by Angela Smith | Aug 15, 2018 | Characters, Relationships
Adrienne Fuller is a nurse who knows exactly what it’s like to be in danger. She’s felt like she’s been in danger her whole life. Her brother was accused of murder when he graduated high school, and she’s the one who found the body. She spent years of her life trying to prove her brother’s innocence until he begged her to leave. She got married, divorced, and came back home to care for her father’s property, the property she grew up on, when he was also sentenced to jail time for drunk driving.
She’s learned early on not to trust the criminal justice system.
Adrienne is stronger than she gives herself credit for. And she’s way stronger than I first believed when I started writing her character. Born in the country, she moved away but never stopped loving and appreciating her country living. When she meets Zan, she surprises him by hooking her worm and running through the wilderness to survive.
Adrienne’s Relationship Advice:
Zan told you last week that he tends to be a protector and a bit controlling, and I can absolutely say that is true. And while sometimes it’s okay to be controlled, sometimes it’s downright maddening. Yes, Zan, you piss me off sometimes. My relationship advice is to not be afraid to be a heroine. Stand strong in your beliefs and have courage to do what’s right, even if it isn’t what might seem right to others. Oh, and pick and choose your battles. It’s okay to be wrong (Zan). Not everything is worth being right over. Zan is still working on doing that with me.
But most importantly, have fun together!
Read more about DARK RIDE.
by Angela Smith | Aug 6, 2018 | Books, Characters, Relationships
What a ride it is to create conflicting characters! The hardest part is making sure their goals, motivation, and conflict are enough to see the story to the end.
I’ve always been drawn to characterization and personality profiles, so that’s an intriguing part of writing for me. What do you think? Are you character-driven, or plot-driven?
Hands down, my favorite part of writing is creating the characters. I research who they are, build collages for them, and ask them extensive interviews about subjects that will never get put into the book. I’d like to say I get to know my characters pretty well. I love to explore their personalities and psychological makeup.
However, it’s also one of the hardest parts of writing. Creating a character who isn’t a cliché, a cardboard cutout, who acts and reacts the same on every page but is different than everybody else. Their emotions and writing those emotions offer a huge challenge to many writers, especially when you can’t get out of your own mind. A character is happy and they smile, but that gets very old very fast, and we as readers want to know why they are happy and how they are feeling to show us they are happy, or any myriad of emotions they feel throughout the story. This is where Show Don’t Tell is a huge factor.
Backstory and a character’s background is also important and fun creating, but writers have to be careful not to reveal too much too soon, or even reveal things that aren’t necessary to the story. Does it really matter that Winona prefers green leaf lettuce over romaine?
Each character will act and react differently, even the same character on different days. We all do. But there are personalities intrinsic only to us that writers must carve into their characters to make them shine.
I love to create character sketches to keep front and center when developing my story. Sometimes the characters change, since their backstory is the first thing I create before I know anything else. And they are always telling me secrets. But, as messy as it might seem here’s an idea of what I like to do!
And now for a little bit of fun. I’m picking up another round of Wednesday Relationship Advice. Every hump day, I am going to share a character sketch of individual characters and a piece of their relationship advice.
And since Dark Ride releases Tuesday, our first character sketch will be Zan. So come back Wednesday for more about Zan and his relationship advice!
by Angela Smith | Aug 1, 2018 | Relationships
I believe that, in order to keep a relationship strong, special occasions should be celebrated! It doesn’t have to be huge, but ignoring the event or acting like it’s just another day is the surest way to get into a rut and get taken for granted as well as being the one who takes your loved one for granted.
Birthdays and anniversaries are a must. They don’t have to be big. Cook your husband his favorite dinner, or buy her something she’s been eyeing for a long time. Share a glass of champagne or a bottle of wine. Have a picnic under the moonlight. Take a walk down memory lane. Seriously, you don’t have to go to the Bahamas to make special occasions memorable! Turn on some old music and dance under the stars. Whatever it takes. It’s important to not get so wrapped up in the busy-ness of everyday life that you take things for granted. Life is about the memories you make, so it’s important to strive to make new ones.
My husband and I have a tradition of cards. He always buys me a serious one and a funny one and writes a note inside. It’s the only note I ever get from him, but it’s for every major occasion. I get him two as well, and it has become such a tradition for us that it is something I always look forward to. See how simple traditions can be?
Is there something you can do to make a tradition out of special occasions?
by Angela Smith | May 30, 2018 | Relationships
Relationships are all about trust. Trusting others and trusting yourself.
For some people, it isn’t easy to trust others. And it’s not because they themselves are untrustworthy. Sometimes they might be nothing but honest, even too honest, but maybe they’ve been scarred in life and relationships and have a hard time trusting others.
Maybe sometimes they don’t even trust themselves.
This happened to Reagan, in Burn on the Western Slope. She starts out a tad gullible, too vulnerable, but with a strong spirit and personality. She knows what she wants but has a hard time going after it. She’s built her life around being comfortable, pleasing her parents, finding her place in her job and in her life.
Then she meets Garret. Nothing about Garret is comfortable.
Trust requires a vulnerability not many of us are willing to experience.
Trust is so important in a relationship. My relationship started at a young age, where I had no idea what it was to truly trust. I already had abandonment issues because of my parents’ divorce and my mother’s way-too-early-death. That’s not something I blame them for or could control at the time. Looking back, I wasn’t always an easy wife to get along with (okay, that’s still true today!) Trust requires a vulnerability not many of us are willing to break … share … experience.
Trusting in others means having enough trust in ourselves to handle whatever might happen. And losing trust in someone … when Reagan discovers Garret’s deception, she has to learn a few things about herself before she is willing to forgive. And I believe that is something we all must face in our quest for strong, healthy and trustworthy relationships. It isn’t the only thing to strengthen a relationship, but it should be a top priority.
Sometimes trust means recognizing and appreciating those vulnerabilities in others.
Instead of succumbing to my abandonment issues and other such things, I decided to acknowledge them. The whys and wherefores of why I felt the way I did. Confronting your past and the circumstances that make you you is important to understand why you are the way you are and what you can do to change it. It also means recognizes and appreciating those vulnerabilities in others.
Because of my job in the District Attorney’s Office, I deal with trust issues a lot. Young children abused by someone they trusted the most. It’s heartbreaking. And although some of those kids might struggle with that for the rest of their lives, the strength I have seen them displayed as they take the stand to testify against those defendants is something I hope they will remember about themselves forever. Because no matter what they faced, they faced the worst type of distrust and was able to testify against it. They stood strong and had a bravado not many adults could face.
Do you have trust issues? Is there a particular thing that happened to you that caused it and if so, what can you do about it? How can you use those circumstances to make yourself, and your relationship, stronger?
by Angela Smith | May 16, 2018 | Guests, Relationships
As Angela’s blog states, Love is a Mystery. So who am I to give relationship advice? Well, I’ll tell you, I’m an expert. Self-appointed, that is. I’ve had a number of “practice relationships” that came to an end. I believe sometimes no matter the work and love we put into a relationship, it runs its course and painfully and achingly the dreams of what could have been are what we have. And we move on.
For me, moving on brought me to my husband of many years now. But when MC and I married, immediately we were pulled deeply into constant stress for a variety of reasons. But we were invested in working toward coming together during hard times rather than letting outside stressors pull us apart. We set our sights on harmony.
So I’ll put on my fake relationship expert glasses and share some things I’ve learned, FWIW.
Everyone‘s relationship is different, so what works for one couple may be terrible for another. We’re each individuals with our own issues to work out over our lifetime. Put us together with another and buttons get pushed, power struggles tug, feelings get hurt or ignored. I’m stating the obvious, but sometimes I think we go into a long-term relationship in denial that lasts for years. We do destructive things to each other and ourselves, we hide from each other, we settle for a small life.
In my novella Two Days Until Midnight, as the hero and heroine begin to develop a relationship, the heroine, Lark Ellis, wants to hold back her secrets. She’s uncertain she can be lovable considering what she’s done.
Tamier closed his eyes, clinging to the sense of wonder and peace spreading through him, and trying to ignore his spontaneous impulses to reach for her. “I do know I don’t want this moment to end.” He stepped close to her, so close he felt her breath on his face. She didn’t move away, and he looped a lock of her hair behind her ear, sinking into the soft feel of it. Oh, how he wanted to kiss her lips, but he stood suspended in doubt nanomillimeters away.
“Tamier.” She stared at his mouth. “You don’t know everything about me.”
He pulled his eyes from her lips and looked into her eyes. “I don’t expect I do.”
“There are things I want to tell you, but I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be. If there are things I need to know, you’ll tell me or they will come up.” He nuzzled the soft spot under her ear and into her neck, all of his senses exploding with sensations.
“Tamier,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Remember later that I warned you.”
This actually happened to me when MC asked me to marry him. I told him something similar and he responded as Tamier did in this excerpt. It felt like impending doom. It took some time for me to realize what I’ll call my first relationship tip: Be forthright. Take the risk to reveal your true thoughts and feelings and fears and share even the hard stuff.
Allow for conflict. It’s okay to have discord and differences of opinion and even to hurt one another, just face it. I learned pretty late into my relationship with MC that he could be angry and he could think I did something terrible, and I could disagree, roll over in bed, and go to sleep. It’s not a sign you’re not in love in more or that one of you is a terrible person. It can mean you are capable of expanding your rules for a happy relationship, and you and your partner can survive it.
How you ask? Tip three. Communicate. Speak, listen. Weigh your words and get to the meat of things. It’s a trip into where you hurt or your partner hurts and it leads to intimacy, the kind that is a meaningful internal connection. Accept that you may not, after all, be the best at communicating. Maybe both of you are unskilled, so another tip: Don’t make everything personal. Yes, a relationship should be personal, but not everything is a statement about you. When you can see that what’s being said isn’t personal, you’ll see yourself as less flawed, less needy, and you’ll be able to tolerate criticism and differences of opinion. You can have meaningful communication.
Be the delightful person in your partner’s life, the one who lets him or her be themselves. You be you, an individual, and allow your partner the same. I’ve told my husband, I don’t want a superman, I want him. I don’t need him to be fearless all the time and in control of my happiness. Being real is so much better.
So this tip must be number five: Don’t settle for distractions and control as the glue that holds your relationship together. Be responsible for your actions and expect the same from your other. If there isn’t money for another pair of shoes, don’t demand them anyway. If you truly “need” that fabulous but expensive pair of shoes in order to feel happy, don’t settle, look deeper inside yourself. Distractions are never as satisfying as real emotional growth.
Tip number six is a secret to lasting, meaningful relationships: Value intimacy. Yes, I mean sex. Making love to your partner boosts chemicals in your brain that support your connection. But don’t think of intimacy as only physical. Work to be so close to your loved one that you cherish him or her. You’re a part of each other at that point because you’ve shown respect, adored who he or she really is, done personal work, and are a fully individuated individual.
Just before I take off my fake relationship expert glasses, I’ll share my last tip: Cultivate fun and laughter. In the business of living, we can go for days without having any fun or laughing out loud. Share jokes, music, art, whatever makes you smile. Let your relationship expand to a point you never expected it could go.
About Lynn Crandall
Lynn Crandall started spinning stories as a child when she tried to entertain her younger sister at night when they were supposed to be going to sleep. In the dark, her stories typically took on a scary or paranormal element — didn’t do much to put her and her sister to sleep. Today, she hopes here stories still fail to put readers to sleep, but rather take them on a journey. That’s what she’s been on since she decided to make writing her focus. As a reporter and magazine feature writer, she truly enjoys learning as she works on stories. As a romance writer, she enjoys following an evolving story of her characters. She loves to tell stories about characters who don’t back down and use their challenges to grow.
Find more about her and her books at her website: http://lynn-crandall.com/
