Leslie | Leslie A. Dow

News: A contest final!

By Leslie, September 21, 2011 2:30 pm

Oh yeah…

We gots us some news. Way back last winter one of my peeps and I decided to try our hand at writing a category length romance. These are the time-tested Harlequin-type stories that are beloved by generations of women. I love romance but really never tried my hand at writing this popular genre. So, I did. I’ve been taking NY Times best-selling author, Lori Wilde’s mentoring class at SavvyAuthors. Lori writes some of the best Harlequins around. Really, check them out! What a surprise to find this neat genre and have a world of books to read, not to mention write. I figured I had this great opportunity, why not learn from the best? So, I did, and so my first category-length romance, The Internet Millionaire’s Copilot was born.

Copilot, as I fondly call it, is a 50,000 word (category length) romance about the love affair between a socialite-turned-relief-pilot and an internet entreprenuer. Nice! I finished Copilot a couple of months ago and began working on the other books in the series which focus on the interesting people who populate high tech startups and the men (and women) who fly their corporate jets.

So what’s the news? Well, Copilot finaled in the Greater Seattle RWA’s Emerald City Opener Writing Contest in Category-length romance. HOLY MOLY! Was I ever blown away. I mean, wow! Anyway, Copilot is now being reviewed by the final judge, Melissa Jeglinski from the Knight Agency. Well, I could not be more thrilled!

Oh, BTW, since Copilot is seriously on a roll, I also entered it in the Mills and Boon New Voices contest. You can read and comment on the first chapter of Internet Millionaire’s Copilot here. Not to mention a bunch of other books by talented new writers!

Goals, success | contest wins

OMG I lost all my CHANGES!

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By Leslie, July 25, 2011 3:33 am

Everyone take a deep breath and read on! Has this ever happened to you?

Your editor, agent or crit partner reviewed your manuscript. She loves what you’ve done! But she has a few things she wants you to look at. She’s sent back her changes in a copy of your manuscript. Maybe she used the tracked change feature, maybe she’s commented in-line but used a different color font. Now, when you look a the document you cannot tell what she added. You need to review those changes, but when you open the file they are gone! Well, not gone exactly but absorbed into your current document, and you can’t tell what’s original and what’s a change!

Maybe you inadvertently “Accepted All” changes or maybe the Demons of Microsoft ate them. Are you screwed? Well, perhaps not. If you need to know what was changed, removed, or added, and you have a previous version of the same document, you are golden. Yes, I do mean that, so pull up a chair and read on.

The wizards at Microsoft have embedded a number of useful yet oddly-named tools in their MS word application. The ability to Merge Documents is one. How can Merge Documents resurrect my lost changes? Because when the tool merges, it actually creates a Merged Document with all differences between the two tagged as tracked changes. Essentially, this tool answers the question:

Where does the content in my new document differ from an older version?

How does this work? First, you need an older or original version of your document and the new version containing the hidden changes. The screen captures shown in the steps below are from Merge Documents in MS Word 2011 and 2008 for the Mac, but an analogous tool, calledCompare documents in Word 2007 for Windows, works the same and is found in the Review ribbon. See…(Look at windows screen capture on your right…) The comparison and document merging shown below can be done in both the Mac and Windows version of MS Word.

Step 1: In MS Word, open Compare Documents from the Tools menu.Selecting this will open the Merge Documents dialog box.

Step 2: There are really only two things to add and one setting to check in Merge Documents and I show them circled in red below:

1. Choose the old file, the one that has the unchanged information.
2. Choose the new file, the one that has new changes.
3. VERY IMPORTANT! At the bottom underShow changes in: choose New Document. This ensures that your original or revised document will not be overwritten! Luckily, this is also the default setting.

You can also change what you want compared in Comparison settings. Word defaults this to everything and I usually just leave it that way.

Once you have done this, click OK.

Step 3: The new merged file will now open. This file uses the Original document as the base and applies the changes from the Revised document as tracked changes. Sound complicated? It’s not. Here’s what it looks like for my current WIP Internet Millionaire’s Copilot:

You can now review the changes, accept what you want and toss the ones that you don’t need. Easy!

writing tools | MS Word Tips

Like Gum on the Bottom of your Shoe

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By Leslie, May 18, 2011 12:38 pm

Imagine writing a logline query so sticky that no agent or editor could forget it. Or creating characters and stories that stick in people’s minds like an annoying ad jingle. Ahhhhhhh…..Ok, I’m back.

Some ideas stick even though there is nobody blogging, tweeting, posting, facebooking, yodeling, or organizing any marketing campaigns around them.

The examples are all around us.

From Snopes.com:

Friday the 13th is a perilous day.
Gum takes 7 years to pass through your digestive tract.
Hair grows back thicker after it’s been shaved.
Secret flights rescued Bin Laden family members and other Saudi nationals out of the U.S. immediately after the 9/11 attacks and before the FBI could interview them.

Oh, and by the way, none of the above are true!

Some from movies and TV stick in your mind like the theme from Gilligan’s Island. (wince, sorry.)

Snakes on a plane.
“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Or from politics…

“It’s the economy, stupid.”
“…this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”

Or even from fables…

The grass is greener on the other side.
Sour grapes.
A rolling stone gathers no moss.

In their book, Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath examine the similarities across time, space, and media between short messages that “stick” and those that fade away. They suggest a stickiness test you can apply to loglines, hooks, concepts, characters or anything you want to stick like done spaghetti to a cabinet door. Since Made to Stick is a business book, they have a snappy mnemonic to help you remember the key elements that will make your message stick like gum to tennis shoes: SUCCESs! Woot!

Just for you, I’ve summarized some the key messages from Made to Stick and suggested ways to apply them to your writing.

S	simple	Find the core of your story. What one single thing when told says volumes? Find your theme and distill it into a few words. To find it, they suggest answering questions like “The single most important thing in my story is….”, if I could only tell you one thing about my story it would be….” The Heath’s use Southwest Airlines mantra “Southwest is the low cost airline” and James Carville’s “It’s the economy, stupid” from the 1992 Clinton campaign. These two concepts unified their organizations. If we think literary, we find: “an orphan boy is really a powerful wizard” or “…the lion fell in love with the lamb.” These aren’t loglines for Harry Potter or Twilight, but they encapsulate the one thing core to the story.
U	Unexpected	We’ve all heard “same but different” way too many times! Take a known motif and twist it enough that it is still recognizable but new. This triggers our natural surprise reaction and makes us do a double take. Exactly what you want that agent to do! The Heath’s use the examples from the anti-drug ads from the 80′s “…this is your brain on drugs,” an image of a frying egg in a hot pan, and the wild Southwest airlines flight attendant who tells her passengers that “while there may be 50 ways to leave your lover, there are only 4 to leave this aircraft!” The unexpectedness relies on taking something that is familiar and twisting it to capture attention. Kind of like sparkly vegetarian vampires and Harry Potter’s society within a society with many elements very much like our own such as the Ministry of Magic and penalties for underage flying.
C	Concrete	In a story, we create concrete moments with key details: an aching smile, a eggshell-pink china cup. The Heath brothers suggest that we take that a step further and ground the details in the specifics relevant to our audience. The more universal the detail the wider the message. The Nature Conservancy, rather than just asking for donations to save protected lands, now ‘sells’ actual parcels in exchange for donations. While, Nordstrom does not tell it’s sales associates to “provide exceptional service” it tells them about the sales associate who ironed a customer’s shirt or accepted a customer’s returned tire chains (Nordstrom, a high-end department store, does not sell tires!). Unexpected and Concrete go together, the examples that I gave above from Twilight and Harry Potter are both unexpected and concrete.
C	Credible	You can imbue an idea with credibility by making it come from a respected source. The secret flights rumor above is more credible because it invokes the gravitas of the FBI. Hey, if the FBI says so… You can also increase the credibility by honing details or adding statistics. The seven year gum, for example, works partly because of the detail of seven, not “a few” years. What the Heath’ s call the “Sinatra Test” comes from the song New York, New York when Frank sings…”If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” You know it’s true because New York City is specific and commands respect, and Frank knows what he’s talking about. But the stickiest way to make an idea credible is to make your audience the authority, as Wendy’s did in their 1980s ad “Where’s the beef.” Wendy’s used the common knowledge that most fast food hamburgers were small! We all knew that!
E	Emotional	For a message to stick your readers must care. One of the simplest ways to make people care is to create an association from your concept with something they do care about. Ads for a single, named, and pictured starving child in Africa are effective because we all know children of that age. If you can make your message relate personally, that’s even better. Drive around your town and look at the poster board ads for examples like “You can be thinner in 5 days” or “Make $125,000/year working 4 hours a day from your own home.” You may not believe them but you recall them. These ads appeal to your desires and that’s emotional and personal. I’ll leave you with one that I love, the anti-littering ad scattered on Texas highways that speaks to our belief of the tough Texan: “Don’t mess with Texas.”
S	Stories	This one is more obvious for us. After all we write stories! But studies show that when we read stories we create pictures in our heads, more than that, we create a sort of plot-pathway. When the stories we read are logical and consistent (i.e. draw a realistic path) we integrate them into our thoughts and remember them. We also recall the concepts far better. The story becomes lifelike. How lifelike is the magical world of Harry Potter? It springs to life, in part, due to the internal consistency and attention to detail that J.K Rowling applied to her world-building, coupled with her familiar and realistic plot elements.

Made to Stick is a book for anyone who wants their message to stand out. I’ve only touched on a few of the useful concepts in this book. I encourage all of you to read it, and apply the message like superglue to your next pitch, logline, query, and manuscript.

Now go out and be sticky!

(initially published Jan 9, 2011 on SavvyAuthors.com column, Connect the Dots.)

Book Reviews, Non-Fiction, Writing Craft

Economic Motivation

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By Leslie, May 15, 2011 6:42 am

I’m well into the guts of The Box, my YA SciFi adventure, and I’m discovering that money is great motivator. I know, I know…it took me this long to figure *that* out?

Money is a motivator for me, certainly, but also for my characters. My fictional world in The Box is parallel to Earth. Only special people can move between worlds and the population of my fictional world is pretty small. I need a wealthy ruling class so that pretty much limits the economy of my fictional world. No vast powerhouse of productive workers. Nope, I need a clever economy that leverages the advantage of a small, intelligent, and technically advanced people…..

Q: What economic system is stable for a small, isolated population and can support a high standard of living?

Cue Jeopardy music

Hmm, what we want is an economy that allows much of the population to live in comfort, if not outright wealth. Most should not have to work too hard and have plenty of time to make trouble. LOL. It should also play into their sense of entitlement and fundamental superiority. Oh, and they are also right next to a large, fat, cash cow (the Earth).

Ding, ding, ding…out of time! And the answer is…..

An offshore banking (aka money laundering) economy!

Oh snap! This will work nicely! Lightly-regulated, offshore accounts can be found in countries like Switzerland, Lichtenstine or the Cayman Islands. If my fictional world can entice wealthy Earth people to deposit funds into its high interest, private, off-world banks then my fictional aliens are both dependant on Earth and maintain some control over some very powerful Earth people. Hmm, lots of inherent conflict in that one! I like it. It gives me a range of careers to play with and instantly creates a potential caste system. All excellent motivators. I can take the economy into the shadier parts of offworld banking or keep it on the ethical side. I can also pit the ethics supporters against the off-worlders with, shall we say, more flexible ethics. ROFL.

The first page of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, 1776 London edition

The first page of The Wealth of Nations, 1776 London edition

To quote Adam Smith:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

You gotta love him for providing some excellent motivation!
Hmm, now all I need is a map! Maybe, I can even add some crystal waters and white sand beaches….mmmmm

Research, Writing Craft

Leslie’s 2011 Goals….

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By Leslie, April 25, 2011 3:32 pm

***Queue music……Ta..Da..Da….Daaaaaa!

Okay, okay they are LATE! Sue me. I posted my results from last year’s goals in the previous post. Well, I’ve been busy. Not slacking, working! Yes, yes on my goal targets. Hey, I had them I just didn’t POST them!

This year’s goals are presented by: my sons Thelen and Walker (no name comments, please), my dog, Kyra, and my Nelson’s Albino Milksnake, Audrey Lou.