Basically Books! discussion

GoodReads Description

Life hasn't been much of a fairytale for Katia recently, but when she lands her dream job as a makeup artist, it seems like things might be about to change.

Whisked off to join a film production in the vibrancy and magic of India, she has to face a fire-breathing dragon in the shape of her new boss and solve complex riddles, such as whether Owen Walker, the movie's gorgeous leading man, is a serial womaniser, a knight in shining armour, or something in between...

Because learning to tell the difference between fact and fiction, might just be the key to finding her happy ending.

You can get this book for free from the 1st of July till the 31st of July on smashwords.
Click this link: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

and purchase the Book in any format available using this coupon code: VN68A

Feel free to talk about the whole book but please use the spoiler brackets where necessary.

< spoiler > write your message here < / spoiler >

(without spaces)

Thanks for the copy, Emma. I'm looking forward to reading a novel by a fellow indie author.

By the way, Emma is a good friend of us, so I,m really excited about reading her book *_*

Jeshu wrote: "By the way, Emma is a good friend of us, so I,m really excited about reading her book *_*"

I know cant wait :D

Thanks everyone - I'm really excited about this, can't wait to hear what people think! :D

Thanks for the free copy, Emma! This month I can join in with the group read... YAY!

book downloaded and ready to read on the kindle ;) Hopefully, I'll be able to start it next week ^^

Jeshu wrote: "book downloaded and ready to read on the kindle ;) Hopefully, I'll be able to start it next week ^^"

Im 7% through.. and already i want to read more :D

LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ill say more when others have read it :P

I've almost finished it (will have it finished before today is out). It's really good!

It really was a great book; well written, with a great cast of characters! Great job, and thanks for the oppertunity to read it, Emma!

You're welcome Victoria, I'm glad you enjoyed it and thank you for putting a review up on Smashwords too! :D

No problem Emma; figured you'd appreciate a review... I know I like when people who enjoyed my books do reviews to tell others they enjoyed them! I'm doing a review on my blog in the next couple of days too (I had a queue of reviews waiting to go up, that's why that one's taken so long). :)

This may seem a bit weird but I just had my first negative review of the book and I was wondering if anyone else who has read it noted any of the same criticisms?

www.goodreads.com/review/show/369005680

In terms of the predictability, because of the genre, I wasn't worried about the plot having twists and turns etc but I'd love some feedback, particularly about the dialogue.

There was a certain amount of predictability, but with the genre you often get that. The fun is in finding out how you get to the outcome you know is coming.

With the dialogue... There were a few parts where things weren't exactly gramatically correct, however, it doesn't need to be with dialogue. The whole point of it is that it's how the people speak. I don't know about you, but I know very few people who speak gramatically correct all the time, and forcing that on your characters would stop them being "real" people - in my opinion anyway.

And I had no trouble remembering who was who, so I completely disagree there.

Victoria wrote: "There was a certain amount of predictability, but with the genre you often get that. The fun is in finding out how you get to the outcome you know is coming.

With the dialogue... There were a few..."

Oh, I'm glad that's how you saw the dialogue thing as it was realism I was aiming for. Given that I am originally a cockney and my two main characters are from London, I tried to give them speech patterns that felt authentic to me.

I can appreciate how, if you are not a fan of people in real life who don't speak 'properly', it could be even more irritating to you to read a version of it in a book! I recently read a novel written in a first person-conversational style that used a lot of colloquialisms and though it was probably quite authentic, it did become annoying every time a particular phrase came up.

Yes, I can see how it would get annoying to some people. But I think most people don't expect conversations to be held with gramatically correct dialogue. I know that's what used to happen in books, but then again people used to generally speak that way. Now, in descriptive text which isn't part of the dialogue getting things right matters. But I don't think it does so much in dialogue.

I didnt see any of those errors :P

Let me clarify, please, on the dialogue issue. I, too, am in favour of realistic speech patterns. I do, though, still expect to see a comma, not a full stop, before the speech tag.

I'm very far from perfect and appreciate it when people help me improve. Isn't that what we are here to do now - to give an honest opinion and not ignore errors or give special leeway because we are friends? I wouldn't count it as friendship if my errors went on view to the whole world because the people I trusted to be honest with me had been shy of hurting my feelings.

Jay wrote: "Let me clarify, please, on the dialogue issue. I, too, am in favour of realistic speech patterns. I do, though, still expect to see a comma, not a full stop, before the speech tag.

I'm very far f..."

I agree with that.. it's our own opinion.

Thanks Tara. ;)

Victoria - I think giving characters different speech patterns and favourite phrases etc helps to differentiate them too. After all, I don't talk the same way as my cousins who come from Newcastle. It can be difficult to achieve when you're writing without it coming off too contrived though. Mainly, I just let the characters flow and then try to pick things up at the editing stage in case they've become too repetitive.

I've seen that you write children's books, what type of age range are they for? Is dialogue something you have to consider too or are your books for really little ones?

Jay,
Oh, I see, you were refering to punctuation? Well, I can't judge on that since it's difficult to tell if punctuation is correct when computers are reading to you; especially with something as subtle as that.

Sorry if I seem to be getting anally retentive about such matters, but I really abhor the drop in standards over the last decade or so. It's one thing to be slapdash with spelling and grammar in an email or text message, quite another in a novel that we invest so much of ourselves in and hope will still be read many years from now. I cringe in embarrassment at the errors I originally left in mine and am indebted to one reviewer on Amazon who gave a 3. The shock of being accused of being in need of an editor forced me to read my novel again. After that break of a few months I started reading what I had actually typed, not what my brain expected to be there, and so had a chance to make corrections.

Jay, I really do appreciate the honesty of your review. The only reason I brought it to the discussion was to gain some more constructive criticism so please don't misunderstand my intention. I've actually been taught a different rule when it comes to punctuating but I'm glad it wasn't the actual dialogue that you found off-putting, even if the rest of the book wasn't to your taste.

Oh - and I will check the rule and make changes if I need to, so thank you for clarifying, :)

I think I'll have to try it again when my mind is less distracted with so much else going on in my life. As I said, I seem to be out of kilter with everyone else at the moment. I certainly wish you lots of luck with it, and by the sound of it you'll achieve what you deserve. I will, of course, amend my rating if the second reading changes my mind.

Jay,
When it comes to things like spelling and punctuation, I do agree with you that they should be as correct as possible, even in dialogue. I disagreed with that part of your review purely because reading your review led me to the conclusion you were refering to the text of the dialogue (as in the wording). As I said, when it comes to punctuation it's difficult for me to judge, so I can't give an opinion on that and will therefore have to take your word for it and stand corrected.

Also, I would like to say that I do agree that reviews should be given fairly, and issues should be pointed out if there are any. So please don't think I was thinking otherwise. As you said, only when things are pointed out can they be improved upon.

My fault entirely for not being clear in the review itself. I'll be more careful next time and give examples if I think that would help. Showing myself up to be a relative newbie at this game, aren't I... So long as I haven't annoyed anyone, completely unintentionally, I can go to bed and grab a few hours before another long day tomorrow.

Jay, timing certainly can be everything when it comes to enjoying (or not enjoying) a book. Of course if you try it again in the future that would be great but in the meantime, in a totally perverse way, I'm actually quite pleased to receive a less than glowing review. Being a writer is all about putting your work out there to be judged so in some ways it makes it feel more 'real' to me.

I totally agree with keeping your integrity when it comes to reviewing work. It can be difficult when you've chatted with people online but I always try to be objective so I wouldn't expect any different from others.

Well it certainly got us all talking about your work, Emma ;-)
night night

No such thing as bad publicity, lol! Goodnight all. :)

So, I have looked into it and have seen what Jay is talking about - I must have misunderstood the rule as I have it right in some places and not in others.

Apologies to anyone who picks up on this when they are reading it too - hopefully it won't be too distracting as it will take me a while to go through and correct it. I have a six week old baby so will have to snatch moments here and there when my brain is not too addled with sleep deprivation!

Thanks again Jay for clarifying the error. :)

A 6 week old baby? I'm so jealous; I want one of those! (Yes, even with the knowledge I probably wont get to sleep between when it's born and when it leaves home, LOL!)

It's totally worth it though. :D

Congratulations! How wonderful it is to welcome a new life into the family :) The best tip I can give is sleep whenever the baby does, even if that happens to be in a supermarket. I've maintained the habit of sleepwalking through the shopping for 30 years.

Emma,
Totally! :)

Jay,
LOL! Good advice there!

I guess that I am the only mother in the world who didn't have problems with sleep when her daughter was a baby! The only troubles with sleep I have are thanks to Uni!

Emma, may I ask what is cockney?

Oh, btw, I still don't read the book. The end of the term is overwhelming and I still have to learn the names of all of the stupid presidents of the USA for an exam. Not fun, no time to read :(

Luckily I hadn't got serious about my writing when I studied with the Open University. That, family and full time job only just about left time for reading and music. Scribbling was thrown in at odd moments just for the hell of it.

http://www.cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk/ this may help Jeshu :P

Take it with a pinch of salt, though, Jeshu. It's mostly modern invention layered over a genuine base for the benefit of the tourists and other gawpers.

Jeshu, I'd have to agree with Jay really. When I say cockney, it's really a term to describe the area of London I'm from, social status (i.e. working class) and the dialect I use but the rhyming slang doesn't really feature much. We have similar terms for people who live in a lot of different areas; Scousers from Liverpool; Geordies from Newcastle; Brummies from Birmingham etc.

Not to worry about reading the book - uni work comes first after all!

Jeshu,
I do know one person who got lucky. From the first night her daughter has slept almost 12 hours a night, plus for the most part has a nap in the afternoon (or did until recently; she doesn't so much now she's over 2). Bit of a shock for her when she had her son, who didn't seem to know what sleep was for the first 6 months (though he's starting to sleep a bit for her now he's over 6 months).

Wow, I'm counting myself lucky if I get four consecutive hours without my little girl waking up for a feed - it's usually more like two!

This cockney thing sounds interesting, I might learn some stuff to confuse my classmates at Uni!! :D

As there are only a couple of days left of the group read I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who took part. :D

As you can probably tell from the thread above, I haven't got a lot of time at the moment to devote to writing but this has really helped to motivate me when I do get a spare few minutes. As part of that I've just put up a little trivia quiz about the book: http://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work/... and whilst working through the punctuation changes Jay highlighted, I've been selecting a few quotes to put up too, so if anyone can think of any parts they particularly liked then I'd love to hear about them.

Thank you all!!

7 out of 10 answers correct :P Haha wow :) THANK you for the quiz :)

I got 7 out of 10 too. Would have been 8, but I wasn't sure between 2 answers on one of the questions and picked the wrong one of the two. Never mind... 7 out of 10 is good! :)

Well done Tara! I know I threw in a couple of difficult ones - I doubt I'd remember all those details if I hadn't written it, lol. :D

Ditto, Victoria ;)

Sorry, I missed the question about dialogue in my books before... Not sure how. :(

Anyway...

Writing for children is like writing for a spacific genre. You need to be aware of the kinds of things the expected readership expects and go from there. The only real difference between an adult's book and a child's book is that you need to be aware of the comprehention level of the chosen agegroup. Under 8s, for example - my prefered audience - will be less likely to understand dialects than the over 8s would. And the younger children would also accept simpler answers to questions or problems posed in the book than the older ones would. So the same basic rules apply, but you have to think about the words a child would use and bring yourself down to their level without making them feel you're talking down to them. Does that make sense?

As for who I write for. My poems are for all ages, but my stories... Short stories are usually aimed at the 2 to 8 crowd, and chapter books are usually aimed at the 7 and over crowd, aimed at 7 to 8 year olds, but apparently also enjoyed by adults sometimes, LOL! "Witchlet" is a chapter book (the first in a trilogy I'm working on, but I can't figure out how to list it as part of a series on here) and "Bluebell The Fairy Guide" is a short story.