I Called The Plot Whisperer Again

Sandra here and I’m just starting a new work in progress (wip) and although I knew the romantic plot, I realized it wasn’t enough to hold interest in a 70,000-word manuscript. I needed more depth.  So I called the plot whisperer, Martha Alderson.

I have a huge pot of my new favorite Dunkin Donuts’ Chocolate Glazed Donut coffee and a platter filled with Chocolate glazed donuts (and some maple ones too as I love those as well). Help yourself and enjoy the plot tips I gleaned from Martha. 

My new favorite coffee

At the workshops during the Saguaro Chapter of RWA in Tucson this winter, I heard two speakers talk about how they developed plot with readers via their Facebook page. Well I thought that might be fun. It really was interesting. The people that joined in surprised me though.  I thought it would be other writers, but most were friends and family that follow my Facebook and have no experience with plotting. However, I did get some great plotting ideas from their comments. I had given some of the backstory and flaws that would cause problems. Several men wrote about experiences they had similar to those my hero faced. Some wrote to me offline about some personal experiences and within those, I’ll be able to use some emotional markers. So I did get some excellent help in an unexpected way.

However, I was still stuck with where this story was going. Not a fun place to be when you are writing a story. I’m thinking its because I’m spinning this story off another so it can be a series and I’ve never done that before. So I have the characters, but not a real issue for them to deal with since the issues I wanted to deal with involving the setting of Sedona, were already dealt with in Book One.

Well you can never say you’re too old to learn a new skill. What I needed to do was call upon the skills I know and apply them to the current wip. I also decided to take advantage of people I know. I called upon a friend.

Martha Alderson came to the rescue. I met Martha years ago at the Desert Dreams writer’s conference in Tempe, Arizona. She was featured as one of the speakers and demonstrated her strategies for developing plot. She was also featured in two of our past blogs. In August 2013 we talked about developing the story climax and in October 2013 I wrote the first post I Called a Plot Whisperer.  Check this one out for examples of a detailed step by step process.

If you go to her website you will see all the ways she provides help in developing plot. Be sure to sign up for her free monthly plot tips.  They are very useful.

Go here to sign up.

So how did Martha help me?  First off, she sent me a form to fill out. This includes information about my characters. She asks for you to think about your theme and your concept and asks for a list of scenes.

The main part of the list is as follows:  (printed with permission of Martha)

CHARACTER/EMOTIONAL PLOT INFORMATION

Please fill out the following information for your main character(s)

•               Protagonist name

•               Complete the following 3 items for the beginning, middle and end of your story

◦                                 Goal

◦                                 What stands in his/her way?

◦                                 What does he/she stand to lose?

•               Flaw

•               Strength

•               Dream

•               Hates

•               Loves

•               Fears

•               Secret

I sent her most of the items, but I didn’t really know all of the answers. Yet!!!  I didn’t really know what was standing in the way of the goals and discovered it was because I hadn’t really been that clear on the goals in the first place.

How did I find that out? It was during my phone conversation with Martha.  After sending the forms in, she read over what I have given her and then formulated questions. The gift Martha has for helping you develop the plot is that she asks the kind of questions that make YOU come up with the answers. She doesn’t give you answers. She doesn’t develop a plot. But through her questions, you end up with the answers because she stirs up the brain waves so that you think of the answers yourself. This is important because then you don’t lose your own voice when writing your story.

We talked for an hour and I was writing notes furiously. Hopefully, I can read them and hopefully they make sense. LOL. It was very much like brainstorming with a critique partner except that Martha is skilled in this and you get right to the problem in the first few minutes.

The questions she asked made me think of other tangents to follow and other conflicts that could arise. With that information and thought process, I was able to deepen the plot and also develop a bigger story.

What I didn’t really realize is that my hero has his own plot. The heroine has hers and then you have the romance. When you develop and intertwine all three of these plots, you end up with much more than a mere romance. You have conflict, emotion, and accountability that engage the reader.

She also asks questions that bring you to an awareness of what she calls “energetic markers”. These are like plot points that bring the reader to a climactic event or turning point that will change the story or resolve the conflict.

So if you want to plot like the plot whisperer, start asking yourself questions. Start asking Why? When? Where? And if this happens what will the consequences bring? What are the consequences of the decisions each character makes? And what do you want to accomplish? 

So what helpful hints can you share with us about plotting? What has worked for you? How have you deepened the plot?

Martha will be joining us today and is generous with her advice. So if you have any questions for her, please ask away. Those who write comments today will be put in a drawing for a free hour plot consultation with Martha. One other commenter will win a copy of Martha’s book “Writing Blockbuster Plots”  And a reader who comments can have an ecopy of one of my books. Please indicate in your comment what prize you would like to win.

Available on Amazon

Sandra Leesmith writes sweet romances to warm the heart. Sandra loves to play pickleball, hike, read, bicycle and write. She is based in Arizona, but she and her husband travel throughout the United States in their motorhome and enjoy the outdoors. You can find Sandra's books here on Amazon. Three of Sandra's most popular books are also audio books at Audible. You can read more of Sandra's posts here.

BEST OF THE ARCHIVES: PLOT STRUCTURE OF A NOVELLA

To celebrate our latest and new Seeker novella written by Cara Lynn James, Myra Johnson and (drum roll please)  myself, Sandra Leesmith, I'm bringing up in the archives 

PLOT STRUCTURE OF A NOVELLA.  

We are so excited about our new novella,  LOVE FINDS A WAY.  It is loaded with summer romance and outdoor adventure. 

Seekers are also having Christmas in July.  Our Christmas Novellas are on sale.  Yippee!!!  In this 2014 post, I talked about the structure of a novella.  A HEART FULL OF HOPE that is in our first Christmas Anthology, HOPE FOR THE HOLIDAYS.

This post first appeared in Seekerville in June 2014: Comments are closed on Fridays to allow more writing and reading time.

Good morning. Sandra here, with her yummy Chocolate Velvet coffee. I also brewed some Dunkin' Donuts Chocolate Glaze coffee. It has been getting difficult to find my coffee so I've been trying others.

from dundkindonuts.com

While there, I ordered some donuts and muffins so help yourself.

from dunkindonuts.com

 Margaret Brownley brought up some great points about novella writing in her article The Long and Short of Writing Novellas.

All of us Seekers are paying attention because we are going to be publishing Christmas novellas written by --guess who? The Seekers.  Isn't that exciting?  We are planning a contemporary novella and a historical novella.  So if you're writing a Christmas list already, here's something to add on. Our working theme for both contemporary and historical is Hope For The Holidays.

Several of the Seekers have already written novellas, but I'm like Margaret. I overwrite everything and normally have to delete much of what I write. So writing my first novella has been a challenge.

I went to Desert Dreams conference in Tempe last spring and Dessert Rose author, Calista Fox (who writes sizzling hot novellas) presented some great tips on structuring a novella.

Here is the breakdown of her handout.  (presented with Calista's permission)

Chapters 1-2  

Set Up: Character(s) plot and romantic elements introduced
Action and conflict underway.

Chapters 3-5

Conflict, tension and romance further developed

Chapters 6-7

Build-up to crisis
Plot and romance heats up; conflict and tension are about to peak

Chapter 8

Crisis/black moment

Chapter 9

Climax/falling action

Chapter 10

Resolution to plot
Happy ever after for hero and heroine.  :)


This outline helped a lot to give me a sense of the pacing. There is nothing new here. But having the chapter breakdown gives you a good idea of where the plot points should be falling in a shorter novella.

Janet Dean presented us with tips her editor, Tina James sent her when she wrote her novella for Love Inspired Historicals Brides of the West.   In this article, Tips for Writing a Novella,  she also lists tips from other authors. One of the authors, Victoria Bylin, suggested using secondary characters from one of your novels. This helps give you a deeper character without having to develop so much in the novella.

That is exactly what I am doing in my novella  A HEART FULL OF HOPE in the Christmas anthology of HOPE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. I am taking the character, Stephen, who was Monica's former fiancé in Love's Promises.

Stephen is still in Spain so I was able to use information from my trip in Spain for the setting. It is advisable to keep the same setting because description of setting takes up a lot of space. So much of my novella will be set on the gorgeous beaches of Matalascanas which is southwest of Seville along the Atlantic coast.

They will be using the royal hunting lodge found in the national park there. (Parque Nacional de Donana)

Royal hunting lodge in Parque Nacional de Donana

Another piece of advice I gleaned is to keep the secondary characters to a minimum and also to use only one POV. Now that is really difficult for me because I always mix the male hero POV in with the heroine's POV.  So just limiting my story to the heroine's POV has been a challenge for me. But with my plot and black moment (yes, novellas need those also) I find that one POV makes it really work.

In March 2013, Gina Welborn wrote a post for Seekerville titled: A Novel Approach to Novellas. She was writing her first novella and asked her friend Linda Goodnight for advice. In this post, Linda gives several great tips for keeping the novella succinct and tight. Pop over to that article to see what tips she gives us.

Gina has written several novellas since including her Christmas novella  called All Ye Faithful in the book of novellas called A Cascades Christmas.

 Are you ready to write a novella now? I hope these tips gleaned from my experience and other friends of Seekerville will help you.


Happy writing.

Happy reading.

Sandra Leesmith writes sweet romances to warm the heart. Sandra loves to play pickleball, hike, read, bicycle and write. She lives in Arizona with her husband and during the hot summers she and her husband travel throughout the United States in their motor home where she enjoys the outdoors and finds wonderful ideas for her next writing project. You can find Sandra's books here on Amazon. Two of Sandra's most popular books are also audio books at Audible.  Love's Promises will be available on audio in April.

You can read more posts by Sandra here.

PERFORMING CPR ON YOUR REJECTED MANUSCRIPT

None of us like rejection. Sadly most writers usually experience a lot of rejection before they're published. Even authors with books on the shelves are rejected. Rejection is part of the business so don't take it personally. You may need to repeat that a few thousand times before you believe it, but it's true.   

My Irish immigrant heroine/American aristocrat hero story didn't fit the publisher's guidelines was rejected. The editor also told me the hero and the plot had problems. As I thought about what she said, I agreed with her points, but I also knew even with revisions the book wasn't a good fit. I went on to write other books, yet I couldn't forget that tortured hero and desperate heroine I’d created and had left languishing for years. 

Perhaps you have a book worth saving under your cyber bed. Not all of them are. Perhaps too much is wrong. If there’s no conflict, no goals, then there’s no story really. Not that you couldn't create goals, just as you created characters, but without goals and the conflict they produce, the book has no spine and may take too much work to salvage.

Perhaps the manuscript has been rejected but with a vague "Not for us at this time" so.you don’t know what’s wrong with it. You could run the story past a critique partner or hire an editor. Or enter the manuscript in a contest. But remember contest judges usually see only the opening. We can learn to write terrific openings without knowing how to finish a complete, especially keep the pace and plot strong in the manuscript's middle.   

I’m not recommending you revise an old manuscript at the expense of writing new, but if you can identify the problems and have learned how to fix them and you can't get those story people out of your head, then go for it. 

But first a rejected manuscript needs new life. I decided to give it CPR. Dr. Dean version.

I first re-looked my editor’s issues with the book. And then noticed one of my own. I can now see the book had a lot of telling. But I've learned how to turn telling into showing. And have studied craft long enough to fix the other issues. Or so I hope!

Even if the door is closed to a traditional publisher, writers now have the option to publish the book independently, that open door on the right. 

                                           
                                 The C of CPR stands for CRITICISM

Criticism of the hero: .

1. The hero is unlikable and his characterization is inconsistent. 

Even as I wrote the opening, I knew the hero’s interaction with the heroine could upset readers. As the writer, I understood why he behaved as he did and personally loved their confrontation, but I had to remember that the reader was meeting him for the first time and what the reader thinks takes precedence, especially if that first reader is an editor. 

So before I even submitted the story I put the opening in his point of view instead of in her thoughts. So I could give tiny hints at the back story. Even trying to fix an unlikable hero is not an excuse to dump back story. 

Next I showed through action and his thoughts a loss that tortured him. A universal loss that readers would understand and would react to with empathy.

And finally I had him save a child’s life. Surely that was enough for an editor to like him. 

Nope. My hero wasn't consistent in how he viewed and treated the heroine. I would show his attraction, then he would revert to his rude behavior, then he'd be attracted again. This see-saw characterization will make anyone want to toss my book against the wall. Why didn't I see that? Who knows? 

              The P of CPR stands for Possible Patches  

I had to come up with something that would make HER see him in a more positive light. Then the reader will hopefully feel the same. I decided I could make the hero the heroine's champion and save the day.  

                       The R of CPR stands for Repair

I have him rescue her from some creep’s unwanted attentions. Then in the emotionally charged scene that follows I show their mutual attraction, which is evidence that she's seeing the hero differently, and have him kiss her. That kiss is a risk, but I think it works as long as I show that the dynamics between them have changed. He can no longer despise who she is and she can no longer see him as a threat. 

This attraction doesn't mean they aren't still in conflict. Without conflict I don't have a story. To keep the conflict strong, I must raise the stakes, not keep recycling old issues.    

Criticism of the plot:

2. The plot involving his business and inheritance are not evident in the book's middle. 

I had a huge black hole in the middle of my novel because I’d dropped these elements of the plot, which are important in the end of the book. Yet the way I'd written it, they seem to come out of the blue. I got caught up in showing the romance at the expense of the plot..I didn't know then that the romance is not the plot. It merely complicates the plot. 

An easy fix would be to have him go back to work, but he's driven to find a killer, not to run his company. So how to fix the problem? 

What romance writer could resist this stethoscope?

Possible patches:

Show him interacting with characters who have responsibilities in the company or interest in who inherits. These secondary characters can make demands, hint at trouble, force the hero to take action. I will need to make sure these encounters aren't merely conversations. They must require action, create conflict. 

Repairs:

I can have the hero stop by his office, hire a manager, handle complaints, but the best way to keep the story active is to show him getting sidetracked by more pressing issues or by having another attempt on his life. 

Novels have a plot thread, romance Thread and faith Thread. All these threads force the characters to grow and change. If we writers drop any one thread, the story won't hold together. 

While I’m doing CPR for the plot and characterization, I’m be looking for telling. I can show with metaphors, description, dialogue, actions, physical reactions and the five senses. 

Certain words should alert writers to telling.

Adverbs. Don’t tag dialogue with “she said angrily” when you can show her anger by having her plop her hands on her hips, poke someone with a finger or slam the door as she exited the room. When I was a teenager my mom and I had got along great. But, I do remember after a rare conflict going to my room and slamming the door. Immediately I heard, “Don’t you sass me!” My mom knew what that sound/action meant and so will your reader.   

Was. Its fast and easy to say: The room was cozy. But telling readers that won't make them feel that coziness. Instead give details that show the room. Describe the cushy furniture, the soft glow from lamps, the blazing fire in the hearth.

Looked. Sometimes we replace "was" with "looked" and think we're not telling, as in: She looked sick. Bring her alive with details. Show her flushed face, red nose and dull, watery eyes. Just don't overdo it and have readers taking Airborne. LOL  

Felt. She felt like her world had come to an end, isn't as bad as writing she felt hopeless. But its clichéd and not as good as using details of the setting to reveal her despondency—her mood impacts how she views everything—or by giving physical reactions that show like her trembling hands. Or showing with words, internal or in dialogue. "How will I go on?"

Use the "Find" feature in Word and look for showing words like was, felt, looked.

Not that writers should always show. Sometimes telling works, especially in high action. But vivid details engage readers. 

Do you have a manuscript worth saving? Characters who live in your heart and demand a second chance? if so, give them CPR. 

As a reader what bugs you most about a book? Have characters stuck with you? Why?  

I'm now wearing my chef hat. I have the fixings for omelets and waffles so grab a plate and let's chat. 

A comment is your ticket for a chance to win a ten dollar Amazon gift card.

  

Laptop Open--Chair Reclined...WHAT KEEPS A READER ENGAGED IN YOUR STORY?



http://www.maryconnealy.com

So I have this test I use on movies.

Think of it as my variation on the old Siskal and Ebert Thumb Up/Thumbs Down test.

When I watch a movie I either have a book open or my laptop open.

My Cowboy sleeps.

So I’ve developed this test for quality of movies.

If he doesn’t nap and I don’t check my email then it’s a good movie.

Instead of a thumb icon, I will use an open laptop and a reclined chair for bad movies and a closed laptop and a chair sitting straight up for good movies

Bad Movie

Good Movie

I tend to over-analyze movies/books/songs…anything that involves written entertainment. Occupational hazard.

But I'm always interested in................

WHAT KEEPS OUR EYES ON THE SCREEN? 

It’s not always what you’d think.

Henry Cavill-Superman Man of Steel...let's all just pause for a moment over this picture...not having much trouble keeping my eyes on him...................................in fact you'd think this would sustain me through the whole movie
.............my attention is still engaged......................................................okay moving on

I was struck by this while watching Man of Steel with the most gorgeous Superman EVER. (one woman's opinion!) It’s no problem watching Henry Cavill at any time!

But there is a fight near the end of the movie and it’s a classic example of fights in these types of movies, like Transformers, X-Men, Pirates of the Caribbean, Batman, Spiderman. These fight scenes in mostly pretty good movies (and certainly expensive movies with top directors and huge budgets for special effects...movies that make big bucks) go on and on and on and on.

And honestly the 27^th time Superman rams Zod’s head into a row of high rise buildings in New York City, well, it just gets boring.

How many times, now think about it, have you seen the Statue of Liberty get blown in half. Then here comes Lady Liberty crashing, head first, into a taxi cab. Sometimes I wonder if they use the same footage from other movies!

I’ve never watched a Transformers movie (that I remember? I may have forgotten) but good grief Pirates of the Caribbean? The sword fights, quirky and funny, but they  just NEVER END. You’d think watching Johnny Depp sword fight while balancing on a huge rolling wheel would be fairly entertaining but at least to me, it’s just dead space, plenty of time to check my email or read a chapter, and know I won’t miss a thing.

Plenty of time for My Cowboy to sneak in a nap.

I’ve come to realize why these endless fight scenes don’t hold my interest.

HERE’S MY POINT IF YOU’RE STILL PAYING ATTENTION!

It’s because THEY AREN’T MOVING THE STORY FORWARD.

OFF TOPIC ALERT!
Because it's Spring (okay, it's February, shut up, let me pretend) it's time for my annual Spring Parade of Calves on Facebook. To follow along as the babies come check out http://www.facebook.com/maryconnealy

And this is also true in books, each scene has to advance the story in order to hold the reader's attention. Writing is such a balance between revealing character, deepening the conflict, bringing the romance along…but all this has to be done while TELLING YOUR STORY.

Telling the story is your first goal and weaving in love and character and faith is all part of telling a good story but you have to spin a good yarn, tell a good story. The characters that inhabit that story are just one part of it. Any action scenes, falling over a cliff, a running gunfight, an explosion, all has to be advancing the story.

I’ve told writers, for example in critique groups, what is the point of this scene? You don’t advance the story at all.

One response I remember was, “I thought it revealed more about my character.”

You know what? It does reveal your character but it stopped your story dead in it's tracks. You need to do that, reveal and develop your character, but it’s GOT TO BE DONE WHILE YOU’RE ADVANCING YOUR STORY.

So the next time you’re writing a scene, picture adorable Henry Cavill bringing down the fifth row of high rise buildings in New York City using Zod’s head and ask yourself, will my whole book be one speck different if I cut the whole thing. Can I do this while only smashing down ONE row of high rise buildings. CAN LADY LIBERTY BE ALLOWED TO STAY ON HER FEET?

Metaphorically, I mean.

The Homestead Brides Collection In Bookstores NOW!

Let's think about your work in progress. Do you have scenes, however interesting, charming, action packed that don't advance your story? Do you have the guts to cut them?

Let's talk about it.

Leave a comment to get your name in a drawing for a signed copy of a book that’s got ME, RUTHY AND PAMMY IN IT.

How cool is that? There are other great authors too, but three Seekers at once? That’s more fun than can be contained within the covers of a book.

I am also giving away this T-Shirt. It says, NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A WOMAN WITH WRITING SKILLS

I HATE SELFIES, AT LEAST OF ME

Also, there's a raffle to get in a drawing for the prizes in this picture:

Click Here to Enter the Rafflecopter Drawing

The Homestead Brides Collection released yesterday, February 1st: Through nine historical romance adventures, readers will journey along with pioneers ready to stake a claim and plant their dreams on a piece of the great American plains. While fighting land disputes, helping neighbors, and tackling the challenges of nature the homesteaders are placed in the path of other dreamers with whom romance sparks. And God has His hand in orchestrating each unique meeting.

Letting Life Happen in Fiction with Guest Ann H. Gabhart

 "Why did you let that happen to your character?" a book club member asked me once. I don’t remember which book or what happened to my character that concerned her, but it was a fair question that started me wondering. Why did I let that happen? Or did I even “let” it happen?

One of Ann's book clubs!

 Are my characters just puppets in my hand? Or have they come to life so fully in my imagination that they head down life’s road with me dogging their footsteps yelling questions like a pesky reporter? “What are you doing next? Where are you going? Why’d you stop here? Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Actually, once the main characters are living their stories, I’m more than chasing after them. I become those characters while the story words form on my computer screen. 

That bonding with characters doesn’t happen without some work. I just turned in my third Rosey Corner book, Love Comes Home. That novel followed up my characters in Angel Sister and Small Town Girl. So for it, I didn’t have to come up with an entirely new set of characters. I did bring new faces into the story, but I also knew many of the characters like my closest family after writing two other books with them. I was thrilled they let me move in with them while I discovered the rest of their story. 

Now I’m on to a new book with characters I’m only just meeting. So how do these characters I’m going to be living with for the next few months come to life in my mind? The Bible says man was formed from the dust of the earth. Characters are formed from the dust of a writer’s mind. Every person I’ve ever met, every character I’ve ever read about or seen in a movie or on TV, every person I can imagine, all those are stored somewhere in my mind. When it’s time to create that new character, I take a pinch of this and a dollop of that from the glimmering treasure trove in my head until the person I’m looking for begins to form before my writer’s eye. 

Sometimes it’s a slow process of one brick of character piling on another brick. Other times, a character springs to life as soon as I think of her name. Lacey in The Blessed was that kind of gift. I had intended her to be a minor character in my third Shaker book, The Seeker, but as soon as I named her, she informed me she had a story of her own that would be wasted if she just got a few paragraphs in a minor role. 

Most of my main characters are not like Lacey. Most have to be developed. I’ve given talks where I let the audience participate in building a character by brainstorming the answers to a few basic questions. Is the character male or female? How old are they? Third question – name?  You can’t really name a character until you know the answers to the first two questions. Nationality and historic era make a difference with names too. Once we agree on a name, then we go on to whether the person is married, has children, what kind of work they do, whether they live in the city or country, etc. My audience always has great fun doing this character exercise and are often shocked at how an imagined person can so quickly come to life in their thoughts as we answer those few questions. By the end of our little exercise, I sometimes have to referee as many of the participants are ready to fight for their image of the character to be the person for our story. 

We don’t write the story, but if we did, what each person wrote would be completely different from all the other stories.  That’s because in the process of coming up with a story, they would have to answer many more questions about the character. One, what do they look like? But even more important, why do they do the things they do? I generally write a brief paragraph about my character’s appearance–eyes, hair color, features, height, build–general things that I need to remember. I let those images float around in my head to try to see my character, but even more important than how the character looks is how he or she thinks. That’s because I’m going to pitch them into some situations. In Words Spoken True, I dropped Adriane down in the middle of a very volatile summer in Louisville’s history, and then piled even more trouble on her. In my coming book, Christmas at Harmony Hill, Heather is faced with one challenge after another as she awaits the birth of her baby in this Civil War era Christmas story. 

So why do I let these things happen to my characters? Because life happens to people and I’m writing about people. I name them and put them in their time and place, but then the story takes over. Without my characters facing conflicts and hardships, I wouldn’t have much of a story. Readers love fiction because of the people, but they want those people to overcome challenges as they chase after their dreams. 

Readers also want to know what happens next. Those happenings might make us smile or perhaps weep or even be nervous as we hurry through the pages. But we want to live the story with the characters and believe they would really do the things they do in the book. So that’s why I set my characters down on the road of life and “let” things happen to them. 

When you read fiction, do you invite the characters into your heart and mind and live the story with them? Do you ever wonder what happens to them after you read the last page?

ANN H. GABHART, the author of several bestselling novels, has been called a storyteller, not a bad thing for somebody who never wanted to do anything but write down stories. She’s published twenty-five novels with more stories on the way. She keeps her keyboard warm out on a farm in Kentucky where she lives with her husband, Darrell. They have three children, three in-law children, and nine grandchildren. To find out more about Ann or her books visit www.annhgabhart.com. Check out her blog, One Writer’s Journal, 


www.annhgabhart.blogspot.com or follow her on Facebook, www.facebook.com/AnnGabhart , Twitter, https://twitter.com/AnnHGabhart , or Pinterest, http://pinterest.com/annhgabhart/.



Ann has generously offered to giveaway a copy of Small Town Girl, her July release from Revell to two Villagers who leave a comment. Winner announced in the Weekend Edition.

The Merritts of Rosey Corner, Ky., are back. Evangeline is marrying Pastor Mike, and the family could not be happier — except for Kate, who has loved Pastor Mike since she was 15. Birdie is smitten with Mike’s best man, Jay Tanner, but he seems interested in Kate. The joy of the wedding lingers until the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when the war begins and the young men must leave loved ones behind and go defend their country. Will Kate send away her only chance at dancing in the Rosey Corner moonlight?