#Excerpt from A LIFE LESS ORDINARY by @VicBernadine #AmReading #Fiction #ChickLit

The coffee shop wasn’t very busy.  Only a couple of tables were occupied, with several more people standing in line. Manny sat rather nervously at her table sipping her third vanilla latte and wondering if she was as crazy as Rebecca and Daisy claimed. This would be her fourth interview today of a potential travelling companion and she hoped this guy would be more of a possibility than the other three she’d already met. Oh, they all seemed nice enough, but Olive had been jittery and they’d quickly realized their personalities would never mesh well enough to travel together for six months. Isaac had had a predatory, speculative gleam in his eyes as he looked her over–and she hadn’t needed Harvey to tell her to stay as far away from him as possible.

Darius was very sweet and charming, just eighteen, but he couldn’t pay his own way, and Manny wasn’t about to support him for six months. He’d shrugged and accepted her decision with an adorable smile and she offered to call Daisy’s boss, Max, to see if he had any work that Darius could do. Darius had thanked her and even paid for their lattes, and they’d chatted for a good forty-five minutes before he’d finally gone on his way. Yes, he would have been a good choice–and she might change her mind if she didn’t find anyone before she left in two weeks.

You can always go by yourself.

I know. But it would be more fun with someone else.

You’ll have me.

Manny glanced at Harvey sitting in the chair across from her. He was dressed casually in jeans and a button down shirt open at the throat to show the strong lines of his neck and chest.

You’re not real.

Harvey winked at her. Just checking.

She shook her head and Harvey blinked out of existence as the door opened and a darkly handsome man walked in. He paused in the doorway and removed his sunglasses as he glanced around the small room. Securely hidden in her corner, Manny considered him.

Tall; over six feet. Dark. Handsome, with large, dark eyes and full pouty lips. His black, tousled hair and dark stubble on his face gave him a sexy, scruffy appearance. He was slim, with broad shoulders, narrow hips and long legs encased in jeans.

I’ll bet he has a great ass.

I’ll bet you’re right.

He’s like a younger version of me.

Manny blinked at the man standing in the doorway and realized Harvey was right. Oh, they didn’t exactly look alike, but they had similar colouring, and a similar underlying confidence and arrogance in their stance. Probably something natural when you’re that naturally gorgeous, Manny thought ruefully, or, in Harvey’s case, thatunnaturally perfect.

I’d almost be jealous…if I was real.

But you’re not–and he’s quite something. I wonder who he’s here to me…eeet.

Her internal dialogue trailed off as the stranger’s gaze met hers. He gave a half smile and headed towards her.

For the last fifteen years, Rose “Manny” Mankowski has been a very good girl. She turned her back on her youthful fancies and focused on her career. But now, at the age of 45, she’s questioning her choices and feeling more and more disconnected from her own life. When she’s passed over for promotion and her much younger new boss implies Manny’s life will never change, something snaps. In the blink of an eye, she’s quit her job, sold her house and cashed in her pension, and she’s leaving town on a six month road trip.

After placing a personal ad for a travelling companion, she’s joined in her mid-life crisis by Zeke Powell, the cynical, satirical, most-read – and most controversial – blogger for the e-magazine, What Women Want. Zeke’s true goal is to expose Manny’s journey as a pitiful and desperate attempt to reclaim her lost youth – and increase his readership at the same time. Leaving it all behind for six months is just an added bonus.

Now, armed with a bagful of destinations, a fistful of maps, and an out-spoken imaginary friend named Harvey, Manny’s on a quest to rediscover herself – and taking Zeke along for the ride.

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Genre – ChickLit, Contemporary Fiction

Rating – PG-13

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 Connect with Victoria Bernadine on Twitter

Blog victoriabernadine.wordpress.com

@MorganRichter Shares The Science of Self-Editing #AmWriting #WriteTip #ChickLit

Your manuscript is done, or at least it’s done-ish. It’s in decent shape; your characters are original and behave in logical ways, your storyline has a clear beginning, middle and end, your point-of-view is consistent, and your dialogue sounds authentic. And yet… in some hard-to-define way, you know it’s not quite right. It seems a little unpolished, clunky, unsophisticated. It doesn’t read like a professionally-edited novel.

This is where a comprehensive knowledge of advanced self-editing techniques will save you. Everything I’m going to address here is covered more elegantly and in much more detail in Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, an indispensable book by Renni Browne and Dave King. Their advice is essential; every writer should read it and take it to heart.

Because concrete examples are always useful, let’s look at a short paragraph from the first draft of my in-progress novel, Preppies of the Apocalypse, and then let’s hack it to pieces:

With one final concerned glance at Valentine, Ivy left the operating chamber. The hallway was cold and deserted. She sat down on the floor of the hallway, leaning her back against the cold earth wall opposite the entrance to the chamber. She couldn’t see the operating table from her vantage point, but she felt she should stay as close as she could. Just in case things went wonky, she wanted to be nearby.

Well. It’s got some problems. Let’s fix them, shall we?

First and foremost: Repetition. There are under a hundred words in that paragraph, and yet I managed to repeat “operating”, “chamber”, “hallway”, and “cold”. Ditch the duplicates. Also, “she felt she should stay as close as she could”and “she wanted to be nearby” both say the same thing; it’s only necessary to make that point once.

Second: This chapter is told from Ivy’s perspective, and thus all the interior monologue is hers alone. Since we’re already inside Ivy’s head, writing “she felt” and “she wanted” is unnecessary and only builds distance between Ivy and the readers. Eliminating those phrases bridges that distance.

Third: “leaning her back against the cold earth wall” is weak, because: a) it sticks that bit of action inside a dependent clause, and b) it suggests two separate actions are taking place simultaneously, i.e. she’s leaning while she’s sitting. This was not my intention: she sits down, then she leans. Getting rid of the dependent clause adds clarity and strengthens the sentence.

Fourth: Word choice. I’m on the fence about “wonky”; it’s a fun word, and I’m using it correctly, but my gut tells me it’s too flippant for this situation. “Vantage point” is dead wrong: It suggests a position with a view, whereas Ivydoesn’t have a view of Valentine from where she’s sitting. Ordinarily I’d consider “things” too vague, but in this case, Ivy’s not just worried about Valentine’s surgery going awry; she and Valentine are stranded in a dangerous land, surrounded by vicious supernatural creatures, and she doesn’t have a firm grasp on their situation. The fuzziness of “things” seems apt here.

Here’s what the paragraph looks like after applying those fixes:

Ivy glanced at Valentine one final time and left the chamber. The hallway was deserted. She sat on the floor across from the entrance and leaned her back against the cold earth wall. She couldn’t see the operating table from here, but at least she was nearby in case things went wrong.

The changes are subtle (and I’m not going to argue that either version is super-awesome), but the revised version reads better.

Notice that every sentence has been altered from the original. Is this usual? Sadly, yes; in all of my novels, the percentage of sentences that remain intact from my first draft through the final rewrite is… zero. Self-editing is a meticulous, tedious, brutal business… but it’s also essential for turning out the strongest possible version of your work.

When struggling actress Charlotte Dent is cast as a leggy killer robot in a big, brainless summer blockbuster, the subsequent hiccup of fame sends a shock wave through her life. The perks of entry-level celebrity are balanced by the drawbacks: destructive filmmakers, online ridicule, entitled costars, and an awkward, unsatisfying relationship with the film’s fragile leading man. Self-aware to a fault, Charlotte fights to carve out a unique identity in an industry determined to categorize her as just another starlet, disposable and replaceable. But unless she can find a way to turn her small burst of good fortune into a durable career, she’s destined to sink back into obscurity.

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Genre - General Fiction, Chick Lit

Rating - PG

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Connect with Morgan Richter on Facebook & Twitter