Joseph Carrabis, Author Blog – Page 255 – Quite the Life (and all in Times New Roman 10pt!)

Heartbeats

Characters come to life when we give them reasons to live

I demonstrated creating memorable character names in Naming Names with Lucky Jones, the one-eared wonder. If creating memorable character names were enough to make characters memorable I wouldn’t be writing this post as a follow up.

Lucky Jones became the memorable”Lucky Jones” because I gave you a reason to remember him; I placed him in a dangerous situation with obvious conflict and obvious threats:
Lucky Jones backed away from The Swede as soon as the knife came out. It didn’t matter that The Swede was as big as any Viking Jones could imagine, it mattered that the knife looked as long as a battleaxe. The Swede swung but Jones was already making for the door and the only thing The Swede caught was Jones’ ear, which the police found the next day under The Swede’s body. Albert Swanson Jones became Lucky Jones and a wanted man that same day.

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Rosemarie Aquilina – Can you do something rooty with my bedhead, Your Honor?

Would you like a perm with that adjudication?

Hello all and welcome to our continuing series of author interviews. Today’s guest is multi-facted and multi-genre author Rosemarie Aquilina.

Rosemarie is probably best known for her ruthless pursuit of justice as crusading superhero…No, wait…She does have a career that she’s (probably) better known for and she does pursue justice and she is a crusader. Okay, we’ll go with superhero, too. Rosemarie may be better known as Your Honor.

The Honorable Rosemarie Aquilina is the mother of five children, is currently a 30th Circuit Court Judge serving in Michigan’s General Trial Division and served as a 55th District Court Judge in Mason, Michigan. In 1986, Rosemarie Aquilina became the first female JAG Officer in the history of the Michigan Army National Guard and retired in 2006 with twenty years Honorable Military Service. She is an adjunct law professor at both Western Michigan University’s Thomas M. Cooley Law School and Michigan State University College of Law and has earned teaching awards at both. She owned her own law firm and hosted the a syndicated “Ask the Family Lawyer” radio talk show.

She’s currently working on some non-fiction titles before plunging ahead with more cozies and thrillers. I’d like everyone to stand up and give Rosemarie Aquilina a big round of applause for taking part in our exciting adventure.

Naming Names

Why did Inez Cloud change her name to “Skippy RunningCloud”? So she’d be remembered!

Ever get stuck naming characters? Oh, how science fiction authors must long for the days when they could name a character “X7” and get away with it. My job title use to be CRO, Chief Research Officer, and I got that title when there were few Chief Research Officers around. People would ask me, “What is your proper title?” and I replied “My proper title is ‘Princess Feldspar of the Tree People’, but I tell most people it’s ‘Chief Research Officer’.”

Most people could remember “Princess Feldspar of the Tree People” more easily than they could remember “Chief Research Officer” and the reason why can help authors create names for characters.

We remember the tangible and the unique better than the intangible and the common.

We want readers to remember our main and primary characters, some secondary characters and perhaps even a minor character (if they provide a plot point) because readers tend to like memorable characters. The first step towards aiding reader memory is to give the characters names that are 1) easily remembered and 2) give us a hint as to the character’s character (what kind of person that character is).

Rebecca Tran – Christian Fantasy and Erotica

Fantasy based on Christian Mythology…with some hot and heavy sex thrown in? Maybe?

Hello all and welcome to our continuing series of author interviews. I’d like everyone to stand up and give Rebecca Tran a big round of applause for taking part in our exciting adventure.

I started writing to get over the loss of my father when I was sixteen.

Continue reading “Rebecca Tran – Christian Fantasy and Erotica”

My First Book Fair/Authors’ Expo – Part 2

You want to sell books? First make sure there’ll be people to buy them.

This thread is based on my experiences, conversations with authors and several years helping companies develop and execute marketing strategies. Part 1 introduced setting reasonable goals for attending book fairs and authors’ expos.

Review

What is your reason for going to the event?