#WEPWINNER MARY AALGAARD - GUEST POST - QUOTE OF THE DAY

 Hi everyone, Denise and Renee here again!

MARY AALGAARD won the October THRILLER challenge with her very short #flashfiction, Murder Moon.

Badge courtesy of Olga Godim

Our judge Nick Wilford said,    "This was very enticing in creating an intriguing setup in very few words and leaving the reader wanting more. Really skillfully done."

Here is an excerpt from the ending:

The tide was rolling in and the traces of footprints would wash away, leaving one body lying on the sand, under the water, the other moving into the shadowy bushes and back up the steps of the bungalow.

And now for Mary with:

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

Quote of the Day: The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes. Agatha Christie

Since I began blogging in 2008, I’ve included a Quote of the Day and a Journaling Prompt in almost every post, even the ones that are theater reviews. I thought I’d use the blog as an extension on teaching journaling, or inspiring it, and as a motivation to keep writing and honing my craft. It’s been a great way to connect with other authors and readers. And, it’s given me the opportunity to become a theater reviewer.

The writing journey is like any other that you’re on in life. Some things you plan, but sometimes it takes you places you never expected. I’ve always loved the theater, attending and participating. I was in plays in high school and a few community theater productions, and I’m a piano player and teacher. So, when I saw that the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, MN was looking for theater blog reviewers, I signed up. I live outside of the city limits, so I wasn’t sure if they’d pick me, but they did. I figured out how to drive in the cities, and with the help of GPS, found my way to various theaters. Now, I’m offered tickets for reviews for everything from a local production of Brighton Beach Memoirs to the touring show of the hit musical Six. Both of which I reviewed in the past week on my website Play off the Page.

I’m a fan of mysteries and suspense stories. I read Nancy Drew Mysteries when I was young. A mystery with horses involved would have been the best! I’ve read or watched numerous Agatha Christie murder mysteries. My favorite author is Sue Grafton (RIP) and her alphabet mysteries with the skilled female detective Kinsey Millhone. I never thought I could write a mystery or suspense story until I answered the challenge for the IWSG Anthology. My story One More Minute is in the Tick Tock: A Stitch in Crime anthology.  

During the lockdown of the pandemic, I signed up for a zoom writing class with Candace Simar. It was one of the things that got me through the isolation, and I looked forward to our weekly meetings. One day, she asked us to write a description of setting and mood, but to leave out any mention of characters. I wrote my paragraph for Murder Moon that day, which won the October Thriller Challenge here at WEP, and it inspired me to write a story from that opening scene.

I’m currently writing a stage adaptation of a cozy murder mystery by a MN author. My love of theater and all the hours I’ve spent studying the artform as a reviewer are coming together with my love of mysteries in this exciting project.

Mary Higgins Clark talks to the aspiring author in her memoir, Kitchen Privileges, “When writers ask me what they should write, I tell them to look at their bookshelves and write something that they like to read.”

I didn’t know I had it in me to go to the dark side and create the kind of atmospheric book that keeps me turning pages and staying up past my bedtime. I also never expected to be a theater reviewer, quoted by theaters for promotions, and having this wealth of opportunity. You never know what you can do until you try!

Thank you for choosing Murder Moon as the winner for the Thriller Challenge!

Go. Create. Inspire!

Journaling Prompt: What opportunities have crossed your path that you never expected? 

~~*~~

Thank you, Mary

Mary Aalgaard at Play off the Page

Mary Aalgaard is a writer and piano/theater teacher in the heart of Minnesota. She writes theater reviews and supports the arts through her blog Play off the Page. She teaches youth theater workshops and works with both seniors and youth in multi-generational programs. Go. Create. Inspire!

 Her website is PlayoffthePage.com  

You can follow her on her Play off the Page Facebook page, 

@MaryAalgaard on Twitter, 

& email her at Mary@playoffthepage.com.

You can enjoy more of her work in the IWSG Anthology - Tick-Tock a Stitch in Time. Her contribution: One More Minute

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Thank you so much Mary for your heartfelt post, and congratulations once again for your winning flash!

Please tweet this post or share it to Facebook or your favorite social media site.

#WEPWINNER #Thriller #guestpost by Mary Aalgaard https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2022/11/wepwinner-mary-aalgaard-guest-post.html @DeniseCCovey, @YolandaRenee, @LGKeltner, @OlgaGodim @jemifraser #amwriting #writingchallenge

#WEP Thriller #WEPwinner  #guestpost https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2022/11/wepwinner-mary-aalgaard-guest-post.html @DeniseCCovey, @YolandaRenee, @LGKeltner, @OlgaGodim @jemifraser #amwriting #writingchallenge #MaryAalgaard

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Our next challenge will be here before we know it!

We hope many of you will consider joining us for our DECEMBER Challenge:

"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face."

Because of the holiday season, Posting begins on December 1st through the 15th.

The First Time (Ever I Saw Your Face) is a folk song written by Scottish musician and political activist Ewan MacColl in 1957 for Peggy Seeger, a relative of Pete Seeger and MacColl's lover at the time and wife later on. It was performed through the 60's around Britain. The track became a major breakout hit in 1969 for Roberta Flack, who sang a much slower version than the original MacColl had composed. It exploded in popularity when Clint Eastwood used it to score a love scene in his directorial debut Play Misty for Me, reaching no 1 in the US Billboards and winning the Record of the Year in 1972. Many covers exist - Peter, Paul & Mary, George Michael, Celine Dion,  Leona Lewis, etc. Read more about this song here.

Roberta herself said about the song -  I think it's the kind of song that has two unique & distinct qualities: it tells a story, and it has lyrics that mean something....Because of [its meaningful lyrics] the [song] can be interpreted by a lot of people in a lot of different ways: the love of a mother for a child, for example, or [that of] two lovers. 

Yup, she nailed it - it is meaningful, and it can be many things to many people. What's going to be your take? How are you going to interpret this title? What will happen the first time your MC sees the face?

Will it be a romantic love like Ewan wrote for Peggy?...Or will your MC recoil in fear, anger or unease? ...Will some light-hearted mischief be hatched leading to a lifelong friendship?... Maybe it will be a job interview and the employer will know that the face will bring nothing but trouble?...Or might a stressed, lonely soul find his Man Friday? 

The possibilities are only bounded by your imagination - the sky's the limit...show us the heights you want to reach, we're standing by to take off with you.

~v~v~v~v~v~

Here is an early TWEET! Help us promote December!

Write...Edit...Publish -- Online Writing Community: #WEP #December2022 #flashfiction challenge based on #song below. December 1 thru the 15th #1,000words or less! #nonfiction #poetry #poetrycommunity Get #feedback from professionals and peers. #romance?

See you in December!

Denise and Renee for the team...

Guest Post, Adura Ojo, winner of the December Challenge, The End is the Beginning.

Hello friends!

Welcome to a new year of WEP! It's wonderful to be back and to anticipate writing to prompts every two months. Check the list in the sidebar, or go to our CHALLENGES 2018 page if you haven't already checked what we have in store for you.

Come February, we sign up for In Too Deep, which should get your creative juices flowing. However, before we launch our first challenge of the year, we hear from our winner of the December challenge, The End is the Beginning, poet Adura Ojo.

If you haven't read Adura's winning poem, you can read it HERE.

Adura has been traveling and is still on the road, but managed to get her guest post done at the eleventh hour.

Thanks for participating in WEP again, Adura, now it's over to you!

The End is the Beginning: Why Cinderella Needs a new Song

Image source

The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue but they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story - Chimamanda Adichie

Narratives exist for a reason. Stories are said to be as old as time, itself. For as long as we have existed as humans, we’ve been telling stories shaping our own realities. Sometimes these narratives run like a factual script in our lives, almost like an existential script that cannot be altered. Cinderella is one of those classic tales. A girl meets the man of her dreams and lives happily ever after. And why shouldn’t she? Love endures in just about every human experience that we can think of - be it happiness, pain, joy, sadness, war and death. Therein is the mystery of love as one of the most complex of emotions to grace the terrain of humanity. With the incredible endurance of love comes the danger of the single story. Cinderella became that single story.

Over centuries the existence of love between two people irrespective of class, gender or status became one of a single story of love between a man and a woman as exemplified in Cinderella. In a TED talk in 2009, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie highlighted the danger of a single story. The danger of a single story is that it ignores, and in fact, denies the existence of other realities.

Many girls and indeed boys grow up believing that they will find love with someone of the opposite gender. The story of Cinderella as heart-warming as it is, inherits the danger of a single story. We want to see boys and girls embrace their individual realities. It is time for Cinderella to find love with a princess in part two of our human love story.

Thank you Adura. You've given us food for thought with your guest post. I've always loved the Cinderella story, and have lost count of the number of versions I've read. Yours was certainly different and challenge the traditional story in a unique way.

More about Adura: 

You can check out her book of poetry by emailing Lafia Publishing: lafiapublishing@gmail.com. 

Check out her beautiful blog HERE.

Adura Ojo is a British-Nigerian poet and writer. She is Pomosexual and embraces the anti-discriminatory principle of non-categorization. Her poems have appeared in Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel, Acumen, Dryland, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, The New York Times and The Poetic Pinup Revue. A 2017 Pushcart prize nominee, Adura’s poems document what her diary once kept in a secret place. Her collection, Life is a Woman Breaking Eggs, was published in April 2017 by Lafia. 

So on February 1st, only 4 days to go Australian time, our new challenge will go live. Will it be you writing next month's guest post?

 Denise, for the team -- Yolanda, Olga and Nilanjana!

WEP PEACE AND LOVE WINNER DOLORAH shares a guest post on BRIDGES.

Thanks for coming by!

Today, our winner for the WEP Peace and Love challenge, Dolorah, is using her guest post to educate us some more on 'bridges.' It is an entertaining post, so I hope you enjoy it and that is sparks something for the June BRIDGES challenge.

source

When I think of bridges, I almost always think of literary bridges. Probably because I'm a bit intimidated by physical bridges. I love them of course, in pictures and paintings. Or staring at them across a river bank They are majestic, a feat of engineering beauty. I love looking at art with bridges and tunnels; I like jig saw puzzles and bridges are my favorites to assemble, and I'm even hoping to erect a foot-bridge in my yard across a drainage ditch. But I have to admit that many times in my adult life, especially at night, I've traveled as much as five minutes out of my way to avoid a bridge or tunnel.

I know this is an irrational fear. I am not afraid of trolls collecting their fees (I'm actually comforted by the toll booths erected at mid point); I am not swayed by billy goats offering fatter byways for passage; and I'm not worried that the physical structures are fragile and doomed to fall into the depths of non-existence.

Perhaps my irrational fear of bridges has more to do with my dislike of tight places, and height. Bridges are high above empty spaces, and are closely confined. No matter how long or wide or tall, there is no flexibility of movement. Once you enter the confines, there is no turning back, or veering off to the side for a quick exit. Perhaps this is why bridges collect spirits or ghosts; the victims felt confined in life, and thus are unable to move on after death.

In the literary or metaphorical sense, a bridge can be described as a crossing, a connection, a transition, or a passage spanning two concepts. In terms of crafting a plot, it could be the transition between the crux (the culmination of all the disjointed threads) and the end. That point where the tension is so intense the reader has to read on to see if their conclusions are accurate, despite kids needing to be picked up from school, the husband demanding dinner, the need to pee, or the boss calling to see why you're late for work.

By design, bridges are a mid-point, a transition; but do not always have to be "the middle" in writing. For instance, a literary bridge for a character could be an "aha" moment in the first few scenes where they recognize who/what they are isn't working in their life, and a change must be made. A catalyst (monumental event) could also be a bridge: say a friend asks for advice and the woman realizes the advice she gives could also apply to her own life, so she takes her own advice and makes a life changing decision. The story itself is that life transition, but the bridge is the moment of recognition.

Or a middle aged man dreams of a tryst with a younger woman, yet when faced with the opportunity he envisions his daughter’s face and this revelation reconnects him to his wife through a series of romantic gestures. The story is how he recaptures his waning relationship; the bridge is the moment he realizes he needs to change. Regardless of the genre, each scene is a bridge to the next scene, all connected to the chapter plot, and each chapter is another connection to the overall story plot.

Academics, finances, relationships, children, career opportunities; all can be bridges or passages into new experiences, or just to cement an ambiguous decision. In writing, the transitions and passages are as limitless as the author's imagination.

My own "bridge" into the writing world came at a very low point in my life. I had lost a job, was in dire straits, and began to write a story just to fill my time. It eased my stress. I enjoyed writing so much that I continued even after I obtained employment.The blogging/writing community has been a bridge of sorts to me; it allows me to meet other authors, I've gained resources and education, learned techniques from a variety of writing teachers and peers, and honed my craft enough to become published in several anthologies. And, to win the coveted prize in WEP.

Regardless of how you view a BRIDGE - as a physical edifice spanning the distance over a chasm, or as a metaphorical transition between two emotional states - there is no denying that writing that story will bridge the distance between Author and Reader.

Thank you Denise and Yolanda for allowing me to take over the blog today.

And here is a promo for our BRIDGES challenge taken from the UP-COMING CHALLENGES FOR 2017 PAGE ABOVE.

June:   Bridges

Water under the bridge? Or interpret this prompt as a setting, or as an overture after a breach, or just the word inserted somewhere into your writing/images.

Thoughts: 

Literally--

Prisoners of war building a bridge, thinking of loved ones, inspiration to survive...Bridge over the River Kwai, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, the Bridges of Madison County...

Explorers building a bridge to an unexplored site…

Engineers building a bridge that collapses...

Metaphorically--

Building bridges after a feud

Water under the bridge--let bygones be bygones

We'd love if you'd Tweet one/all of these:

The #WEPFF PEACE AND LOVE Challenge Winner Guest Post with Dolorah / Donna Hole! @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2017/05/wep-peace-and-love-winner-dolorah.html

Celebrate with Dolorah 1st place winner #WEPFF PEACE AND LOVE April Flash Fiction challenge #amwriting http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2017/05/wep-peace-and-love-winner-dolorah.html  

#WEPFF April Challenge winner, Dolorah writes about BRIDGES @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2017/05/wep-peace-and-love-winner-dolorah.html #amwriting #flashfiction

Please click the social media buttons to share this post!

#WEPff #GuestPost--Nilanjana Bose--A brief history of CONSTELLATIONS--and some exciting news!

On October 1, the inLinkz list goes up, with calls for submissions for the Write...Edit...Publish (WEP) October challenge. This challenge gives you a choice:

You can write to the CONSTELLATIONS challenge, or
you can write to the HALLOWEEN challenge, or
you can be very clever and combine the two.

Go HERE to read more about these challenges.

REMEMBER: We accept flash fiction, non-fiction, poetry, photographs/photo essays, artwork. Written work needs to be 1,000 words or under to help with reading time.

We award 3 places for the best entries: overall WINNER (who receives a $10 Amazon Gift Card), the RUNNER UP and the ENCOURAGEMENT AWARD.

If you are the winner, you are offered an opportunity to write a guest post before the next challenge.

GUEST POST - CONSTELLATIONS

Poet and fiction author Nilanjana Bose was the winner for the August GARDENS challenge, with her amazing poem, Point me to...

Today, we open the WEP site to Nilanjana...

Thank you, Denise and Yolanda and hello all WEP-ers! I am so thrilled to be here talking about ‘constellations’ which is one of the prompts for October.

The night sky has fascinated humans from time immemorial with its magnificence and vastness.  Ancient peoples looked to the stars as harbingers of seasons and for navigation across featureless lands or seascapes. They wove them into myth and folklore, faith and spirituality.  Constellations are imaginary star patterns the ancient humans drew connecting clusters of the brighter stars. 

The earliest written star catalogues go back to around 1200 BCE in Mesopotamia.  Around the same time, an astronomy system was developed in the Indus Valley Civilisation, though no written records of it survive.  The alignment of various ancient monuments to stars and planetary bodies tells us both of the fascination for them, and the sophisticated techniques the builders employed. Stonehenge in UK and the Giza Pyramids are just two examples where the skies have influenced buildings on earth; there are many others throughout the world. 

Each ancient civilisation from the earliest known times has left behind evidence of the importance of the stars.  Heck, notched bone sticks from Africa as old as 37,000 years indicate they were used to tell the phases of the moon. Even when he couldn’t write or do any maths, Man (or Woman for all we know, women have an innate biological connection to the lunar month) was tracking the skies.  Someone was keeping records of celestial events, even in prehistory.

Originally, the study of stars was possible only through what was visible to the naked eye.  Mostly plotting the stars and charting their courses and those of the sun, moon and the planets.  A branch of astronomy that is now called astrometry.  How the celestial bodies slotted into the universe as a whole was constructed through a philosophical exploration.  By the early medieval period, the ideas from Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, India and Greece had been pulled together into a geocentric theory which assumed that the Sun revolved around the Earth.

In the medieval period the learning centres shifted from Europe east to Persia, the Levant, India and further into China. Sophisticated mathematics and engineering skills, and the setting up of new observatories in the Islamic Empire led to a manifold growth in knowledge.  The astrolabe was developed in Islamic Spain and introduced to other regions. Scholars identified and recorded new stars and celestial phenomena, and even today many terms in astronomy – azimuth, nadir, zenith - have their roots in Arabic and Persian language. Omar Khayyam, more famously known for his Rubaiyat the world over, was also an astronomer-mathematician and knew more about the ‘flight’ of stars than he let on in his poetry –

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night

Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight

And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light.

Astronomy underwent a sensational sea-change in Renaissance Europe.  Copernicus proposed Heliocentrism, which was expanded and defended first by Kepler and then by Galileo with his newly invented telescope. However, this was controversial at the time - the Catholic Church ruled it heresy. Galileo was forced to recant and died an outcast alone in his home near Florence.  It took more than a century for his views to become widely accepted.  Today he is revered as the ‘father of observational astronomy.’

Predictably, my own top-of-mind reaction to ‘constellations’ is the memory of poems. Another one is Escape at Bedtime by R.L. Stevenson, published in 1913.  The final stanza –

The Dog, and the Plough, and the Hunter, and all,
      And the star of the sailor, and Mars,
These shone in the sky, and the pail by the wall
      Would be half full of water and stars.
They saw me at last, and they chased me with cries,
      And they soon had me packed into bed;
But the glory kept shining and bright in my eyes,
      And the stars going round in my head.

Poetry and stars/constellations go together like…chicken tikka masala and naan. However, constellations and stars pervade not just poetry but all spheres of art and literature, from Shakespeare to John Green via Van Gogh, everywhere you look you’ll see a million examples.  There are innumerable things to do with this prompt. The sky is literally the limit. Constellations can be tweaked to fit into any idea you may have.

Let’s take Romance.  Do the constellations work there? Yup, starlight and serenades, clandestine assignations, candle-lit dinners, I mean, darkened skies are almost a staple in love-stories.

Adventure? Yup. Think night, think navigation, think Ursa Minor or Crux. Constellations chart the course of our lives, they are the zodiac, fate, destiny, karma, repositories of mythology, they peg us to our own place in the vast scheme of things.

Crime/Mystery? Yes, of course, crime happens right under the noses of the stars most of the time!

Fantasy and speculative fiction? Yes again. And don’t let’s even start on Sci-Fi, more than half of which genre is based in inter-planetary/-galactic settings! There are constellations all around in deep space, no avoiding the things. 

And before I go, I’d just like to mention that constellation need not be of stars alone.  The word has been used as a name for paintings, music bands and albums, a cruise ship, an abandoned space exploration programme, books, films and journals.  Endless possibilities.  So bloggers, art-makers and story-tellers, let’s get the pencil points of imagination sharpened and put the prompt to work.  Can’t wait to read the results! Good luck! and see you soon…

Thank you Nilanjana!

Now we haven't forgotten about HALLOWEEN!

It's time to scare us silly! Give us your best 'Booooooo!' 

Have you got a scary story, fictional or real? 

Have you got a scary poem?

Have you got a scary image?

Make sure we can't get to sleep after reading  your entry! Send our scare-o-metre to the stratosphere!

If you can scare us while writing about CONSTELLATIONS, you're a genius of the first order!

Sign up October 1st

Post October 19 - 21

Now, let's wrap up with some exciting news!

Most of you would understand that running WEP takes a huge commitment. So that we can continue this vibrant writing community, Yolanda and I have added two more talented writers to our team, Olga Godim and Nilanjana Bose. If you don't know Olga and Nilanjana, please visit their blogs and say hi.

Olga has taken to making badges for the challenges and now will be creating the winners' badges also, and any other badges we need.

Nilanjana has been tasked with coming up with suggested challenges for 2017. She workshops them with what I'm calling the Gang of Four, and when we reach agreement, they will be announced around the December challenge.

So we'd appreciate your welcoming Olga and Nila to the WEP team. Their involvement will lead to bigger and better things in the future.

Please help spread the word for our October challenges. Copy and paste the badges onto your blogs. Share via social media. Encourage your writer friends to take part.

Announce the Guest Post by Nilanjana Bose

and introduce our October Challenge!

We'd love if you'd Tweet one of these:

A WEP Guest post featuring Nilanjana Bose @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2016/09/wepff-guestpost-nilanjana-bose-brief.html #WEPFF

A WEP Flash Fiction Challenge - the prompt is Constellations & Halloween @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2016/09/wepff-guestpost-nilanjana-bose-brief.html #WEPFF

What's your October inspiration? The stars or the supernatural or both? @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2016/09/wepff-guestpost-nilanjana-bose-brief.html #WEPFF

#GuestPost, Francine Howarth, on writer collaboration in Anthologies

Hello friends!

Denise here.

Our Valentine's Day challenge is to be judged by Francine Howarth, UK prolific author of Regency Romance. Francine was my original partner in RomanticFridayWriters, which morphed into Write...Edit...Publish so as not to bamboozle those who didn't think 'romance' was their thing. But really, when we think of the stories we love, most have some romantic element, (see my blog post on Romance V Romantic Writing here) and that was what RFW was all about...edgy flash fiction with a romantic element within.

Francine Howarth

Francine has moved on to a very successful career. Last time I checked her Amazon Author Page, she had 21 books listed! She has tapped into the pulse of what makes a successful romance author. But today she has chosen not to talk about her writing career...rather she chose to talk about one form of collaboration which has always intrigued me, and I hope, you too...well, let's hear it from Francine...

Hi, I’m Francine, and first let me say how honoured I felt when asked to do a guest post for Write, Edit, Publish, so thank you Denise and Yolanda.

It’s all very well saying, yes, I’ll do a piece for magazine, blog, whatever, until the mind goes blank. Yikes, and did my mind go into dead zone, until inspiration hit. So here I am, and rather than promote myself and my own books per se, I’m writing about the daunting task of compiling works by many authors for what became a charity anthology set within the Georgian & Regency eras.

As one would expect, the process of getting together for a collaborative working relationship is just the first stage in finding like-minded people. Our ideal became a themed anthology comprising of its own history base – The Chocolate House – which required a little forethought, more especially when the participants were from all around the globe and not one member of the group had met the other in person. Trust was therefore a major factor until the group slowly began bonding as a whole, thence mutual support from within built with every aspect of the process, and became enjoyable as the project proceeded.

In the early stages of our anthology characters came to light and names were cross-referenced, and thereby namesakes cropping up in different storylines saved the anthology from falling foul to the unmentionable of a Lady Jane Marchment in one story, and a Miss Jane Whitcombe stepping out in another story. Admittedly Jane is a common enough name for the eras depicted, but two Janes in the same anthology . . . Well, simply put; we were not at home to Mr Cockup.   

As always in writing stories, blood was sweated, tears were almost shed, laughter arose from amusing quips, and we came through with a sensual blend of Chocolate, Romance, Murder and Mystery at "Masqueraders". Each novella is a complete story, though one or two may now, or did when first written, link to other novels by individual authors.

The overall background setting is the beautiful City of Bath, famous for its Roman Spa, its Abbey, its Pump Room; Assembly Rooms, and Sally Lunn’s bun shop. The city itself has been made famous within the literary world by the likes of Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, and other authors of Georgian and Regency historical novels. Thus Bath is renowned as a place for intrigue and romance, but few readers will have stepped across the threshold of Masqueraders’, a notorious and fashionable Chocolate House, that existed within the city from 1700 to the latter part of the reign of William IV. What happened to it thereafter no one knows, for sure. Nor does anyone know why Sally Lunn’s bun shop disappeared in the mid 1700s, and remained undiscovered for decades until renovation work and the old ovens were rediscovered behind panelling in the 20th century.

So it could be said, essence of chocolate drifting on the ether denotes where the seemingly mystical Masqueraders’ once existed. All stories are in some way linked to The Chocolate House, and each author is represented with a brief biography and links to appropriate web pages. We’d love it if you would visit us and like our FB page at: https://www.facebook.com/thechocolatehouse/

If you would like to go one step further, you might like to purchase a copy of “The Chocolate House”:  Amazon UK -  AmazonUS

All  royalties earned will be donated to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London. 

And thank you for reading.

Thank you Francine for visiting us and sharing the story of a successful collaboration. 

Maybe there is a writer you've thought you'd like to collaborate with in the future. Maybe Francine's post was just what you needed to encourage you. It can be done. Like to read more? L.G. Keltner, who has written for WEP, won the IWSG Anthology competition has posted on the IWSG website on submitting to anthologies.

And a huge shout out for Yolanda who made the cut into the anthology. Congratulations Yolanda!

Now this post is to whet your appetite for the first WEP challenge of the year! The Valentine's Day linky will open on February 1. Please join us!

Francine Howarth talks collaboration!

We'd love if you'd Tweet one of these:

Romance writer Francine Howarth visits the WEP.  @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee join us http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2016/01/guestpost-francine-howarth-on-writer.html #WEPFF

Are you interested in collaborating to write a book? @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2016/01/guestpost-francine-howarth-on-writer.html #WEPFF

Regency Romance author Francine Howarth shares a few writing secrets. @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2016/01/guestpost-francine-howarth-on-writer.html #WEPFF

#WEPFF - WINNER J LENNI DORNER TALKS SETTINGS & HOW IT AFFECTS CHARACTERS . . .

Hello again,

In The Dark was J Lenni Dorner's winning entry for the WEP  - October Halloween Challenge. I hope you've all had a chance to read it, if not the link will take you there. 

Today, as our guest, he's writing on settings and how it affects your characters.

Take it away J Lenni Dorner!

When asked if I'd write a guest post I thought, "Sure! What will be my topic?" I devoted myself to settings that become characters, so that seemed like the best well from which to draw. I hope to inspire you on your writing journey!

The most important function of any setting, or any item in a setting, is how it affects a character. 

There's a sunrise. It's the most beautiful sunrise ever seen. Hues of orange and yellow drift into blue as night is vanquished from the sky. You know what? That's not the quality writing publishers (or most readers) are looking to buy. Give us a character who was blind and is experiencing a sunrise for the first time. Or a kingdom that was cursed to darkness for twenty generations and let that sunrise be the first sign of freedom. That's getting closer. Do more by having your point of view character feel something because of the sunrise. Don't just tell me Jane felt happy. Show me. Make the reader feel like they're sharing the experience.

 A popular example of a great setting is the arenas in The Hunger Games series. Those of you who read the books know that those arenas are monsters. Yes, President Snow is the main antagonist. But the arena tries to kill Katniss. There are passages that discuss players who have died because of an arena. It's a person-versus-nature element.

 Now imagine if The Hunger Games didn't have an arena. Katniss and Peeta are sent to modern day New York City and have to outlive their opponents. Would the books be as popular? There are plenty of books about a NYC character figuring out how to survive and thrive there. Taking away the arena changes the story. That is a great example of a setting that is a character. The reader is presented with a place they've never imagined before, and that place offers an emotional challenge to the point of view character.

 Your writing journey might be different. Perhaps your setting is a well-known location. I'll use New York City as an example again. Rockefeller Center presents a myriad of emotions for characters. Has that location made your character reminiscent of watching the tree lighting with their family, all of whom were killed this year? Is it the place where she fell on the ice and a McHottie picked her up, held her close, and whispered, "amateurs should stick to the outside lane" before skating away? Maybe there's a bench here where his great-grandfather ate lunch every day after coming to this country to escape the concentration camps. Or the character has to go this way to get to work at NBC, but is allergic to pine and thus looks like Rudolph all winter long.

Saatchi Art

 Each of these are examples of how a setting can affect a character. It isn't about Rockefeller Center - it's about what Rockefeller Center means to your character. So go ahead and let the rain fall on that dark and stormy night, but be sure to make the reader feel like it's something they're experiencing through your point of view character. Maybe a shivering puppy who hasn't eaten properly in days, is soaked to the bone, and has been ignored by the world huddles under a massive tree for shelter. A lonely young character lost her dog and has come to the Rockefeller Center's tree to wish that Sprinkles comes home. The rain turns to fluffy flakes of snow as the two are reunited.

 I have farmed potatoes. But I've never had to grow taters to survive on Mars. Yet, while reading Andy Weir's "The Martian," I felt like I had. That's another great story with a setting that can't be swapped. Mark Watney wouldn't be as compelling if the book were "The Idahoan." A story where the majority of the population is in favor of spending billions of dollars to help one farmer out doesn't seem plausible. But put him on Mars and it works.

So I encourage you to take some time with your settings. Find the sights, smells, textures, tastes, and sounds that make this place unique to your story. Use the setting as a tool to reveal traits of your character. Let it be a challenge or a comforting friend. Give the reader a reason to care about your setting (to the point that there would be a trending Twitter riot if Hollywood tried to put your characters elsewhere). It will pay off.

I'm J Lenni Dorner, winner of the 2015 Youthful Frights and Adult Fears WEP Halloween Challenge, and author of "Preparing to Write Settings that Feel Like Characters" (Amazon, Smashwords).

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J Lenni Dorner is guest posting - the subject is settings #WEPFF Write…Edit,,,Publish @YolandaRenee & @DeniseCCovey http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2015/11/wepff-winner-j-lenni-dorner-talks.html

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J Lenni Dorner talks setting and characters at the #WEPFF Write…Edit…Publish. @YolandaRenee & @DeniseCCovey http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2015/11/wepff-winner-j-lenni-dorner-talks.html

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