Raine Balkera - Romance Author

In my never-ending effort to figure out this Show v Tell conundrum I've been forced to have to wallow in and wade through since the beginning of the year (practically) there is one thing I know for sure: WAS is a bad word. And, I'm super upset about this tiny bit of info (with its major impact). Had ANYONE said this is the answer MONTHS ago, I wouldn't still be sitting here trying to figure out where it is I'm going wrong, why it is everyone sees it but me, and how it is all of the supposed expert advice purported to be offered online failed to reach me until now. The last place I'd think to go to 'learn' anything online is Youtube, and yet there I was today, watching a few silly videos that said the same thing yet still managed to teach me the difference between Tell and Show in writing. WAS  (erm) was the key word. So, I opened AutoCrit, plunked down the first 1,000 words of my latest WIP, and went for the count on WAS . Turns out...

I'm bored and need to write, so here I am. I've done a lot of reading, and I read before going to bed each night, so plowing through my stash is inevitable and why I'm still in the habit of browsing Amazon reviews. One day, while reading reviews for potential new purchases, I came across something that made me laugh. It also caught my attention because, apparently, I too suck at Show v Tell Great protagonists and antagonists. Great plot. Smooth action, solid connection between friends.  But...stop "telling" me and start "showing" me. For example: "The pain eating through Dylan was like a chainsaw cutting through his gut." How much more exciting it would've been if I'd experienced it WITH Dylan: The pain ate through Dylan's gut like an angry chainsaw. OR A chainsaw cut a swathe of pain through Dylan's gut.  Less use of passive words and phrases (phrasing) would catapult your already fabulous writing into the rea...

Just when you think you've finally figured it out, along comes more information to blow such an assumption right out of the water. In my case, it is the annoying and confusing Show vs. Tell issue in novel writing. Part of the problem lies with myself, of course. I've admitted this several times already. I just don't see it in other writing and hardly ever in my own. Which is likely due to the simple fact that I do not see an issue with telling or recognize the key words that are meant to red-flag a tell versus a show instance. And, when I read things that suggest I consider my audience's viewpoint, pretend I'm holding a camera, or to rely on Mark Twain's "Don't Tell me what the Play is about, Show me what the Actors are Doing", it still doesn't help. Not in the slightest. Nothing seems to resonate with me and SHOW. Even when I think I get it, I end up not getting it and fall back on my style of writing. Which makes the guilt cr...

In keeping with my unintentional theme on what to look for when editing/revising our Romance novels, I'd like to discuss the issue of misspelled, misused, and misinterpreted occurrences in our work. And, yes, none more so than in my own. This isn't a gripe post and more of a help post (I hope). In all honesty, I don't look at this as complaining or wanting to sound better than some and more of an attempt to help elevate our genre to a higher, more acceptable status than what it is right now. We deserve it. Heroin vs. Heroine An opioid painkiller vs a Female hero Blond vs Blonde This derives from French, and in keeping with their gender-based language, it should remain that in French, blond is masculine and blonde is feminine. So, a man has blond hair and a woman has blonde hair. Damn it vs Dammit Not entirely sure how this one got started or even why. Research indicates that this is profoundly American, and that our Southern neighbors even go...

Reading a novel requires effort. Enough effort to prove in scientific research that the act of reading works to help slow the onset of Alzheimer's. And what a reader wants when reading is to be sucked in; swept away from her own reality and left to hover over each scene like a wraith -- unseen yet completely engaged. The other day, a Facebook feed comment mentioned the disappointment felt at finding, in her own body of yet-unpublished work, a lot of repetitive words within a single sentence, paragraph, or chapter. It's a noble issue to consider when writing and wanting to publish and then hoping for great reviews and tons of sales. I've already posted a few articles that prove (regardless of what you see and read online these days) that grammar, punctuation, and spelling matter to readers! Revision and Editing matter, too. In the last few months, I noticed the repetition issue in a lot of the novels that I've read. Reading 'said' a few dozen...

relatable-anime-moments-tumblr It's great to feel the way the girl above apparently does, but while or after having read a wonderful novel. And, speaking of novels . . . If I continue to edit my second work, it is apt to turn into an entirely new story, so I really must cease with the edits at this point. Here's the problem with that, though: I keep thinking. And, we all know where that leads, right? I keep thinking that maybe it isn't enough romance, or that I missed a lot of the show vs tell issue that everyone hates, or that I spent too much time on a scene and the reader will get bored, or that I didn't do enough to convey thought or emotion in another instance. The only thing I'm ever truly confident about in my writing is the Strunk & White aspect, but even so, I still find goofy boo-boo's here and there. I'm always afraid. Afraid of not only the unknown but the known as well. My first novel turned into somet...