older, I had a better perspective of what being a wife would entail. I had matured. When I picked up writing romance again in 2007, I had been married for seven years. I had four children. I not only had experience on being in love and having gone through a break up, but I had experience on what it took to sustain a marriage, too. All of that was my real life training for the romance writer I eventually became. If I had not gone through all of that, I would never have been able to feel deeply in the romance arena. I needed to feel deeply in order for my characters to feel deeply. Whenever a reader tells me they “felt” what my characters felt, it’s one of the best compliments I’ve ever received because that was what I originally struggled to get right.

You need to open yourself up to the emotions that are in your genre. Here in the US, people seem afraid to allow themselves to feel things that aren’t pleasant. When I was 20, my mom died, and I saw a psychologist who wanted me to see a psychiatrist to put me on Zoloft (a pill to numb my pain). I didn’t do it because, as a Psychology student in college, I learned it’s important to go through the five stages of grief. All of those stages are necessary to properly heal. My sister did take Zoloft and told me she had to stop because the Zoloft made her unable to feel anything at all. She couldn’t even feel happy.

Life will get messy. It will get hard. It will get uncomfortable. We can’t take away pain when it enters our lives. Pain is necessary. But on the flip side, life will also be amazing. It will be wonderful. It will leave us feeling like we can walk on clouds. We need both sides of the coin. The coin is always flipping. It doesn’t stay consistently on one side. We live in an imperfect world, and as long as it’s imperfect, we have to deal with that reality.

We can bring this to our writing. We can present the highs and lows of the human experience before the reader through our characters. Readers will connect with characters who feel deeply. They might even see a part of themselves in those characters. The beauty of fiction is that we can throw anything we want into a world we create. It doesn’t matter what the genre is; there is going to be a given range of emotions in it. Your setting and plot will structure that range. For example, a drama is going to feel different from a comedy. Also, a science fiction adventure into an unknown world is going to feel different from a small town contemporary romance. There will be parameters you’ll be working in, but you get to choose them. You get to decide what well of emotions from your own personal experience that you will draw from. Then you can use those emotions to pass on to your readers.

I believe this will make the story more meaningful to you and the readers who enjoy it. A story where a bunch of things just happen is a “meh” story. But a story where the reader is emotionally engaged with the character is a story that will be “felt”, and a story that is “felt” is one that has meaning to the person who reads it.

Out of the many thrillers and horror novels I’ve been listening to over the past couple of months, I finally found one that gave a solid deliverance on the “creep” factor. My definition of the creep factor is when the reader is going along in the story and suddenly, out of nowhere, the reader gives a slight shudder and thinks, “Ooh, that’s creepy.” It’s a subtle thing, but I think it’s one of the most powerful elements in fiction meant to put someone on edge.

In another post, I mentioned how fond I’m becoming of creature horror, or, as it also seems to be categorized, “dark fantasy”. I only borrowed The Last Word from the library because it was about an author taking revenge on a reader who gave his book a 1-star review. Being a writer, I thought it might be funny to read about an author going unhinged because of a bad review. (I mean, no author likes getting those kind of reviews, but we usually just cry about it in the writing groups. We don’t actually try to kill the reader.)

There were parts of the book where I did chuckle. The back-and-forth between the reader and author about “good” writing was hilarious, especially when the reader fogged up a window and wrote the word “amateur” on it. He was right outside the house, watching and waiting for the right moment to kill her, but the fact that she was willing to stop everything to keep up with their argument about his bad writing was funny.

This book, however, is not a comedy. It is a full-on thriller. In the prologue, we’re given the initial interaction between the reader and the author. The reader 1-stars his most recent book, he asks her to take the review down, she refuses, he’s like “I won’t ask you again” in a way that lets you know he’s ready to go after her, and she responds with a “good”. This is the beginning of the back-and-forth dialogue that’s picked up later in the story.

Chapter 1 is where the first creepy moment came up. I’ve been exploring how the author managed to successfully deliver on the creep factor, especially so early in the story. The author did not rely on anything in-your-face obvious. He went with the subtle path, and that is what I’d like to be able to do. Right after the prologue, the reader is going in-and-out of sleep, and she thinks someone is watching her. But when she fully rouses herself out of sleep, no one is there. Then she searches the house and verifies she’s alone. Then we are given the fact that she’s housesitting in a remote area along the beach. The nearest house is about a quarter of a mile away. Most of the time when authors give a play-by-play account of a character’s actions in their stories, I get bored, but this author managed to make every action a revelation into “who” she is and “what” she wants. These things taught me something about her personality and her background that I would not have figured out otherwise, and that made those play-by-play accounts effective. The author also did this in snippets throughout the story so as not to info dump on me.

So anyway, early on, we establish that this reader is a loner whose only companion is a dog. Her goal is to disappear from the rest of the world. She does communicate with one other person, and that is the owner of the house that is a quarter of a mile away. The two houses all have huge windows so they can easily see into each others’ places. They use telescopes to communicate via white board where they write messages. Usually, they play hangman games. On this particular day in Chapter 1, the owner of the other house glances over at her place, jumps up, and hurries to write on the white board, “Someone is with you.” or something along that line. Given the guy she thought was watching her while she slept, that message and the guy’s startled reaction (jumping out of his chair) creeped me out. The author set the foundation for the creep factor at the beginning of Chapter 1. He didn’t rush into it. It just slips in after her very calm and relaxing morning. That is effective.

She does not believe him. Apparently, this character in the other house has a habit of pulling pranks on her, so she has a good reason not look over her shoulder. She laughs it off with a “nice try” message on her board. He replies that he’s serious. There’s a little more to the conversation, and toward the end, he writes, “Killer is still behind you by the way,” and that was the second creep factor.

Of course, nothing happens to her at this point. If it did, we would lose the creep factor. It’s important that the build up has time to develop, and this author did that very well. When things really ramp up, we are ready for it. The author does slip in something about her not being sure what’s real or what’s not, so there were times when I wondered if she was imagining some of this stuff that was happening to her. Then you are left wondering who you can trust and who you can’t because more characters slip into the story as it progresses.

Another thing the author did really well to make you wonder what exactly was real was alternating between the reader’s narrative (where we get her point of view of events) and a “nonfiction” book written well after the events happens (where we get an “unknown” character’s perspective of events). (I hope that makes sense.) I really enjoyed this back-and-forth between her point of view and the unknown character’s point of view. They contradicted each other in certain places. For example, the reader says she wrote the word “amateur” on the window. The unknown character reported that she wrote, “please don’t kill me” on the window. (Given how she questioned her sanity early in the book, we really do wonder who is right.) I have never read a story that took that approach to building up the suspense like this before, and I think that made the thriller element of this story very effective.

In the end, we do know what was real and what wasn’t, so the author didn’t leave us hanging. He answered all the questions he posed. This story was really well done, and I’ll continue to dissect different elements of it in the future as I strive to make my own writing better.

I’m at the point when I shift from point A to point B in the story. Point A was building up to the heroine slipping the experimental love potion into the hero’s drink (of course without his knowledge of it or else there wouldn’t be a plot). I’m finally at that point. Now I have to figure out what to do next before I can make it to Point C. I know what comes at Point C. So this hurdle is temporarily blocking me from making progress.

I will give it a couple of weeks to let my mind work on it before rewriting the last two scenes I did earlier this week. I got halfway into the last chapter before I realized Emma would never act the way I was just writing her. I had her attempt to put some of the experimental love potion into another character’s drink in an attempt to pair him up with the heroine. Then, late at night while I was in bed, I realized Emma would never mess with the experimental love potion. She’d been the subject of the first round of experiments, and that upset her to no end. So why would she do it to someone else? She wouldn’t.

I do like the idea of someone trying to match the heroine up with someone else. This is the best way I can get the hero to act before he loses her. Ultimately, I think the hero’s action is going to be important for the story’s ending. Writing most stories is like this for me. I have a beginning and an idea or two of what will happen somewhere in the middle. The process of writing is all about connecting those dots and then giving them an ending. Going in, I only had the idea that the heroine was going to slip what she believes to be a “working” love potion into the hero’s drink, and the result is her believing his love isn’t real because she manipulated things.

I like the idea of someone trying to get the heroine to choose another gentleman because it will bring out the heroine’s insecurities, which will develop her growth. She needs to be comfortable with speaking up for herself. All of her life, her mother controlled everything she did. That’s the basis for her insecurities. I’m thinking of bringing her mother in to manipulate things. That might be the best way to proceed.

Because someone I know really adores Logan, I am going to insert a scene in this story where we get to see Logan playing with a couple of his kids. I thought it might be a cute moment. (And I’ll make it fit in with the story so it won’t be jarring.) 😀 That’s one of the little snippets I have in mind.

Helping My Son Get Services

I have been taking my deaf son to different appointments over the past month. This month and the next will probably be just as busy. I’m glad we’re finally making progress. The testing for autism won’t be until 10 or 11 months, but I hear the place that is going to do the testing is amazing. I am not sure if he’ll qualify for any disability benefits until the testing, though. He has had a difficult time finding a job. Regardless of how many places say they make accommodations for the hearing impaired, that simply is not true. The people on staff are largely unprepared for it. No one will text him an interview, nor will they arrange for an interpreter to be on site. So I’ve needed to be on the phone on his behalf. However, once he has the job, he hasn’t been able to keep it due to his behavior. I don’t know the details since I’m not there. All I know is that he keeps getting warnings before he gets fired. I am currently working with Family Services to see if we can get him some kind of employment dedicated for disabled people, so we can have a place that will work with whatever is going on with him. Currently, he is unable to live on his own. I am also looking into possible places where he can have some kind of assistance while having a sense of independent living. It’s a lot, and I’ve had to start a binder to keep it all straight.

Anyway, that takes up a lot of time. This is currently my main job. I only wrote three days last month. Two weeks of that month was spent in edits, though, so it’s not like I didn’t make any real progress. It’s just that all of my projects have to take a back seat. I’m not going to be alive forever. I need to take care of this now so he’ll be in good shape later on.

Due to this, I have had to make a couple of changes to what I’m doing with the business side of things.

I put my Monthly Newsletter Blog back up.

I might not have a lot of new things to share, but I’ll use this to pretty much say, “I’m still here, and I haven’t forgotten about these books.” 🙂 Someone recently asked me if I had a book out recently. I realized that I need to be more proactive with keeping people updated on what I’m working on.

I went back to MailChimp for My Email List.

I was trying Mailerlite, and while it’s a good program, I learned how to do the “ins and outs” of the email list on MailChimp. I’m more comfortable there. I know how to work with the templates and upload pictures of my book covers. I can no longer afford the subscription plan to use a Plug In here on WordPress in order to have an official “sign up” form that takes people directly to MailChimp. So I just settled for setting up a Contact form here on WordPress, and I’ll manually put the contact information into my MailChimp “audience” list. That way, I don’t have to pay anything. If you have a list under a certain amount of subscribers, MailChimp doesn’t charge you anything. At this point, I need to take all the financial breaks I can get.

I am also back to only emailing people when I have a new release out. I don’t have the stamina to do the Monthly Newsletter and the monthly email.

Masquerade Bride is in Edits

This should be out in April. I don’t have a date set yet, but I plan to put it on pre-order around April 1. I’m just going to have to go back to pre-orders. That will give me time to do all the steps I need to have everything ready for release day.

I am getting close to the end on The Preacher’s Wife.

And I decided to make this Book 2 in the Oregon Series again. It just works better as a series book. I will worry about putting Book 1 info on The Wilderness Bride when I publish The Preacher’s Wife. I am easily overwhelmed these days with the book stuff, so I have to wait on some things.

Anyway, I’m coming to the big moment where the hero is going to have everything he has stood for tested. Part of me is intimidated since it will involve a high degree of emotion. I am worried I won’t be able to properly make it work. But it’ll also be a great chance to challenge myself as a writer. I need the right balance between rage and grace, because ultimately, I want this book to display how forgiving God is even when we fall into temptation. I love knowing that no matter what we’ve done, He will always welcome us with open arms. As a side note, the Apostle Peter is one of my favorite examples of grace and forgiveness in the Bible. Peter denied Christ three times and yet went on to do such great things for Him, including giving his life for his faith. To me, that is inspiring.

I am 25,000 words into The Science of Love

I am not sure how long this will end up being. I keep telling myself I can write a novella, but I have a feeling this is going to be at least 50,000 words. My characters are just not in a hurry to wrap things up. I’m going to have to settle for that being fine. If the story is stronger as a full-length romance, then that’s what it’ll be.

I am still working on my horror romance.

I have been listening to a lot of horror audiobooks, and I’m learning that I lean heavily toward the fantasy horror genre, especially where there are strange creatures involved. Sometimes these creatures stem from folklore, and other times, the authors are making something up. I have grown tired of the serial killer kind of horror. There’s only so many ways a character can run in fear from a psycho. I have also grown tired of the psychological thrillers. I thought I would really enjoy those, but (and I hate to say this), they all seem to be the same after a while. The twist that’s supposed to be “shocking” really isn’t shocking. But with fantasy, you have room for going into a more creative zone with the story, and I love that.

As a result, my horror romance is starting to take on a fantasy aspect as well. I am taking common folklore along the Louisiana bayou and getting creative with it.

Today’s post comes from tons of hours spent consuming a variety of horror content over the past year.

At first glance, it’s easy to think “evil” is all bad, but I have noted some things that actually make “evil” a considerate entity. I mean, it’s not 100% considerate. It is evil. We’re supposed to hate it. We’re supposed to be scared of it. It is the ultimate villain. But when you do a thorough investigation into the very nature of “evil” in its role in the horror genre, you realize it has some positives. A lot of times, “evil” is surprisingly considerate.

*All of these points address movies and full-length novels. Shorter works do not apply. In shorter stuff, “evil” isn’t likely to be considerate at all. It’ll just come after you like a crazy ex that refuses to get over you.

With that said, let’s go…

1. “Evil” will allow you at least one full night’s sleep and a good meal.

Sure, there might be some opening scene where someone is brutally assaulted in some way. This is how the viewer/reader knows “evil” is a threat. But as far as you are concerned, everything is wonderful in the beginning. Often, it’s bright and sunny. People are lively and happy. Sometimes, you might get a warning that something is “wrong”, but it doesn’t affect you right away. You usually get a nice, full dinner and one night of evil-free, uninterrupted sleep. I think it’s rather considerate that “evil” will allow you to be comfortable before it beats the crap out you.

2. Sometimes, “evil” will make your life easier by eliminating your enemies.

We all have enemies. These are the people who make life a living hell for you in one way or another. “Evil” will go out of its way to go after these enemies for you. Now, you don’t have to go through the trouble of getting revenge yourself. “Evil” does the dirty work for you. Sure, “evil” will be coming after you later on, but at least you get the pleasure of seeing your enemies eliminated first.

3. “Evil” can make you into a hero.

Most of the time, you are the only one who sees that “evil” is a threat. Everyone else around you will think you’re nuts. They’ll ignore all of your warnings. They’ll call you crazy. They might even call a therapist for you. But then, “evil” will get to be such a big threat that they will be forced to admit you are right, and when they do, they will come running to you for help. You are now a hero.

4. “Evil” wants children to be seen AND heard.

While other genres tend to take a “children should be seen and not heard” approach, horror understands that children have something valuable to offer. Children, especially small ones, are given some unique insight that offers them protection that adults don’t get. Sometimes children will share this insight with you. If so, your chances of survival improve greatly. So listen to the children. “Evil” has a special place in its black and bitter heart for the little ones of the world. And who doesn’t like children?

5. “Evil” lets you know it’s coming.

The most considerate thing “evil” does is let you know it’s on its way. It doesn’t come at you all at once. It gives you time to prepare for it. Sure, you have to do your research, which might be difficult for those who hate studying, but “evil” at least gives you the opportunity to overcome it. If you can arm yourself successfully against the “evil”, you will become a smarter person, and this will make you a better version of yourself.

Has anyone noticed any other way where “evil” is considerate in horror movies and books? If so, I’d love to hear them!