Timothy's Thoughts

I occasionally check my stats to see how people are finding my blog or websites. In the case of this blog, I get several hits a month that are somehow related to the question “what would Jesus do?” I suppose I asked for it, since I posted about the question “ What would Jesus do in an unhappy marriage? ” At the time, I thought it was appropriate because it is related to the theme of For the Love of a Devil , but this month someone found this blog by typing in “what would jesus do if his baby mama left.” You know, I really appreciate what Charles M. Sheldon wrote in In His Steps and I’m glad that a few years ago people started asking “What would Jesus do?” even if they didn’t read the book, but good grief. What would Jesus do if his baby mama left? Nothing. The question doesn’t make sense. The fact is that Jesus wouldn’t be in that situation. In the little over thirty years that Jesus walked this earth, he never married. The only reference to his bride in the bible is a future referen...

T he picture above may not look like much, but it is my attempt at determining where each of the various elements of a three plot structure go. What I found interesting is that some of the structure elements seemed to line up and others seemed to be ofset. Plot A and C run together some at the beginning and the end. I think that is because Sara and Neal are both involved in these scenes. It makes scene that we would keep moving along our structure, as we move along. Plot B doesn't really get going until we get to about page 90. But plot C has a similar gap in comparison to Plot B. Near the middle, things seem to run together more for A and B. But keep in mind that we aren't necessarily talking about them having the same scenes here, just that the midpoints occur close together in time. Anyway, the process wasn't very helpful, so maybe the best thing to do at this point is to start writing these scenes for each plot, with priority given to the A plot and try to work the othe...

O utlining a story is largely a problem of representation. When I outline, I begin with a generic structure and I fill in the gaps. In the end, what I have is a snapshot of the story and the beginnings of a synopsis. I focus on the A-Story because that is the most important part. That is where the primary action takes place. But in my latest outline I have a problem. Some of the subplots are rather healthy stories on their own. They tie back into the main plot, since part of what is happening in them is creating the antagonism for the A-story, but the outline for the A-story becomes very cluttered if we try to include much more than a reference to the subplots. What I have considered doing is outlining each plot separately, using the same generic structure. That isn’t hard to do, but it becomes a question of timing. In the novel , the various plots will all be taking place in and around each other, but how to tie the plot lines back together. In the ou...

W hen it comes to selling books, the most important thing is reader awareness. We can talk about craft a lot and that is important, but the fact is that if the author has put in the effort and enjoys reading the book he has written (if he’s honest with himself) there are other people out there who will enjoy reading it as well. My books have been well received by those who have purchased them. That says nothing about the people who looked at them and decided they weren’t interested. So let’s say that every book, no matter how well or poorly written has an audience that will enjoy reading it. The question that publishers are forced to ask isn’t whether there are people who will enjoy the book but whether the cost of production plus the cost of making those people aware of the book is low enough that the income from book sales will cover the cost. But there’s no need for me to restate the obvious. One of the things I was better about doing when my first book came out was to compare what ...

W ith me thinking more about Sara’s next book, I stopped by Ellen’s café. She wasn’t there. I found her by the river, watching a barge make its way downstream. She was sitting on the ground. I sat beside her. We sat like that for several minutes, neither of us saying a word, while the barge went past. Sara broke the silence. “I read your blog the other day—that post about what you’re going to do with the next book.” “I haven’t decided anything for sure,” I said. “I don’t like it.” “I didn’t expect you would,” I said. “If I had a better story, I would use it instead.” “It doesn’t fit with the other stories, you know.” She stared off at the distance bank on the Illinois side of the river. “How do you mean?” “You know,” she said. “All of the others were about someone trying to do something. My story was about me trying to get a mother. Then Neal was trying to become a Bible character. Then Mr. Mywell wanted to get Heather back. And all Martin wanted was for his family to be saved. No...

E arlier I reviewed Thomas Nelson’s WestBow Press . My primary focus was on the quality of book an author using that service would get. I didn’t review either of the books for content and I don’t intend to, unless I read one of them and decide I like it. In which case, I’ll be happy to give the author a plug. Today, I want to do the same thing I did before, but I want to focus my attention on a couple of books published by Harlequin’s DellArte Press. I also want to identify differences between DellArte Press and WestBow Press. The books I purchased are Dargan’s Desire by Wendy Young and Half-Breed by Phylly Smith. You can’t tell by the picture, but these books are smaller than there WestBow Press brethren. The WestBow Press books are 6x9 and these are 5x8, but in this case I think the smaller size is a good thing. Half-Breed is only 107 pages and had 35 lines per page, with about 400 words per page. With about 42,000 words, it doesn’t even qualify as a novel. (And let me just say one...

I ’ve paid very little attention to EPIC, but I saw that Brandilyn Collins was bragging on her friend Stuart Vaughn Stockton winning an award from them. I followed the link to their list of winners and what I saw was shocking. Out of twenty-nine books that won awards for writing, ten of them included the word erotic or erotica in the category title. It made me wonder if EPIC, which claims to support electronic publishing, believes the “e” in eBook is for erotic . 10 out of 29—that is more than a third of the categories. I thought one category was very fitting. The winner of the category Erotica—Sinful. I’ve never been real big on awards anyway. I figure organizations give awards primarily as a means to raise awareness of the organization. In this case, I didn’t see any names I recognized, which makes me question the creditability of the organization even more, but what particularly bothers me is that eBooks may become known as a haven for people who are out to peddle their pornograph...