Listen now

or download the episode.

NEWS

Parsec Award Nominations

Parsec Awards nominations are open. Remember to nominate your favorite podcast in each category at www.parsecawards.com. Nominations close on May 31st at midnight.

Escape Eludes Us a Little Longer

A little bad news from James Melzer. He announced on twitter that the publishers have pushed the release of Escape out until March 2012. We know James would like to get the book out there so we wish him all the best on the new release date.

Free Limited Time Offer

Brian Rathbone’s Call of the Herald is flying off ebook book vendors shelves. Get your free copy soon, it is a limited offer from www.brainrathbone.com and then you will definitely want to get the rest of the trilogy here for only $2.99. 

New from Alex White

Alex White has just started releasing his new steampunk novel set in The Gearheart universe called Maiden Flight of the Avenger. Check out this cover then go get your subscription started here. Better yet, buy it on Amazon for only $2.99.

Wicked Women Writers

Wicked Women Writers stories are in and the next step is audio for the coming competition.  The WWW Forum is growing all the time. It is a great facebook group of female authors who take the time to support and encourage each other as well as a great group to get information from about everything from editing to podcasting. If you would like to join the group just let Rhonda know on Facebook.

Coming Up on Podioracket.com

Althought we’re busy celebrating our 50th episode, we haven’t slowed down. We have already scheduled interviews with Ian Rutter, two GothHaus authors, Darusha Wehm, Mark Coggins, and Verna Clay.  And while we are out for summer hiatus you’ll still get great author interviews from Podioracket.com. Brain Rathbone brings us a series of interviews from a writers conferences. Lots of great information for authors and readers alike. Brain Rathbone hit Balticon, microphone in hand. We’ll be sure to also gave you an update on Podioracket Presents - Glimpses coming soon to Podiobooks.com.  

Interview

Evo Terra

Evo Terra founded Podiobooks.com in 2004, an audiobook service that uses podcasting technology to distribute serialized versions of novels, non-fiction books, anthologies and short story collections. He is the co-author of Podcasting for Dummies and Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies.

$4.99 a month

Becoming a Podiobooks.com patron is very simple. Click the button and PayPal will ask you to confirm that you want to give us $4.99 right now, and then again in 30 days. Rinse. Repeat. Over 500 titles. Support Podiobooks by becoming a patron.

Wondering why you should donate to Podiobooks.com? What you should donate and when? Hear the answers in this one-on-one interview with Evo Terra.

Now Releasing

GothHaus by Emerian Rich and M. J. Hahn Audiodrama

Queen of Swords: Riding Toward Sunset by D.C. Wood Historical Fiction

Hijacked: The Creation Story by Mike Hartman Fiction

Released Complete

Great Britain at War by Jeffery Farnol History

I Am Adam by James Twerell Magical Realism

Tripping The Light Fantastic by Davy Ferguson Science Fiction

Now Complete

A Moment In Time by Eric (Erk) Brook Fiction

The Immortal Game by Mark Coggins Thriller

Four Dog Riot by Joe Cottonwood Fiction

Listen to the audio

or download the episode.

Interviews

Dave Donelson

Dave Donelson visited Africa twice to research Heart of Diamonds, not unusual for the brand of journalism he practices as a freelance writer and photographer with three books to his credit and dozens of national publications carrying his byline. 

Website: http://www.heartofidiamonds.com/

Jeremy Robinson

Bio: JEREMY ROBINSON is the author of seven thrillers including INSTINCT and PULSE, both hard covers from Thomas Dunne Book and the first two books of his action-packed Chess Team series. His novels have been translated into eight languages. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children.
Website: www.jeremyrobinsononline.com
E-mail: info@jeremyrobinsononline.com
Twitter @jrobinsonauthor
Facebook – www.facebook.com/sciencethriller
Myspace – www.myspace.com/sciencethriller

News

White Wolf Press

White Wolf Press releases 4 books from suspense & thriller writer Scott Nicholson: The Red Church, The Skull Ring, Burial to Follow, and Drummer Boy. White Wolf Press also announces the release of Doris Ober’s heartwarming stories of life with animals in The Dogtown Chronicles: Our Life and Times with Sheep, Goats, Llamas, and Other Creatures.

MyOuterSpace.com

Calling all SciFi, Fantasy, and Horror enthusiasts. Do you want to participate in a groundbreaking new social network, where the end goal is to produce great SciFi, Fantasy, and Horror entertainment? William Shatner wants you to join him at MyOuterSpace.com. Join the planet that represents your primary art form. Each planet is governed by an industry leader. It was recently announced that Creatia, the planet for writers, will be governed by none other than Alan Dean Foster. So set you phasers for stun and beam yourself up; this is going to be a wild ride.

Podioracket Presents-Visionaries

Visionaries continues to release new stories each week. Recent stories include one by Teel McClanahan III and Brian Rathbone.

Young Junius

Seth Harwood will be joining Podioracket on Blog Talk Radio on May 5 to celebrate the release of Young Junius. SPECIAL NOTE: You can use the special code RACKET at checkout to get a discount on the book!

Newly Released

Fresh Kills by Basil Sands and the authors of The Killzone Blog Fiction

Earthbound by Artemis Greenleaf Fantasy
 

Completed

Prophecy Awakens by Brenda Wamsley Alternative History

Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton Essays Produced by David Grizzly Smith Family Friendly: Safe of family listening

The Gearheart by Alex White

Self Made by M. Darusha Wehm Science Fiction

Released in Full

Dreams and Wings (A Searcher and Stallion story) by Scott Howard Science Fiction

Eleven Classic Short Stories by Mike Bennett, narrator Literature

Alex White, the author of the The Gearheart, shares a new guest blog post.

Guest blog post

The Gearbox: Overstatement

by Alex White on Apr.22, 2009, under The Gearbox

Hey, everybody! Welcome back to The Gearbox- the weekly writing column where I tell you how to write what I want to read. I realize that a lot of what I talk about is already covered in books like Between the Lines and Stephen King’s On Writing, but I don’t care! I’m covering it anyway!

This week: Overstatement!

Overstatement is probably the biggest killer amongst young and aspiring writers. At least, when I edit other people’s stories, overstatement is the thing that I gripe about the most. Writers should realize that you only have a few words to capture a reader’s attention, and overstating everything is like shoving a stick in the spokes of the reader. As readers, we want to get into a nice flow, where the information trickles off the page, straight into our brains. We don’t want some overblown double-explanation of every idea in the story. Words must be chosen like the cuts on a bonsai tree- too few and you have chaos; too many, and you have stripped your ideas bare.

There are many kinds of overstatement:

1) Adverbial/Adjective Overstatement

Adverbs and adjectives are nothing short of fallbacks. They’re modifiers for when a noun, verb or preposition doesn’t exist to cover the thing you’re writing about- and they’re important. As writers, they’re one of the greatest weapons we have in our arsenals, but frankly, they can be overkill. They’re powerful, and too many writers employ their use when a well-chosen word would have served better. Consider the following sentence:

“The angry man walked quickly from the room.”

Every single time you pull out an adverb or adjective, you should ask yourself, “Is there a word that I can use that connotes the meaning that I am about to apply with this adjective or adverb?” This is where thesauruses come in handy. I believe that there are no synonyms in the English language- only subtle and hidden shades of meaning. Pull out a thesaurus and find the right word. A much better sentence would have read:

“The man stormed from the room.”

There. It reads a little better now, right? I would wager that all of the meaning of the first sentence was captured in the second sentence, and it added a nice visual. Adverbs can be useful, but most of the time they’re just crap. Adjectives are a little better, but you have to start from the right noun before you begin modifying it.

2) Character Description Overstatement

Okay, this is a pet peeve of mine. It’s a special kind of overstatement, of which I am particularly guilty. Character description overstatement (or “CDO” to save me some typing) happens when you describe a character in specific terms of his or her appearance, even if those attributes are not plot relevant. CDO is typically worked in at the most awkward times, and it serves to destroy the pace of a book during the first few critical pages when the book is supposed to hook the reader. Here’s an example:

“Andy bent down to wash his face, and when he looked up, he found himself looking into his own hazel eyes in the bathroom mirror. He casually examined his wavy, neck-length, straw-blond hair and strong, Roman nose. Looking down, he could see the muscles on his torso. He didn’t think he was much to look at, but the ladies disagreed.”

That is terrible! This should only happen in a novelization of a Quantum Leap episode! So much of that doesn’t really need to be said, and if someone doesn’t like the way that character looks based upon your description, you might have lost a reader. Consider, instead, this substitute:

“Andy was graceful, with the form of a gymnast, and his smile made him irresistible to women.”

By speaking in abstractions, you allow the reader to unconsciously create the character that they would prefer to see in their version of the story. That heightens the reader’s involvement quite a bit.

It’s not too bad, though, if you use the character description as a chance to either lampoon or illuminate your character’s personality, for example: “His clothes were perfectly ironed,” or “her teeth, blackening from years of addiction to sweets.”

3) Dialogue Attribution Overstatement

The last type of overstatement that I want to talk about is dialog attribution overstatement. DAO happens when you place some sort of indicator in the dialog attribution about how a line is read, even though there is really only one way to read the line. For example- suppose that you have a tense scene in a psychological thriller wherein the killer has just been discovered and becomes hostile. Our heroine tosses dirt in his eyes and bolts into the woods. The next line of dialogue is:

“‘I’ll kill you for that, you little witch!’ he shouted, his voice full of rage.”

Don’t waste page by adding an adverb, or “his voice full of rage.” We know his voice is full of rage. He’s trying to kill someone, and they may have seriously injured him. He’s not going to be jovial.

Now Stephen King and I diverge on this next point. He says that you should only use “he said/she said” dialogue attribution, but I think it’s okay to get spicier with your verbs. What is most important is that you disambiguate without becoming tedious.

Surely, though, I’ve belabored the problems of overstatement enough. What do you all think?

For more from Alex White check out The Gearbox.

Listen

or download Episode 21

Mark Rayner

Mark’s website: http://markarayner.com

Book site: http://marvelloushairy.ca

Twitter: http://twitter.com/markarayner

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Mark-A-Rayner/68490226665

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/markarayner

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/308856

 Alex White

The Gearheart

Alex has tips and tricks on writing at his blog www.thegearheart.com

Follow Alex on twitter at @thegearheart

Alex put together a great 5-minute video blog with tips on the physical aspects of recording that appeared in a previous podioracket.com post.

CONTESTS

New www.themarkofadruid.com contest has started! This is a Second Life challenge and should be a lot of fun. Send Rhonda Carpenter a notecard in SL to enter. See her site for details. The contest ends on November 30th.

Podioracket.com continues to seek Podiobooks.com promos.

NEWS

It’s November and that means NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. Many of your favorite authors are hard at work this month striving to belch out 50,000 words in 30 days.

Check out the promo for P.G. Hollyfield’s crossover. He wrote a story for Angel Between the Lines and Tabz wrote a story for Tales of the Children. The event is Nov. 16th – 18th.

We love Seth Harwood and had a blast on the Hot Tub Podcast. Check out his promo in the episode!

NEW RELEASES

• Squatter With a Lexus by Tom Lichtenberg
  Fiction
• Orange Car With Stripes by Tom Lichtenberg
  Humor
• Dreaming of Deliverance by R.E. Chambliss Fiction

• One Fall by Spencer Baum
  Thriller
•  Get A Life! by John Dodds
  Self-Help
• The Sorcerer’s Secret (book 3 of the Salem Concord) by J. A. Areces
  Fantasy

COMPLETE

• Harvey by Phil Rossi
• Marvellous Hairy – a novel in five fractals by Mark Rayner
]]> http://www.podioracket.com/main/2009/11/03/ep-21-mark-rayner-alex-white/feed/ 0 http://www.podioracket.com/main/2009/10/27/alex-whites-video-tips-on-microphones/ http://www.podioracket.com/main/2009/10/27/alex-whites-video-tips-on-microphones/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:13:41 +0000 Hooked http://www.podioracket.com/main/?p=2716 Alex White, the author of The Gearheart, put together a great 5-minute video blog with tips on the physical aspects of recording. This includes tips on your microphone and voice that you probably haven’t heard before.

About our Guest Contributor

Alex has more tips and tricks on writing at his blog www.thegearheart.com

Follow Alex on twitter at @thegearheart.

Alex will be interviewed on our regular Raise a Racket RSS feed next week.

 

REMINDER: J.C. on PR-BTR

J.C. Hutchins’s print release of 7th Son: Descent is here! Join us LIVE on PR-BTR to find out how it went and win some schwag. J.C Hutchins will give two signed copies of the new book, one chat questioner will win a bag of schwag and another a signed copy of 7th Son Descent. Set your reminder now for Tuesday, October 27th at 6pm PST/9pm EST.

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