#NewRelease -- Kaye Spencer's A Permanent Woman and Jacquie Roger's Don’t Go Snaring My Heart--#Giveaway

 Kaye Spencer's A Permanent Woman

Widower Simon Driscoll lost his only son and daughter-in-law, with whom he was estranged, in a cholera epidemic. He receives a letter as next of kin granting him custody of his three grandchildren, whom he has never met. The children are in an orphanage, and he cannot take custody unless he shows up with a wife and the documentation to prove the marriage is legal. He has 90 days before he loses his grandchildren, and a month has already passed. Desperate men take desperate measures…

Reputation tarnished and professional career compromised, Tessa Morris wants to start a new life—somewhere, anywhere, as long as that place is far away from here. The problem is, where? Other than attending a university, she’s never lived anywhere else. As the community’s latest pariah, the life and career she’s built in her hometown is finished. At 42, her future seems grim at best. When she happens upon a recent edition of the Matrimony Courier, she finds herself intrigued by one of the advertisements for a wife. That she doesn’t meet any of the qualifications doesn’t bother her in the least, because desperate women take desperate measures…

Barnes and Noble Nook     Smashwords

Jacquie Roger's Don’t Go Snaring My Heart

Alone in the high-mountain desert, self-sufficient Betsy Lynch is determined to eke out a living selling goat cheese while she fulfills her father’s dream to find a rich silver lode. Claim jumpers threaten to take everything she holds dear, so Betsy uses a bullwhip, her wiles, traps, goats, and an attack rooster to defend her land. 

Rancher Dex Madsen needs to feed his hungry crew. He tracks a herd of pronghorn and shoots one, then steps into Betsy's snare and is jerked upside down. The goats and rooster attack before Betsy cuts him down, and soon he's neck deep in her fight to protect the claim. But can he get past that killer chicken to claim her heart? 


Return to southwest Idaho in the 1880s in Jacquie Roger's acclaimed Hearts of Owyhee series.

Barnes and Noble Nook     Smashwords    

If you leave a comment for Kaye or Jacquie, you will be entered in a drawing for a free ecopy of both stories.

WHAT MAKES A GREAT PLOT? OR ....... WHAT MAKES A PLOT???? By Gail L. Jenner

 
Is there an EXACT number of PLOT "TEMPLATES"? DO PLOTS EVEN HAVE TO FOLLOW A TEMPLATE OR PATTERN???   Yes??  No?? Maybe??

If not, how do writers "arrive" at a plot?

As a writing teacher I have had many students ask about PLOT and how to develop it. They wanted to create a plot and then plug in whatever characters might move through the episodes of their stories.

In the beginning, I didn’t know how to turn that notion around, although I sensed that starting with PLOT was not the answer.  As I analyzed the stories that touched me most profoundly -- the novels and stories that were keepers, I discovered that plot was not the primary tool used.......Unfortunately, I now believe some writers think that if they can just get hold of the right kind of plot – or set up a series of actions/events that will make their story exciting -- that the work involved in developing a good story might also come easily.

I sincerely believe this is a mistake.  I also believe that even if there was such a thing as the most PERFECT plot -- it would NOT make the act of writing any easier at all!

In the quest to understand plot, I have picked up a number of books over the years. In 20 Master Plots (And How to Build Them), Ronald Tobias asks that very question: “How may plots are there?” He then lists a number of possible answers, including: Thousands or maybe millions? Sixty-nine? Thirty-six? OR Two, period?

I had to laugh the first time I read that….I knew that Aristotle had ascribed to the two basic plot theory, but the other responses were new to me. I learned that Rudyard Kipling ascribed to the idea of sixty-nine plots (WHY 69??), and Carlo Gozzi (who?) felt there were thirty six (Okay….).

Honestly, I don’t know if there IS an absolute answer to the question of plots, but I do recognize that in life, there are universal questions that seem to come up every day, no matter where we live or who we are. These are the deep, deep questions that each of us has to answer for ourselves about our life. I now see those deeper questions as being the force or energy behind any great story.

Plot, then, seems to grow out of those questions, and those are the same questions that our characters must confront and resolve. So for me, the POWER in story comes out of character (NOT plot); that is, Plot IS Character.  OR – another way to say it is that “character + conflict = plot”.

So does that mean there are two or thirty-six or sixty-nine or thousands of plots out there? I’m still not sure. There is an unlimited number of possible complications and conflicts, but how many ways can a character resolve his/her conflict? Interesting question, right?

There is, of course, tragedy. There is also comedy and adventure, etc., but those are actually genres – which do, in fact, carry certain plot elements that become part of a reader’s expectation. They are the patterns that most writers instinctively or deliberately follow.  

Writers recognize that readers expect a number of predictable elements to be present when they pick up their preferred genre. Break those unwritten “rules” and you may have some very frustrated readers. For instance, in a romance, a reader generally expects a “happy ever after” ending; if not entirely “happy,” the ending must at least be satisfying – or else that story/novel may end up thrown against the wall.

Of course, readers of “literary” fiction are often looking for those less predictable elements – even the less than satisfactory ending. I always found it amusing when my students would tell me that literary fiction was just boring fiction and that’s what made it literary! 

What matters most to a writer should be that he/she understand the elements of a particular genre (if a commercial genre is the goal), and along with that the patterns that lend themselves to the selected genre. However, that does not mean a writer can lean on those prescribed elements and forsake deep character and the questions that arise from a character’s internal struggle. No matter how simple a plotline a writer may employ, it is character that makes a story unforgettable.

So how do we arrive at those deep character questions?

We all face similar issues in life and great stories reflect those issues, eg: What complex choices can we then set up as obstacles that our hero or heroine must face and overcome? What dilemmas can we forge, which force our readers to recognize that there are no easy solutions in life, that sometimes doing the right thing actually means doing the “wrong” thing? Or what sacrifices will our protagonists have to make in order to get or have or achieve their goals? What losses are required in order to “win?”

This kind of thinking, this kind of character development is, in my opinion, what takes an average story into the better and best category of story. So, the challenge should be to take our characters on a journey that causes our readers to cheer or cry or scream!

As in the words of Willa Cather, “There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”

These are the kinds of dilemmas I played with when creating the characters that people my newly re-released WILLA Award-winning novel, ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS from Prairie Rose Publications. It’s more than just a romance. It’s the story of a man, a woman, and a people – all pitted against the terrifying and historical drama of the little-known Baker’s Massacre of the Blackfeet in 1870. Questions of loyalty, sacrifice, love, and forgiveness are the questions each of the characters must answer for themselves.

In appreciation and gratitude, I’d like to offer TWO free downloads of ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS! Leave a comment and I’ll enter your name into a drawing. 

TWO winners will be selected on WEDNESDAY of this week!

IT'S THE FIRST MONDAY OF THE MONTH......By GAIL L. JENNER

It’s the First Monday of the Month   and that marks one of the two days I will be blogging each month on the PRP blog site. In trying to decide what to write about I considered a couple of areas, and those include the following: 

 First of all, I am the wife of a fourth generation cattle rancher – and former bull rider (married 42+ years). We raise Angus-cross cattle in the far northern California mountains near the Oregon border, otherwise known as “the State of Jefferson,” and we live on the original farmstead. Three generations now work the ranch and we are immersed in history…because my life revolves around cows, horses, and cowboys, it was suggested that I can answer questions related to our life and lifestyle.

 I’m also a writer who loves to pursue various genres; though I love fiction (particularly historical fiction), I have established myself in nonfiction and will be sharing how that avenue has provided substantial opportunities for me in the writing and speaking world, including co-authoring four books on the “State of Jefferson” (but more on that in a new blog!), three with Arcadia Publishing, one with Old American Publishing. I have also co-authored a fourth book with Arcadia on the history of Western Siskiyou County, California.

I’ve also written two screenplays (one coauthored with my sisters), both of which have placed in a number of screenplay contests…..Of course, I am still waiting for that “big sale” but have learned a lot about the formatting and the keys to what makes a screenplay marketable in the process of studying, writing, submitting, and rewriting.

Finally, I’m a retired history and English teacher, with a degree in Anthropology, so history, culture, and “people groups” are of intense interest to me. I hope to share some intriguing historical sidebars in a few blogs as we move through the calendar year. My YA novel, another historical, is the first novel written about Black Bart, the Poet Bandit -- California's most successful stage bandit.

Obviously my writing is all over the map! From short story to screenplays to nonfiction and to novels, I find writing to be such a compulsion and addiction, that I’m forever finding topics and ideas and characters from all walks of life. I believe I was blessed to have parents who patiently encouraged my writing as a young girl; indeed, my first “serious” attempt at writing for an audience was in the fourth grade...

My twin sister and I wrote a play (“The Princess Who Could Not Spin”), and our mother invited our teachers to preview our production. As a result, we were able to perform and direct it for our entire elementary school! Looking back I recognize what remarkable teachers we had to allow two nine-year olds to put together an entire performance and then celebrate it on a school-wide basis. There was even a party held in every classroom following our “successful” production.

And I kept writing from that point forward. My writing for many years, however, remained personal. Not until I was an English teacher and received a fellowship that required me to write on a more public level did my writing take on new priority. Again, I was blessed to actually sell the first piece of article writing I submitted for publication. From that day to this, I’ve been “hooked.”

I hope my future blogs will provide either inspiration or information that will encourage others! I look forward to using this opportunity to share what I’ve learned over the last 20 years.

ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS won a WILLA Literary Award from Women Writing the West. It’s a story that took several years to write, and I’m proud to announce that PRP also found it worthy of publication.

 

Here are a couple reviews about ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS:

From Jane Kirkpatrick, multi-award-winning author of ALL TOGETHER IN ONE PLACE, NO EYE CAN SEE, and WHAT ONCE WE LOVED:

"With three-dimensional characters and passion for her story, Gail L. Jenner authentically recreates the raw and rugged world of Montana in the late 1800s."

From Vella Munn, author of BLACKFEET SEASON, Tor/Forge:

            "Gail Jenner’s ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS is a love story, and yet to say that touches only the surface of what takes place within the pages of this remarkable book. Yes, there is a compelling relationship between the young pioneer woman Liza Ralston and the Blackfoot warrior called Red Eagle, but Ms. Jenner goes much deeper. Deftly detailing her complex characters, Ms. Jenner pulls the reader into a world controlled by the elements and decisions made by governmental and military leaders who saw the Blackfeet as the enemy. The words she has written sing, her research is extraordinary, and the plot mesmerizes. I feel the wiser for having read ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS, as if I have now walked on Blackfeet land, and, along with Liza Ralston, experienced something precious." 

For more about me, visit my PRP author page  or www.gailjenner.com. For more about my life and relationship to ranching, check out my blog, www.wheresthebeeffromsouptonuts.blogspot.com ... And I look forward to meeting again in two weeks....so look for more blogs on the first and third Mondays of each month. And thank you, Cheryl and Livia and PRP for this opportunity...it's going to be a great new year.

Please leave a comment to be entered in my drawing for a digital copy of ACROSS THE SWEET GRASS HILLS! Drawing will be held tonight after 7:00 p.m. to give everyone a chance to enter.