As promised, I’m getting back to our discussion about color.

First, I want to thank Dennis Hensley, whose class I had the privilege of sitting in on this past May at the Northwest Christian Writers Renewal Confernce. This discussion comes from his class notes.

Literary fiction of old was full of color symbolism. Now, I have to admit to a severe lack of exposure to modern literary fiction, so I haven’t seen what is taking place in the field today, but a study of what used to be, is always beneficial to what is.

Below is a list of symbolism from classic literary fiction:

• White - Life/Hero. (The good cowboy always wore white, for instance. Except for Zorro. )
• Black - Death. (What was the name of the nine ghouls in The Lord of the Rings? “The Black Riders.”)
• Gray - Life/Death Simultaneously. (So the sea might be described as gray, because it gave life, but also often took life.)
• Red - Pain, Violence, Trauma, Bloodshed. (The red lava in Mount Doom is a good example.)
• Gold - Wealth
• Brown - of the earth, something good. (Usually a character described with earth tones in classic literature was a good-guy, a survivor.)
• Green - Birth/Rebirth
• Pink - Femininity
• Purple - Royalty
• Yellow - Swing color could mean Blindness or Enlightenment. (When a cowboy walked out of the saloon into the golden sunlight, he was often blinded literally and figuratively to his impending death. In Jack London’s story “War” the young man who ends up dead at the end of the piece was covered with yellow pollen for much of the story - he was blinded to his impending death.)

While I found this class interesting, I realized that I don’t pay too much attention to the symbolism of my colors as I write. I wonder if other authors do? What about you?

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Okay, so last night I’m quickly trying to do a couple things on my blog and one of those things was to emptly out my spam filter. BUT in trying to do that I accidentally deleted many of the comments ya’ll have made recently! (There is a reason late-night is not the best time to be working on your blog. )

So if you notice that I deleted your comments - trust me there is nothing personal going on. Just me, the techno idiot, at work in the background.

This week we will get back to work on our discussion of color. Hope to see you then!

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Today is the launch of a new blog that I’m starting with two of my online cyber pals, K. M. Weiland and Linda Yezak. We are over at http://www.authorculture.blogspot.com so come on by and see all the fun we have planned for you over there!

I look forward to getting to know you, either there or here. I love to meet new people.

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So there it is! The cover for my upcoming summer release. I’d love to hear what you think.

Just click on the cover to find out more about the book. You’ll also be able to read the first few chapters.

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I should be getting my proofs any day now. I’ve been fiendishly checking my email all week! My draft cover is supposed to be coming too. I think I might be more excited to see my first cover than I am to see my first galleys. After all, the galleys mean more work! lol But I’m soooo jazzed to finally be at this step in the process of my first book!

I haven’t forgotten about our color discussion. Will get back to it, I promise.

In the mean time since a watched email never arrives… I’m off to paint my daughter’s room. I’ll take some before and after shots so you can see the results. I think it is going to turn out really cute.

Happy weekend to you all!

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Imagine my surprise to learn today that I’d been honored with the Lovely Blog Award. My writer friend K. M. Weiland over at WordPlay was kind enough to give it to me. I highly recommend her blog! Thanks, gal! I appreciate it.

My friend Linda over at 777 Peppermint Place awarded me one of these as well. Linda writes in a way that pulls you in and doesn’t let you go until the story is over. Take a look at her blog. You’ll be glad you did!

Rule for this award are that I now get to hand it on to the wonderful blogs that I follow. While choices were tough, here they are in no particular order.

If I list you below and you want to accept the award. Post this image on your blog with a link-back to me. Followed by a list of blogs that you follow.

1. Bruce Judisch over at It Is To Write always has such nice reviews up. If you’re looking for a good read, check out his blog for great information on some really neat books. (Sorry if the award is kinda girly, Bruce. Try to imagine it with a big ol’ mug o’ coffee and a rifle across the corner. But I think your guy-card can handle it.)

2. Cindy Wilson is another author friend of mine with a wonderful blog about the writing industry. She always has such neat posts. If you are an author, stop by her place. You’ll be glad you did.

3. Kelsey Kilgore writes with wonderful humor and candor. I eagerly await her blog’s return.

4. Sharlene MacLaren can make me laugh whether she is talking about mice or her cute grandson. Whatever she is writing about, you’ll be sure to get a smile out of it.

5. I recently stumbled on Sherrinda over at A Writer Wannabe. From the looks of her blog, she’ll be published soon. Follow her on the journey to publication.

6. Another blogger who is fairly new to me is Terri Tiffany. I enjoy her writing blog.

7. I went to school with Moira from Leppard Life. She and her husband recently brought home two little boys from Ethiopia. She blogs about adoption, and the adjustments they are making now that the boys are home. Love you, Moira!

8. My friend and critique partner Gigi Murfitt blogs about learning to adjust to and live in an empty nest.

9. I have a book due out soon, so I’ve recently been following Sarah Bolme’s blog, Marketing Christian Books. If you need encouragement in your marketing efforts, check her out.

10. Another blog I follow for industry news and updates is Sally Stuart’s Christian Writer’s Marketplace. If you don’t get a copy of Sally’s Christian Writer’s Market guide each year, I highly recommend that you begin to do so. That book is packed with information on publishing companies and what they are looking for. When you know the market, you can better target your proposals.

11. The gals over at The Seekers blog about contests, and the writing industry. They have lots of fun over there, so swing by and check them out.

12. Randy Ingermanson’s blog Advanced Fiction Writing is full of great information for writers of fiction. Randy, just try to imagine the award with an exploding helicopter in the center of it. Thanks for all the great information.

And, for now, those are the blogs that I would like to recommend to you. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Do you have a fun writer’s blog that you follow? I’d love to hear about it!

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In much of Literary fiction, color was very symbolic. Take the old Westerns for instance - the good guy was almost always in the white hat, the bad guy in the black one. Colors meant different things. (We’ll talk more about that next time.)

While in modern fiction, much of this symbolism has been thrown to the wind, it is enlightening to study what color symbolism meant in the past, and who knows, maybe you’ll find yourself slipping some of it into your own writing, because colors are powerful, emotion-eliciting tools a writer can use.

Studies have proven colors affect our moods. Blue, for instance, is an appetite suppressant. Put a blue light in your fridge, paint your kitchen blue, eat off blue plates and you will most likely drop a few pounds. (Really.)

So the colors we incorporate into our writing can enhance the mood we are trying to portray. I recently took a survey over at www.colormatters.com and answered a series of questions on what colors I associated with different items. Go try it, it was kinda fun. Here are the results reported for 30,000 people.

Global Color Survey Results

Since 1997, over 30,000 people from all points on the globe took the survey. Here are the results:

Happy - Yellow
Pure - White
Good Luck - Green
Good-tasting - Red (tomato)
Dignity - Purple
High Technology - Silver
Sexiness - Red (tomato)
Mourning - Black
Expensive - Gold
Inexpensive - Brown
Powerful - Red (tomato)
Dependable - Blue
High Quality - Black
Nausea - Green
Deity - White
Bad Luck - Black
Favorite Color - Blue
Least Favorite Color - Orange

So what can this do for our writing? Well, like ambiance in a restaurants, colors can ad another layer to our writing.

Are you trying to portray a happy scene? Put your heroine in a yellow dress. Do you want to portray a high-powered executive? Put him in a black sports car, or behind a black desk with silver gadgets - and don’t forget the red tie! You see, simply by association, people will presume different things about your characters.

Let’s look at our little paragraph from last time - the one after we added in some of our 5 senses. This time I will add in some colors.

The clack of typewriters raised a cacophony around his oak desk as Ben hurried to type up the report. Kevin would be red-faced and screaming-mad if this didn’t get turned in on schedule. He would have been on time, just finishing up in fact, if he hadn’t run into that aid in the hallway and had to take that side trip to the restroom to clean up. He could still feel the cold wet splotch on his blue shirt, the faint smell of her coffee still lingered. It’s what he deserved, he supposed, for always leaving things to the last minute. Just a few more lines! He was in his zone now. His fingers flying over the smooth, round keys with practiced ease. Three of the strikers tangled together. Blast! He reached up and flicked them back into place.

Pay attention to how these colors enhance the piece. Note, we already knew that Ben was a simple worker-bee trying to get his project turned in on time. But with the added element of the oak (brown=inexpensive) desk we enhance that. We already knew that Kevin was the boss, but when we give him a red face we add a hint of power to him. And giving Ben a blue shirt adds to the image that he’s a stand-up dependable guy, just having a bad day.

I hope these tips will help you with your writing. Next time, we’ll talk about literary fiction and the symbolism of color used in those works.

How have you used color to enhance your writing?

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The first way to infuse some life into your manuscript is to include the five senses.

Everyday, we use our senses to experience the world around us. At this moment, for instance, as I sit at my cluttered desk typing this post, I’m using all five. The rain is falling gently outside, my computer is humming, keyboard keys are clicking, feeling smooth to my touch. My coffee smells wonderful, and tastes even better, and the splotch on the lower left corner of my laptop screen (where my kids spilled something on my computer) is still annoying me. You can’t get away from the senses in real-life, so to make fiction real, you had better include them.

So, lets look at two paragraphs - one with the five senses in focus, the other without.

Ben sat at his desk, hurrying to type up the report. Kevin would be upset if he didn’t get this turned in on schedule. He would have been on time, just finishing up in fact, if he hadn’t run into that aid in the hallway and had to take that side trip to the restroom to clean up. It’s what he deserved, he supposed, for always leaving things to the last minute.

Okay, so we have a guy at his desk, running late, apparently as usual, trying to get his work turned in on time. Not a bad little paragraph. It has some tension in it. Has a little bit of setting - he’s at his desk, wherever that may be. (Is he alone in an office? in a cubicle? in the middle of a large room full of desks?) You see? there is a lot left out, many questions the reader still has in their mind. To liven this scene up we need to include the five senses - now you don’t have to include them ALL, but even sprinkling in a few will add much detail to this paragraph.

I like to close my eyes, put myself in the scene as the Point of View character, and ask: What is he seeing? Hearing? Touching? Smelling? Tasting? Let’s do that with this small paragraph and see what happens.

The clack of typewriters raised a cacophony around his desk as Ben hurried to type up the report. Kevin would be screaming-mad if he didn’t get this turned in on schedule. He would have been on time, just finishing up in fact, if he hadn’t run into that aid in the hallway and had to take that side trip to the restroom to clean up. He could still feel the cold wet splotch on his shirt, the faint smell of her coffee still lingered. It’s what he deserved, he supposed, for always leaving things to the last minute. Just a few more lines! He was in his zone now. His fingers flying over the smooth, round keys with practiced ease. Three of the strikers tangled together. Blast! He reached up and flicked them back into place.

So there is the same paragraph with a few hints to the senses of the POV character. Do you see how that enhances the piece? Makes it come more alive? Draws the reader in? We now know he is at a desk in a room with several others because he can hear them. We also know that someone spilled coffee on him because he can feel the wet splotch and smell the lingering scent of coffee. We know he’s using an old-fashioned typewriter because he sees the strikers get tangled and feels the smoothness of the round keys beneath his fingers.

So take a look at your writing. Could you do a better job of incorporating the five senses? If you would like to post some before and after paragraphs to help other writers along their learning journey that would be great.

Next time we will talk about the use of color in your writing. Hope to see you then.

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