Tag Archives: Butternut Creek

Do good people ever use bad words?

A question, Butternut Creek, Writing, , ,

two legs gone marineIn emails and reviews, I’ve been excoriated because one of my characters uses “bad words”   Sam’s an alcoholic Marine amputee suffering from PTSD and mourning the death of his best friend in combat.   At the beginning of THE WELCOME COMMITTEE OF BUTTERNUT CREEK, Sam’s having a bad time.  First, he’s under fire in Afghanistan and shouts, “Where the hell are the  . .”  I’m going to confess, if I’m taking fire and there isn’t any suppressing fire coming in, I’d get a little anxious.  I may be tempted to curse.  Tempted, nothing, I’d probably let go with a string of  words I never use normally.  I thought Sam showed great patience.   However, several of my readers didn’t.  One lady wrote me a long email about how Christians never used potty mouth girlthose terrible words.  Then she pointed out the words that Sam used on page. 28 and page 49 and page 126.   I got the feeling she didn’t read the book.  She just looked for the bad words.  That breaks my heart because I think she’d have enjoyed the material that came between the three really not horrible words. I think she might have been inspired if she’d read the book.

Look at the reviews of my Butternut Creek series on amazon.com.  According to some reviewers, I’m the most potty-mouthed writer in the history of the world.    My feeling is that we are not perfect.  That in moments of stress and fear and sorrow God understands we may say words we wouldn’t use in front of our grandmothers–and I believe God looks at our situation and says, “I understand.  Just don’t use the F-bomb.” 

Although I’d never use the F-bomb in any of my books, surely there are characters who would.  I mean, a serial murder probably isn’t going so say, “Oh, shaving cream” when the man he’s supposed to kill get the drop on him.   There are characters like Al Capone and Scarface that probably used words I’d never think of saying or writing because they ran with a pretty tough set.  My only big problem is when the worst of the four-letter words are used in place of good writing, that’s just laziness.

So, what’s your opinion.   Sam’s not a Christian yet.  Should he be judged for using an occasional curse?   Do Christians sometimes say “heck” or “darn” or even worse words? Is that all right or not?    If you’ve read my novels have you been ashamed that I used a few curses?   I’d love to know your opinion.

 

Friday

Butternut Creek, Coming up, George, Guest blogger, Kansas State University, Stuff, University of Louisville, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Took the car in today and found out the fact that I cannot read the speedometer because it is hidden in a deep well is a design problem which cannot be fixed because it IS in a deep well with no additional lighting.   In September, George bought me a 2003 Mazda which is a really great car but I fear a myriad of speeding tickets lurk in my future.  Also, it’s–sigh–white.  I’ve decorated with with a Kansas State Power Cat magnet on one side and a University of Louisville Cardinal on the other but I still can’t find it in the parking lot the way I could my yellow car.   In fact, I’ve stood next to white cars clicking my remote to unlock the doors and cursing (only in the nicest way) that the battery in the remote must be low.  Fortunately it only takes a few minutes before I realize it is not my car and move on to the next white car.

Little by little, I’m checking off tasks.  I got the extension of income tax paperwork in to the IRS Wednesday, the health insurance straightened out and in my name, information to Social Security, and many thank you notes written to our dear and generous friends.  I’ve worked on my novels a little but am still having trouble getting a read on the love interest in the fourth Butternut Creek novel  for which I’m attempting to put together a proposal with a brain low on creativity.

But I’m doing better.   For example, George loved olives.  The sight of the olive bar at H-E-B only makes me sad not burst out in tears.  Those breakdown have been  frightening for the ladies at the nearby sushi counter.  

I’m also reading the other books that have been nominated for the RITA in my category.  They are wonderful.  I’m honored to be in that group. 

Next Monday, I have two events on this blog.  On Monday, I’ll start the day highlighting the cover of Alexa Bourne’s newest novel.   Later in the afternoon, I’ll tell you about Kris Fletcher whose first published novel–A Better Father–was available a week ago.  Great book!  To my delight, Kris will blog here on Tuesday.  She’ll be telling us about the changes in her life as a published author with edits and promos at the same time she deals with her twenty or thirty–or maybe five–children.  Hope you’ll stop by.

Dear friends. . .

Coming up, Holidays, , , , ,

I have not been a good blogger.  Last week I was sick and didn’t even realize what day it was.  This week I didn’t get much productive done.  I DID write a few pages on the fourth Butternut Creek book which has the exciting title of The Construction Crew of Butternut Creek, in the hope I’ll just in case I get another contract.    I also worked on promo and cleaned house and . . . well, other stuff that wans’t a lot of fun.  

However, next week I’ll be awake and well and, perhaps, even bright.  Both my teams–University of Louisville and Kansas State–are in MAJOR bowl games so I’ll be watching a lot of football.

Tuesday will be CRAFT TUESDAY.  After that, I’m going to blog on what I DID buy George for Christmas and I’m a little embarrassed about that.

Wishing you all the happiest of holidays and all the best in the new year!    

The Matchmakers of Butternut Creek

Butternut Creek, Celebrating, Reading, Small towns, , , , ,

The Matchmakers of Butternut Creek, the second book in the Tales from Butternut Creek series, will be out Tuesday, November 20th–which is TOMORROW!

Come back to Butternut Creek and visit with Adam, Miss Birdie, Janey and Hector,  and all the other nice people there.

Find out if Adam finds a wife and if Miss Birdie approves.

And just have a great time!

Celebrate!

 

Craft Tuesday: Character Driven Plotting

A question, Craft Tuesday, Writing, ,

People always ask me, “Where do you find your ideas?’

After swallowing several snarky answers, I say, “They just come to me.”  Sorry if that sounds as if I’m still being snarky but it’s the truth.  And usually—nearly always—what comes to me is the character not the plot.  After the idea comes to me, often the beginning of the novel with the main characters fairly firmly created and in place, I build a plot for those characters to wander around in.

For me, this is the definition of character driven plotting.  It works best for me because I am able to wrap the plot around the character not forced to shove characters into the plot, often against their wills and come up with odd motivations and conflicts which don’t come from the characters but from the writer.

In my opinion, you can tell if the novel is plot driven or character driven if the heroine has to rationalize and explain why she’s doing what she’s doing—often over and over.  If her action comes from who she is as a character, we KNOW why she does this because the writer has introduced us to her and her traits.    If the action doesn’t fit this, if it is a twist on her character, a line or two will have us accept it.  If, however, the author has to have her act this way to promote the plot driven story, there will be several explanation and, to me, this interrupts the plot of the story.  On the other hand, if the characters drive the narrative, there may be some holes in the plot but–we believe–the characters are so charming the reader won’t care.  At least, that’s our excuse and our hope.

For example—and this is completely made up:

PLOT DRIVEN:   Mary is a grade school teacher who discovers a body on her front porch and decides to find the killer.  WHY?  I read this so often.  Most of us call the police and allow them to take over.   What motivates her?  Curiosity  and stupidity seem to be the answers but the author needs this to happen or she has no book.  The motivation really belongs to the writer and her dedication to the plot.  Over and over, friends tell her this is dangerous but Mary gives many reasons she give for doing this, none of which come from who she is but the plot.  Without her investigation, there is no story.

CHARACTER DRIVEN:  Mary is a grade school teacher who discovers the body of her best friend on her front porch and decides to look into this because the police have written this off as suicide.    She has no plan to find the killer but she knows her friend isn’t suicidal and wants to know what happened.   The investigation is more or less forced upon her.   What motivates her?  Love for her friend, the desire to know the truth, traits we already know because we’ve met Mary and observed her with her friend.  We know as a teacher, she’s not a daring type—I say this as a teacher—that she usually plays by the rules and respects authority so she must have a good reason to do this—not just take off on a lark.

What does the writer need to do if he/she wants to build a character drive plot? 

1)         Get to know the character and let her lead the way. 

2)         Introduce the character to the reader with some short scenes so the motivation makes sense.  

3)         Know the characters so deeply that they interact without the intervention or explanation of the writer.   This step came as a complete surprise to me in THE WEDDING PLANNERS OF BUTTERNUT CREEK, the third book in the Butternut Creek series–no cover available yet.  I introduce Janey Firestone in the first book,  THE WELCOME COMMITTEE OF BUTTERNUT CREEK  and Hannah Jordan in the third book.  Somehow, Janey becomes the catalyst for the changes that takes place in Hannah.  I hadn’t planned that.

If your characters don’t surprise you with their actions, then you haven’t written a character driven plot.  If your characters don’t take over the story and lead in another direction than you had chosen, you aren’t listening to them. 

In a character driven plotting, the characters really do take over.  Let them!

 

 

 

 

The importance of setting by Diane Perrine Coon

Guest blogger, Musings, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In writing mysteries, the setting usually enhances the characters and the plot. Agatha Christie’s English village represents an entire genre of walkabout crime whereby manor houses, inns, and churchyards are often sited and cited on hand-drawn maps. It would be hard to imagine Inspector  Morse or Inspector Lewis without Oxford University as the backdrop. And the bleak rural Scandanavian settings provide Wallander with mood, characterization, and rationale. The ferocious anger and hostility and crumbling building facades within ghetto environments serves as the undercurrent to numerous police/detective series. And Clive Cussler’s NUMA series relies almost totally on understanding of the surface and sub-surface ocean dynamics and modern ship propulsion technology.

In literature, perhaps no one expresses the importance of setting more than William Faulkner, whose Yoknapatawpha County,  Mississippi, became not only the for his most powerful novels and characters, but also became a place even more concrete and enduring in the mind’s eye than the reality of Oxford, Mississippi, itself.  It was the place of giant live oaks and dark swampy forests and expansive yards in front of mammoth columns holding up porches than went on forever.  And the entire setting seemed to be decaying measurably within the pages of the novel. Not so long afterwards, Tennessee Williams chose a similar setting for his Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

For romance writers, it seems to me that setting is equally if not more important in developing characters that interact or bounce off one another. My beloved Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer’s many Regency romances depend largely on their expansive descriptions of homes, parks, shops, and costumes of London, Bath, and several villages. Behavior of the characters draws out of these settings naturally and easily.

Recently my sister-in-law, Jane Myers Perrine, established the Texas village of Butternut Creek as the setting for her romantic trilogy – The Welcome Committee…, the Matchmakers….and the Wedding Planners of Butternut Creek. In each case, the houses, the church, the schoolyard, and the public buildings provide a cozy place for her characters to meander slowly into place as they drop their troubling backgrounds and engage with each other in the present safe environment.

While it is true that cruise ships or desert islands may provide a contained setting for a romance plots, one could wonder about how much character development may occur. It is rather like a one-joke movie where the comedy seems more and more contrived. On the other hand, my all time favorite romances include the wild and expansive settings of Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile that include double and triple entendres. And find me a woman of any age that didn’t love Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in the cityscapes of New York and Seattle – Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail. That valentine heart on the Empire State Building was the ultimate manipulative event in moviedom, but oh was it ever effective. It reminded me of the ice skating scene at the end of Serendipity, where you knew the impossible was going to happen right then.

And speaking of John Cusack and Julia Roberts, which, of course we weren’t, the very constrained setting of the resort in the desert, actually enhanced both the plot and characters in America’s Sweethearts. It was a throw-back to the old Agatha Christie village, a walkabout romance.

Where do you get your ideas?

A question, Butternut Creek, Musings, Writing, , , , , , , , , , ,

Over and over, I’ve been told, “Write what you know.”   I’ve never agreed.  If authors stuck to writing what they knew, no historicals would be in print because the author  wasn’t alive to witness those events.   Agatha Christie would never had written her mysteries because, as far as we know, she never killed anyone.

 I wrote two historicals that took place in Regency England in 1812 and another that took place in Texas 120 years ago.  Had to do a lot of research to do that.

Then I started writing the Tales from Butternut Creek series and realized I was writing exactly what I knew: a minister in a small town church. The Palm Sunday donkey running away with his rider? I was one of the group that grabbed the animal before he could toss the boy off. A minister’s fear of counseling a member of the congregation? Been there and survived and the woman I counseled did as well. The group of women who run the church? I’ve met them in every church either my husband or I have served and readers tell me they know a Miss Birdie. All the stories, all the embarrassing and funny situations we lived came together in these books and I’ve had such a great time writing them.

Sometimes the memories make me laugh. But members of a congregation suffer, too, and I cried with them. Those hard times made the books, too.

 Of course, I didn’t live through or actually witness everything I wrote. We never lived in a huge Victorian parsonage but I’ve always wanted to—if I didn’t have to do the housework. And I expanded on some of the scenes. In Butternut Creek, the donkey took off down the highway with the kid hanging on his back. In reality, he ran only ten yards although I imagine the boy riding him thought it last far longer.

Have you had an experience you think should be in a book? I’d love for you to share.

Do you know Miss Birdie?

Butternut Creek, Church, Small towns, ,

Although many readers have told me they know the real Miss Birdie, one of the main characters in the Butternut Creek series, they’re wrong.   She was inspired by many women in various churches from Kentucky to Texas and many states in between.   I believe nearly every church has one. 

Do YOU know a Miss Birdie?  If you do, please tell me about her.  What are the identifying characteristics of a Miss Birdie?