Writing Sex Scenes

I recently attended the monthly meeting of the Writer’s Network of South Florida.  This free event allows for networking with other writers and interested parties as has a guest speaker or panelist each month.  The event is free to the public and more information can be found at www.writersnetworksofla.org.

The speaker was Prudy Taylor Board, who is also the president of the group.  Her topic was ” Writing Sex Scenes..How to, What not and Why not?”

Prudy, AKA Prue Foster, is the author of more than 1,000  newspaper and magazine articles, seven novels, and fifteen non-fiction books including “101 Tips for Writing and Selling Your First Novel.”

Here are some of the suggestions Prudy gave:

1. Your characters should not do anything they don’t feel good doing.
2. Despite your characters attitude, write only what’s comfortable for you as a writer.
3. Study publishers web sites and know your market.
4. Smaller presses usually are more conservative.
5. Let your characters guide you in sex scenes.  Talk to them before writing them.
6. Build relationships between your characters before they jump into bed.
7. Tell the truth to your reader.
8. Create a scene where trust is established between the characters first.
9. Put sex act close to the end of the book, even if the characters are married.

Now I’ve broken some of these suggestions in my books.  I had a very hard time writing some of those scenes.  My first book, “Blood Ties:  The Souvenir Killer,” opened with rape and murder.  The second, “Murder in the Caribbean,” had love and sex scenes between married couples and I was totally comfortable writing them.  Book three, “Murder in Miami,” had the antagonist in a sexual encounter that he paid for and I didn’t have problems with this because that was his character.

As a teenager I loved my mother’s romance magazines.  I thought I would grow up and write them, which didn’t happen.  Maybe I’ll try it soon.

Prudy mentioned these tips and more are in her book, “101 Tips for Writing and Selling Your First Novel.”  I’m going to purchase it for my Kindle.

Our next meeting of the Writer’s Network of South Florida is March 20, 2013 at the Fort Lauderdale Main Library.  Another speaker I love to hear, Oline Cogdill who recently won the Raven Award from the Mystery Writers of America, will talk on “Getting Your Book Reviewed.”  I hope you join me if you can.  It is free and more information can be found on the web site www.writersnetworksofla.org.  Hope to see you there.

You can always contact me at:  kathy@kathymckenzierunk.com

 

Happy Writing!

 

 

 

Writing – Picture books and comics (graphic novels)

This week I released my Juvenile, non-fiction story as a paperback.  http://www.amazon.com/Flight-Freedom-A-Story-Adoption/dp/1482024810.  Next week I hope to create the e-book.  My book included newspaper clippings as well as color photos.

For me, this was a new learning process on how to get your art where you want it in your book and to pass Amazon’s review for resolution problems.  It took four tries to get it right.  I had to ask for help from the community.

I can’t tell you how important it is to be a part of the community of Createspace and Kindle Direct Publishing (www.createspace.com and http://kdp.amazon.com.)  I learned everything I know about creating paperbacks and e-books from Amazon’s instructions and the community of writers who have been through the processes.  When I got to children’s books, like the one I released this week, they helped me figure out the process of sending images with a file in order to have them placed on reading devices where I wanted them to appear.  This book was relatively easy compared to my next project, a children’s picture book!

There are different ways to create a children’s picture book.  Many of the old classics are now being scanned into this format for release by either the author who has retained the rights to their stories, or the publishers who want to expand their market.  If the original art, photos or illustrations are not available and a good copy of the printed version is, each page can be scanned as it is.  Be sure to check the resolution you are scanning, and the proper size of the book.  These books work very well on Kindles and other readers, but generally the text cannot be zoomed larger as it is a part of the image and will only fit the screen size.  If the author/publisher has the original art work, or removes the text from the art work, it can then be added separately.  Check out many of the free classics on Amazon and you will see examples of both.

In order to create the bleed (expanding the art to the edges of the paper), there is a template you can follow.  I found it on community.  The instructions lead us step-by-step through the process. It works for picture books and graphic novels (comic books.)  It is called, “Formatting of Children’s Books and Comics for the Kindle” by Charles Spencer and the updated version was just released January 24, 2013.  Search for it on Community on the Kindle Direct Publishing site.

As I struggle to create my e-book as I messed up something by changing my email address, don’t despair, after I learn how to do it correctly, I’ll be a resource for you.  Anytime, just email me at kathy@kathymckenzierunk.com.

Happy reading!

http://www.kathymckenzierunk.com

 

 

Writing – Conversion problems of art and photos and free e-book.

For the last week, I’ve been working furiously to get my latest book approved for a paperback.  Four times I submitted my files that included newspaper clippings and color photos.  This book is a juvenile non-fiction.  Because it was a true story, a short one at that, I wanted to include all the news stories that pertained to the book.  It is the story of a Vietnamese orphan who escaped from Saigon in 1975 and became our son.  This was a big media event as the U. S. government was involved in “Operation Babylift” to save the children from Vietnam.  There were news stories of the An Loc orphans, rescued by a  determined woman from the United States.  I saved the stories for almost forty years and was determined to make them part of the book.

The problem was image resolution.  The clippings were old and yellowed.  I scanned each one in carefully at more than the minimum 300 dpi required for printing in my book.  However, every time I submitted the file,  I got the warning message that my clippings were ‘flattened’ and the resolution was not sufficient.  When I looked at my digital preview, only one clipping would appear.  I thought that ‘flattened’ meant they disappeared.  I took each clipping into Printshop, and made sure the resolution was at least the minimum.  I submitted again.  Still no luck.  I added all my color photos of my son’s life in the United States, and they would come out fine.

 After three rejections, I went to the community for help.  It seems I wasn’t the only person who had the same problem with illustrations, black and white like my news clippings.  I waited for some answers from them, and in the meantime, I rescanned my work, cleaned up the yellowing so they were pure black and white, and resubmitted again.  I downloaded the sample to examine carefully to find some clue to what was happening.  I noticed my sample (which was PDF format) was also missing the clippings.  This gave me a clue.  I went back to community and searched all the questions and answers of others who had the conversion problems with Microsoft Word to PDF. 

By chance, I found something new to try.  It appears that Word loses resolution when you resize an image.  This might be the answer.  I had resized each clipping to fit nicely on the page.  I removed the problem clippings (not all were a problem) and pasted them in at the original size.  Finally, success!  My PDF format was perfect and my submission was accepted.  There was still a warning about ‘flattening’ and I need to research this further.  But the preview was beautiful, the cover was perfect and “Flight to Freedom” could be ordered in a paperback proof.  I’m anxiously waiting now for it to arrive. 

This week, I am giving book two, “Murder in the Caribbean” as a free download.  Here’s the link:

 http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Caribbean-Mackenzie-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B008G1FJ1U

 Thanks to the 968 new readers from my last free giveaway.  Be sure to check out my home page at www.kathymckenzierunk.com which lists all my books.

 Flight to Freedom will be released next week in trade paperback and e-book formats.  A perfect gift for your children to read or to be read to.

  Happy reading!