Beating the Blurb Blues - Part Two

Last week in Part One we talked about using the GMC (Goal,Motivation, Conflict/Obstacle) to start developing your blurb. This week we'll talk about expanding your blurb, making it work for you, and a few things to avoid.

Fit Your Genre:

Generally, a blurb will be between 100-200 words, the right size to fit on the back cover of a printed book, usually two or three paragraphs. Different genres will expand on the blurb in different ways. Last week I used the opening paragraph I might create for Hunger Games:

In order to protect her little sister, 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen must survive a brutal game in a land once known as North America, but in order to do so she’ll have to kill all other opponents, including a childhood friend.

If this were a romance, my second/third paragraphs might focus on possible love interests, her emotional conflict between choosing between them, and the impossible necessity of killing one to achieve her goal.

To steer it more toward dystopian Young Adult, the second/third paragraphs might instead focus on the larger concept of the games, or the subtext of revolting against the government. To steer it more toward sci-fi, I might emphasize the nightmare of fighting the faceless, inhuman technology. Thriller? I’d emphasize the need for escape, or avoiding death from a team of antagonists.

Size and Priorities:

Once you have that basic blurb, you’ll need to create shorter and longer versions of it. If you publish via Smashwords, you’ll need a 400 character description. That’s characters, not words. (The example above is about 187 characters). Amazon, on the other hand, gives you a generous 4,000 words. This is plenty of room to include extra info, such as if this is part of a series, what other books in the series are, awards won, etc. But be careful to put the blurb first. Both Amazon and Barnes and Noble show about the first paragraph, with “read more” buttons for the reader to click on. Your goal is to get them to do that. If your blurb starts with editorial praise, an author bio, etc., they may not be motivated to click that button. Start with your strongest part of the blurb first.

Target your audience:

Readers are looking for keywords to help them decide to buy your book. The flavor of your blurb should match the tone of your book and your writing style. The blurb for Star Wars would be very different than the blurb for Mel Brooke’s Spaceballs, which excellently spoofs Star Wars. If your book is humorous, your blurb should reflect that. If your romance is “sweet,” with only hand-holding and maybe one kiss, then don’t use words like “sensuous” or “passionate” in the blurb. You’ll lose your target audience. Do you use short words and snappy sentences? Longer, sentences and lots of languorous description? Make the blurb echo your style.

Don’t be afraid of hyperbole (obvious and intentional exaggeration). Use juicy, vivid words. Notice in the example above I called it a “brutal” game? I could also have used lethal, deadly, murderous, etc. Adjectives are your friend in blurbs. Instead of saying she had to “kill,” I might have said murder, slaughter, destroy, or annihilate. Create tension and get colorful.

The Don’t List:

At the tip top of my “Don’t List,” in big, bold, letters, is “Don’t be sloppy!” Check, check, and check again that your spelling and punctuation are correct. That no words are missing. That the blurb isn’t boring, meandering, or overloaded with too much detail. But especially, check the spelling and punctuation. I say that twice because it’s that important. If I read a sloppy, misspelled, meandering, boring, poorly punctuated blurb (and trust me, there are lots of them out there), then I’m going to assume (fair or not) that the book is written the same way and I’m going to skip right on past it.

 

High on my “Don’t List” is self-aggrandizing or telling the reader how to feel. I tend to dislike blurbs that say “This action packed thriller will leave you breathless!”, or “You’ll laugh until you pee!” Leave that to the editorial reviews or book reviewers. Your blurb should focus on the story and the characters. Pull the reader in and let them decide. If you’ve chosen the right words and used hyperbole correctly, they’ll already have some idea of what they can expect.

 

Non-Fiction:

A quick word about non-fiction, since I said in Part One I’d mention it. Your table of contents is your best friend: List three of four of the most compelling chapter titles and a line about what they’re about. List specific ways buying your book will benefit or educate the reader, again using those juicy words, and numbers if applicable (“will help you boost sales by 40%, “will shave six weeks off your job search”, “will reveal the secret history”). The author bio is also critical to selling non-fiction, so do include it in the blurb. Your personal bona fides will help sell your book.

Go for it!

Your blurb is your first, best, and strongest piece of marketing material. You’ll use it everywhere: book retailers, your website, guest blog posts, social media, etc. Get a friend to help you check what you’ve written. Get feedback. Or hire a pro to help you. You can have the most beautiful cover, the most incredible, well-edited story ever, but if you have a blurb that doesn’t support all that work, you’ve crippled yourself at the start. I hope I’ve shown you that even without hiring a pro, you can take big steps to create your own enticing, compelling cover copy, target your audience, and boost your sales!

Your turn! Show us a sample of your blurb!

 

Kat Sheridan helps fellow authors create compelling product descriptions for their books. Read more about it or contact her at www.BlurbCopy.com


Target image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Coffee image courtesy of Feelart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

MONDAY MUSINGS—DELETING AND DEFRAGGING LIFE

I haven’t looked at my Gmail account in probably six months. What a mess. I have been predominantly using my main account for simplicity especially once I retreated to my castle keep and closed the gates. It was one less thing to deal with when I didn’t feeling like dealing with much at all. Several hundred emails needed to be sorted out and subscriptions to newsletters and websites I 

didn’t want and don’t remember signing up for, needed to be cancelled.  Father Dragon would have been impressed with my deleting abilities.

One thing about cleaning is it gives you lots of time to think. I got to thinking about how we have to delete some things to make room for other things. Unsubscribe, if you will, to things that take up unnecessary space—mentally and physically. I think that’s true of writing as well. Physically, I have to sit my butt in the chair and write but, just as important; I have to clear my mind of detritus to see the direction I want to go. Now that I have more energy than a sleeping snail, I’m trying to catch up and clear the accumulation of junk out of the way so I can move forward.

Have you ever watched the defragging program on your computer? It first analyzes the system, recognizes unmovable files and then picks one movable section at a time. It then moves one file from that section and goes on to the next. It moves and packs those files all around the unmovable ones. It clears and recovers chunks of space that can now be used.

I’m analyzing my day and life. I recognize that there are parts of my life that are non-negotiable or unmovable—family needs, ranch chores, and my job. I also need time to rest and nurture me. However, within each of those unmovable pieces some adjustment can be made. I can compact my time spent on the ranch chores, I have some leeway with my work schedule, and I can condense some of the time I spend on family things. I need to defrag my day and my week to recover chunks of time and then use them wisely to accomplish what I want to do. Those parts of my life that are fragmented, like my overflowing email, can be deleted or moved. They scatter my focus and slow down my accomplishments. It adds unnecessary stress to my life.

In prioritizing my life I realize that I do my best creative writing in the early morning. I need to wisely use that recovered space and time. It may not be every day and only be an hour or two several days a week. I can get quite a bit done and every bit adds to the whole. Any nonfiction writing can be done in the evening because it’s easier for me and uses a different part of my brain. Different mindset.

It’s all about balance. I need to delete the unnecessary and modify the necessary. I need to be aware of my limitations and not get impatient with myself or compare what I’m doing now with what I was able to do several years ago. With mindfulness and care I can take advantage or recovered space and time.

• What about you? How do you defrag your life to accomplish what you want to do?

                                                                                                                                                                                           

Coming up this week:

Wednesday: Kat Sheridan will be doing part II of blurbs and backcover writing. You can find Part I here.

Friday: Speculative fiction author Dale Cozort

Beating the Blurb Blues - Part One

Last week Sia wrote an article on the trials andhair-tearing frustration of writing blurbs and pitches.

Since I have a business writing blurbs/cover copy, I offered to share some quick tips to make it less frustrating.

Your blurb is your most powerful tool for enticing readers to buy your book. All the good reviews or social media shouting isn’t going to work if a reader doesn’t get excited about the book’s content. You want to lure the reader in, hook them with an intriguing setup, and land the sale by leaving questions open that can only be answered by buying the book.

First, some terminology:

 

Tagline/Logline: This is the quick summary on the front cover that serves as a hook. It’s usually no more than twelve words, and is best at around six words.

Pitch: Also known as the “elevator pitch” because it needs to be short enough that you can recite it to an agent/editor in the duration of an elevator ride. Aim for no more than about two or three sentences and be able to recite it without blinking. My all time favorite pitch was from Judi Fennell pitching the romance In Over Her Head: “He’s a merman and she’s afraid of the water.” Fewer than ten words. She got the contract.

Blurb, Cover Copy, Jacket Copy, Product Description: Here’s where things get murky. Technically, a blurb is the line or two of praise on the front cover from a reviewer or an author who is well known and writes in the same genre.

Cover copy (on the back cover), jacket or flap copy (on the inside flap of a dust jacket) and product description are all pretty much the same thing, but most folks today have taken to calling all of them a “blurb” and use the terms interchangeably. For the purpose of these articles, I’m going to use the term “blurb” to mean the description of the book that appears on the cover and in product descriptions.

Here’s a secret: for fiction blurbs, there’s a formula, and you can learn it. Really. Non-fiction is different, and I’ll cover it briefly at the end of part two next week. Ready?

• Step One: Create a one or two word description of your protagonist(s). The description is usually a job, relationship, or status: Starfleet Captain James Kirk (job). Orphan (or spinster) Jane Eyre (relationship). King Arthur Pendragon (status). For sci-fi/fantasy/paranormal it may be a creature type, tribe, planetary affiliation, etc. (hobbit, Starks of Winterfell, Vulcan). If you only have one main protagonist, you may want to come up with this descriptor for your villain, which is often used in mystery and thriller blurbs.

• Step Two: Define the external GMC for your protagonist(s). GMC stands for Goal, Motivation, Conflict/Obstacle. It helps to define internal and external GMC for your characters early in your writing process. Blurbs are generally only concerned with the external GMC. To create yours, fill in the following sentence for one or two protagonists and/or your villain: Character wants/must do (Goal) because (Motivation) but can’t have/get it because (Conflict/Obstacle).

• Step Three: Mention or imply your setting and/or period. Victorian-era Egypt. The starship Enterprise. The ruins of a place once known as North America.

 

Next Wednesday in Part Two, we’ll work on expanding your blurb, discuss requirements of various publishing platforms, and why hyperbole is your friend when it comes to blurb writing!

For now, in the comments, try your hand at writing the GMC for your character(s) and if possible, include the character description and setting. Here’s an example:

In order to protect her little sister (Motivation), 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen (character description) must survive a brutal game (Goal) in a land once known as North America (setting), but in order to do so she’ll have to kill all other opponents, including a childhood friend (Conflict/obstacle).

Feeling brave? Try your hand at a tagline and a pitch, too!

OK, your turn!

Part Two of Beating the Blurb Blues

 

Kat Sheridan helps fellow authors create compelling product descriptions for their books. Read more about it or contact her at www.BlurbCopy.com


Image courtesy of africa at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

MONDAY'S MUSINGS: AMAZING PEOPLE

Did you have a restful weekend?

I imagine many of you are just about blogged out after April’s A-Z. It takes a lot out of you, doesn't it? I've also found it to be fun and many of the topics fascinating. Don’t you love seeing the creativity our blogging community? It reminds you how disparate our community is in interests. Even though I didn't comment much due to my shoulder and typing difficulties, I did read some great posts.

I want to express my heartfelt appreciation to Kat Sheridan for expert handling the blog in April during my absence. If not for her, my blog would have been on hiatus for the month. I had actually cancelled several guests due to the upcoming surgery and recuperation time. She offered to host Over Coffee for me—that blew me away for a number of reasons. For one, I know she’s in the middle of researching and writing her latest book and I know the work involved with the blog posting 3 times a week and herding cats, erm, guests. And it was April A-Z challenge and no way would I ask someone to take that on, friend or no.

Kat has been an occasional contributor and host Over Coffee for a couple of years. I've been around and participating in the A-Z for the last three or four years and am familiar with it. Kat, on the other hand, wasn't. I mentioned that she could handle the blog however she wanted during my absence. Kat has a wide range of interests, is well read, and has a wicked sense of humor. I love that about her—never dull and boring. You can imagine my surprise when she wanted to do A-Z, in our quasi way of three times a week. I sent her all the information on A-Z and the links. She was a real trooper and dove right into A-Z. I was impressed with the interesting subjects chosen and participating guests willing to contribute.

None of this would have been possible without some amazing people. I want to thank my writing group, The Writing Wombats for their support and help as well as Central Ohio Fiction Writers members who helped and their historical romance group that stepped up as guests and articles. My thanks to Mark Koopmans for the offer to help with articles if needed. I also want to thank all of you for the support you gave Kat in my absence.

I’m 5 weeks post op. The shoulder is healing at what feels like a snail’s pace. I still tire easily. My range of motion and manipulation is still limited. I can type with two hands, but only in short duration. So even taking up the reins of Over Coffee again, I’m still wobbly. And now, new pain from intensive physical therapy—I call it the Midwest chapter of the Spanish Inquisition, J Hate those pretzel maneuvers. Commenting will still be tough for me. Just be patient with me. I will get around to y’all as I can. It's not a lack of interest or caring just pesky limitations. J

Any favorite posts in A-Z you like to share with me? Did you have a favorite post from Kat’s hosting the Over Coffee? Did you do anything fun this weekend you’d like to share?    

N is for Noir and Neon-Lit Nights...

The letter in today’s A-Z Challenge is “N”. I’m talking about one my favorite genres, noir fiction. ~Kat Sheridan

Dead men are heavier than broken hearts. Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

I like my fiction the way I like my coffee: dark, a little bitter, and best served on a cold, rainy night. Noir, French for “black,” is a literary genre that features a man (always a man), usually a detective, solving a mystery against a backdrop of violence and corruption.

The staple of early pulp fiction, the idea of the hard-boiled detective hero began in the 1920s, during prohibition, with Caroll John Daly’s creation, Race Williams. More followed in his footsteps, most notably Dashiell Hammett with his private detective, Sam Spade, and Raymond Chandler with Philip Marlowe.

The argument can be made that there’s a difference between hard-boiled detective fiction and true noir, but they overlap so much, that most folks, including me, tend to think of them as the same. If a distinction is to be made, it might be in the personality of the detective himself.

John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee or Micky Spillane’s Mike Hammer are hard-boiled seekers of justice, but they have relationships. They have sidekicks and trusted friends, and relationships with women, even if they’re only temporary or unfulfilled.

But men like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe are loners. They’re paladins, cynical, tilting at windmills, strangely romantic, morally ambiguous, and with a more self-destructive personality. The women in their lives either end up dead or betraying them. Same with their friends.

My personal preference is for Raymond Chandler. Both Hammett and Chandler were American-born, but Chandler was raised in England, in “public” schools (what American’s call private schools), and his prose has an elegance and richness that is distinctly different from Hammett’s more terse style. But you couldn’t go wrong with either one.

And of course, there are the noir films, with Humphrey Bogart playing both Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, or Sunset Boulevard, so brilliantly spoofed by Carol Burnett.

I leave you today with a link to my favorite album of classic movie noir music, White Heat: Film Noir. Perfect for a rainy night, a glass of scotch, and lonely detective under the wet neon lights of the mean streets… 

Let’s chat: Are you a fan of crime fiction?  Who’s your favorite detective?

 

 

The “N” book list:

 

 

Naked Came the Manatee: Thirteen of Florida’s best writers come together (along with their famous characters) to create a hilarious send-up of the noir/crime novel. Like a game of literary telephone, each chapter is written by a different author. Dave Barry kicks it off with a manatee named Booger, and is joined by the likes of John D. MacDonald, Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, and Edna Buchanan.

 

San Diego Noir: Fifteen of the area’s best writers (including blog friend Lisa Brackmann) come together in this darkly delicious short-story anthology.

 

Katherine Neville: Complex post-modern thrillers

 

 

 

 

Image of Humphrey Bogart: By Warner Bros Art (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

 

 

MONDAYS MUSINGS—THAT'S LIFE BABY

"I've been up and down and over and out...That's life, I tell you I can't deny it, I thought of quittin' baby, but my heart just ain't gonna buy it..."

Good news—it's spring!

I haven’t been around much in March for a number of reasons. I lost my brother and have been grieving and dealing with family things that come with that. Most of April is going to be shot as well. I’m very thankful to my co-host, Kat Sheridan, for handling the blog in March and she will be handling it in April as well. No A-Z for me. I doubt I’ll be around much the first part of the month. But Kat will be here. Do stop in and give her support. 

March 28^th is an interview with USA and NYT bestselling author,Terry Spear, her research of wolves and jaguars and writing life.   

As some of you may know, the night after my brother, Jonny was admitted into ICU, I fell on the ice. My mind wasn't on my feet but miles away with my brother. I had a split second to react and tried to fall relaxed and do a tuck and roll. Didn't work—the roll, that is. I hit hard on my left shoulder and bounced and skid a few feet across the ice and gravel of our drive.  This isn't the first time I've been injured—I've led a very active outdoor life and it comes with the territory. I can honestly say I can’t remember the last time I felt the magnitude of pain that had me fighting a blackout. I knew not to move until the initial tsunami of pain eases enough to evaluate your body. That also means breathing, once you find your breath, and making your body relax. Easier said than done. 

First scan of my body: I couldn't feel my left arm but I could feel the volcano of pain in my shoulder, ye gads. Deep breath. Still didn't move, second scan, legs moved okay, right arm was fine, head was sore where I hit it, neck stiff but seemed fine. I carefully rolled on my right side and pushing left arm up to lie full length against my side. Hot July fireworks flashed, but it took the pressure off of the arm. Rested and relaxed a minute and then felt along the arm for any obvious problems. By now I could move the fingers, wrist, and forearm. The left shoulder, however, had a bulge and felt weird shaped. Yep, the bulge said I dislocated my shoulder. I massaged and then shoved it and the fact that my right elbow slipped on the ice adding the needed pressure was dumb luck. I felt it slide and saw a lovely rainbow of polka dots and fireworks dance across my vision.

It was dark, cold, and I was lying about 50 feet from the house, on ice. Even had I been inclined I didn't have the breath to yell. My husband had fallen asleep in his recliner (he wouldn't have heard me anyway) and my son wasn't home, which why I went outside to get my Dane. Fall had nothing to do with anything she did. My mind was elsewhere.

Getting up was a bear. When you’re in a situation like that you feel helpless and then you put it away and figure things out. Thirty minutes later I walked back into the house.

I went to the emergency room the next morning. Concussion (but I knew that already), but the x-rays showed no breaks. Lot of swelling, definitely blunt force trauma and bruising and they sent me home with a sling, orders don’t use the arm and make an appointment with your doctor for an MRI. And some serious pain pills. Yay! 

MRI showed a wrecked shoulder. Torn rotator cuff, tears in ligaments, cartilage damage, and fluid build up, floating debris, and a fracture. What does this mean?

Surgery. Absolutely no way around it. And rest. Lots of it.

My surgery is March 27^th. I’m totally out of commission the first couple of weeks of April. I have about 6 months of physical therapy to regain use of the arm, but I will regain at least 90% usage. Without surgery it will heal, eventually, but the shoulder would be unstable and I’d lose 50% usage or more of my arm. Not acceptable.

Ah well, in the words of one of my dad's favorite songs, "I pick myself up and get back in the race..." That's Life. 

Take a chance...

  

Guest post by Kat Sheridan for the Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG).

I published my Victorian romance novel, Echoes in Stone, on a dare.

I finished it five years ago, but never published it. Maybe I thought it wasn’t good enough. Maybe I was afraid of failure. Or success. I picked at it, passed it through beta readers and a really good editor, and made it as strong, as compelling as I knew how.

But still, I couldn’t bring myself to make that leap. To share “my baby” with the world. What if I made a total fool of myself? I was terrified of promotion. Of bad reviews. Of being found out as a fraud. Not a writer.

I belong to a group of historical romance writers who meets every three weeks for coffee, pastries, and goal setting. Every meeting I dutifully set new goals for my work-in-progress, and wrote new pages, but was never really finishing anything. Then one member of the group decided that instead of allowing me to set my own goals, she would set one for me.

Publish something. Anything. She challenged me. She dared me.

So I closed my eyes, screwed up my courage, called in favors from every friend I knew…

…and jumped.

One friend gave me a final edit. Another pointed me to a great cover artist. Another offered to upload the book for free as a thank you for past help I’d given her. Sia had me as a guest on her blog and lined up others for me. Friends tweeted and shared and banged the drum for me.

Sales aren’t spectacular. It’s a debut novel by an unknown author. But I’ve made sales. That very first, tiny little royalty check? It was like winning the Golden Ticket to the Wonka factory.

Many years ago, Hubs talked me into going on one of those 3D virtual rides in Las Vegas. I was utterly terrified and queasy even before getting on the ride. My fears were echoed by a little boy in the same waiting line, who kept chanting “Scary, scary, scary…” When the lights came up after the ride, he jumped out of his seat and yelled “Do it again!” And I turned to Hubs and yelled the same thing.

And that’s how I feel about the book I’m working on now. That giddy feeling that comes only from putting your work out into the world, no matter how much you want to throw up? Do it again!

So tell me, if you’re not published yet, what’s holding you back? And if you are published, what made you take a chance?

Coming up Friday: Judi Fennell and her fun new series Manly Maids. You don’t want to miss this one!

Kat Sheridan is a former project manager whose very serious exterior hides a secret romantic. She is fond of books, bourbon, big words, coffee, and shiny things. Kat splits her time between the Midwest in the summer and the South in the winter, sharing her home with the love of her life and an exceedingly dignified Shih Tzu. She loves to hear from readers, and can be contacted at www.KatSheridan.com.

I Want To Be a Planter

Sia had a lovely guest scheduled for today who unfortunately had to reschedule. So today I'm filling in instead. ~ Kat Sheridan

I’m going to try to be a Planter.


I'm thinking this is a Pumpkin Spice Latte

OK, I know how weird that sounds. But hey, it made you look, right? Let me explain.

NaNoWriMo, which is National Novel Writing Month, begins on November 1^st. For those unfamiliar with the insanity, the goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s 1,667 words every day. For the first few days it’s not bad. You might even skip a few, seeing the month stretch endlessly out before you. “I’ll just write twice as much tomorrow,” you tell yourself. If you’re not careful, that quickly becomes “OMG, even if I write 20 hours a day for the next three days, I’ll never catch up!”

Not that that’s ever happened to me. Ahem. Anyhoo.

The idea of NaNo is to turn off your inner editor and just write. Get all free spirited and new-agey and unleash the Kraken and stuff. For someone who’s a pantser—one who writes by the seat of their pants—this is a wonderful thing. I’m a die-hard pantser. The novel I just pubbed, Echoes in Stone, began its life as a NaNoWriMo project. My very first writing project. Ever. Pretty much on a dare, I sat down at the keyboard and just typed like a fiend for 30 days, with no idea where I was going or what I was doing. Side note: that only got me halfway through the novel—it took another three months to finish it, at least ten rounds of editing and revising, and five years to get the courage to publish it.

Anyway. So that’s a pantser. On the other side of the NaNo field are the Plotters. These are the folks who started back in August with charts and outlines and spreadsheets and research and 3 x 5 index cards in multiple colors and use software like Scrivner and have read “Save the Cat” and have 35 chapters of three scenes each all mapped out and likely already have the synopsis written and the cover in the planning stages. I know people like this. I admire them greatly. I am not one of them.

For the most part, pantsers and plotters respect one another, in spite of the fact that we baffle one another.

But this year for NaNo, I’m trying something new. I’m going to be a planter, a combination of plotter and pantser. I’m going to be working on a project that I’ve been tinkering with for awhile, and which currently resembles hash. Or maybe a ball of yarn the cat got into. Or something you scrape off the bottom of your boot. In other words, it needs to be untangled before I go any further. So before November rolls around, and I unleash the NaNo Kraken, I’m going to do a little plotting. I’m going to at least have a proper list of character names because this manuscript is a beast of a thing with lots of moving parts. I’m not going to go crazy with making a note for each little scene, but perhaps a loose sort of plot outline might not come amiss.

I don’t know. It feels weird. But I’m trying it. If I know myself (and I do), I’m wagering that somewhere ten or fifteen days into it there will come a bourbon-and-Mozart-fueled night of writing frenzy and all my lovely attempts at plotting will go out the window.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be a plotter. But I can try to at least be a planter!

Tell me: Do you ever make elaborate plans for something and then find yourself doing something else entirely? How did that work out for you?

                                                                                                                                                                                          

  

Kat Sheridan is a former project manager and business analyst whose very serious exterior hides a secret romantic. She is fond of books, bourbon, big words, coffee, and shiny things. Kat splits her time between the Midwest in the summer and the South in the winter, sharing her home with the love of her life and an exceedingly dignified Shih Tzu. No matter where her body is, though, Kat’s imagination can most often be found on some storm-wracked coast, plotting historical romances that include forbidding castles, menacing villains, and heartthrob heroes. She loves to hear from readers, and can be contacted at www.KatSheridan.com, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Haunting Houses, Haunted Hearts

My guest is historical romance author, Kat Sheridan. She is addicted to historical Gothic novels and feels the best romance novels include storms, castles, bat-shit-crazy villains, and a high body count. Oh yes, and larger than life heroes and heroines. Today she talks about a character present in all Gothic romances that we often forget.

With the coming of autumn we all tend to draw closer to the hearth. The weather is cooler, the sunny days fewer, and the rain and winds are the harbinger of the coming of winter. The days are darker, and night comes early. Now is the time of year I love to curl up in front of the fire with a hot beverage and a good book. And my favorite choice for this time of year is the old school gothic romance.

What’s a gothic romance? There are certain classic tropes that are usually included—an intrepid heroine, a dark, alpha hero, mysterious goings-on, and danger. But there is always one other character, the thing from which the genre actually gets its name: a house.

The term “gothic” originated from the Gothic architecture of the pseudo-medieval structures that were the setting of early gothics. It might be a mansion, an abbey, a manor, a hall, or a hotel, but it becomes a key “character” in the story. It’s more than just a setting, a framework for events. It takes on a life of its own. Consider these descriptions of the residences in some classic gothics:

“There was Manderley, our Manderley, secretive and silent as it had always been, the gray stone shining in the moonlight of my dream, the mullioned windows reflecting the green lawns and terrace.” ~ from Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

“It was three stories high, of proportions not vast, though considerable: a gentleman's manor-house, not a nobleman's seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look.” ~ description of Thornfield Hall from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

“Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst.” ~ House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

These haunting—and possibly haunted—houses are representatives of larger themes in the stories. When Manderley or Thornfield burn down, it’s a representation of finally destroying the past to make way for the future. Even the name “Thornfield” is thought to represent the “field of thorns” Jane has to overcome in order to find her happiness.

And so it is with Tremayne Hall, the mansion in my debut Victorian Gothic romance, Echoes in Stone. When Jessa first arrives, on a suitably stormy night, it’s described thusly: “The immense stone mansion loomed over her, perched on the edge of the cliff like a bird of prey. Three stories rose above her, stretching out to both sides from the central portion. Rounded towers punctuated stone wings at either end, topped with crenelations biting like giant’s teeth into the night sky. A light glimmered in a window, high in the eastern tower. An additional glow shone through the colored glass panes framing the massive Gothic arch of the front door. Otherwise, the house stood shrouded in darkness.”

I deliberately described the house as a living thing—a bird of prey—because it plays such a key role. As the story progresses, Tremayne Hall reflects the lives of the inhabitants. In the beginning, Jessa’s explorations reveal this: “But everywhere, there were signs of neglect. Paving stones had shifted, making the walkways treacherous. The dry fountain overflowed with leaves. Weeds all but choked out any blooming plants. It was if the lack of love and care in Dash and Lily’s relationship had spread itself over the house, cloaking everything in a miasma of decay.”

Does it get better? Does Tremayne Hall succumb to the ashes like Manderley or Thornfield, or can it, like the hero, Dash Tremayne, be transformed? Not to be a tease, but there’s only one way to find out!

• So tell me. Do you have a favorite dark and stormy tale, or do you prefer to keep your reading on the sunny side?

                                                                                                                                                                                             

Echoes In Stone~

A Victorian Gothic Romance – Available October 1, 2013

BUY: Amazon, B&N, Kobo

A letter from the grave… 

Lily is dead. But a mysterious letter launches her half-sister, Jessa Palmer, on a harrowing journey into the wilds of Cornwall to rescue Lily’s daughter from a tyrant of a father, a man who confessed to murder. Jessa follows in Lily’s footsteps to a forbidding castle on the cliffs, but discovers the past will not stay dead at Tremayne Hall. Someone—or something—wants to ensure Jessa is no more successful at escaping than was Lily.

A heart locked in stone…

Bitter, brooding, and tragically scarred, Viscount Dashiell Tremayne believes Jessa is just like her manipulative, unfaithful half-sister. He’s not about to let another treacherous woman into his home or into his heart. Particularly not a woman who’s come to steal his daughter. Only one can win in the battle for a child’s life. Then the accidents begin.

A passion that threatens to consume them…

Jessa wants only to take her niece and escape the grim manor. But Dash, fiercely protective of those he loves, gives up nothing that belongs to him. As the danger escalates, so does the heat between Jessa and Dash. Soon she’ll have to make a choice: surrender the child to a man she cannot trust or surrender her heart to the same fires of passion that destroyed Lily. Excerpt

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Kat Sheridan is a former project manager and business analyst whose very serious exterior hides a secret romantic. She is fond of books, bourbon, big words, coffee, and shiny things. Kat splits her time between the Midwest in the summer and the South in the winter, sharing her home with the love of her life and an exceedingly dignified Shih Tzu. No matter where her body is, though, Kat’s imagination can most often be found on some storm-wracked coast, plotting historical romances that include forbidding castles, menacing villains, and heartthrob heroes. She loves to hear from readers, and can be contacted at www.KatSheridan.com, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.