From the Archives: 4 Stories that Stuck with Me

 Today's post was originally posted on September 9, 2018. Enjoy!

I’ve read too many books to count over my lifetime, and the list keeps growing. I’ve picked up some books and then realized I

already read them before. It wasn’t that the book wasn’t good, or the title wasn’t memorable, it’s just that I’ve read so many. I immerse myself in that world while I read it and then move on to the next.

But there are some books that lingered in my mind for years after I finished. Something about the book, a character, or another tidbit of their fictional world altered my reality a little. 

Twilight

A friend recommended Twilight by Stephenie Meyer long before the stories became all the rage and the movies that followed. I admit, I was skeptical. I’d only enjoyed a few vampire books previously and Salem’s Lot (Stephen King) and Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice) and neither seemed anything like this story, but I needed a good beach read. 

I can’t say exactly what it was about the story that pulled me in and left me desperate for the second book. Unfortunately, this was before I had a kindle and I was left plotting for somewhere to stop on the way home from vacation to buy the next book. 

When I find a new author that I enjoy, I seek out their website and interviews to learn more about them and their books. I discovered the playlist the author used for writing the Twilight books, and with that, I found a new band to enjoy, Muse. Now when I hear their songs, I wonder if certain ones inspired a scene for the stories.

The Stand

I love Stephen King’s books. I’ve mentioned the character, Randall Flagg, before and how I’ve never looked at a crow the same way again. The Stand is the only book I read more than once, even if the second one was the extended version. Besides the fear of a villain taking the form of a bird to stalk me, the story was written with such detail that it, and the characters within it, lived on in my mind. 

The Hollows

Kim Harrison’s books ignited my love for Urban Fantasy. The snark, the first person POV had me hooked and inspired me to pursue writing in first person POV myself.

Little House on the Prairie

My mother read the books from the Little House on the Prairie to my sister and I before I could read them for myself. This spawned my love of reading, my obsession with the television show that came later (that I’ll still watch if I see that it’s on) and my desire in fourth grade to learn to play the fiddle (that didn’t happen). 

 

What Books Have Lived on Long After the Last Page for You?

P.S. There’s still time to enter the All Things Magical Giveaway. Check it out right here. 

Author Bio: Maureen Bonatch grew up in small town Pennsylvania and her love of the four

seasons—hockey, biking, sweat pants and hibernation—keeps her there. While immersed in writing or reading paranormal romance and fantasy, she survives on caffeine, wine, music, and laughter. A feisty Shih Tzu keeps her in line. Find Maureen on her website, Facebook& Twitter

Be the first to know about Maureen's new releases by following her on Amazon or BookBub

4 Stories that Stuck with Me

I’ve read too many books to count over my lifetime, and the list keeps growing. I’ve picked up some books and then realized I

already read them before. It wasn’t that the book wasn’t good, or the title wasn’t memorable, it’s just that I’ve read so many. I immerse myself in that world while I read it and then move on to the next.

But there are some books that lingered in my mind for years after I finished. Something about the book, a character, or another tidbit of their fictional world altered my reality a little. 

Twilight

A friend recommended Twilight by Stephenie Meyer long before the stories became all the rage and the movies that followed. I admit, I was skeptical. I’d only enjoyed a few vampire books previously and Salem’s Lot (Stephen King) and Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice) and neither seemed anything like this story, but I needed a good beach read. 

I can’t say exactly what it was about the story that pulled me in and left me desperate for the second book. Unfortunately, this was before I had a kindle and I was left plotting for somewhere to stop on the way home from vacation to buy the next book. 

When I find a new author that I enjoy, I seek out their website and interviews to learn more about them and their books. I discovered the playlist the author used for writing the Twilight books, and with that, I found a new band to enjoy, Muse. Now when I hear their songs, I wonder if certain ones inspired a scene for the stories.

The Stand

I love Stephen King’s books. I’ve mentioned the character, Randall Flagg, before and how I’ve never looked at a crow the same way again. The Stand is the only book I read more than once, even if the second one was the extended version. Besides the fear of a villain taking the form of a bird to stalk me, the story was written with such detail that it, and the characters within it, lived on in my mind. 

The Hollows

Kim Harrison’s books ignited my love for Urban Fantasy. The snark, the first person POV had me hooked and inspired me to pursue writing in first person POV myself.

Little House on the Prairie

My mother read the books from the Little House on the Prairie to my sister and I before I could read them for myself. This spawned my love of reading, my obsession with the television show that came later (that I’ll still watch if I see that it’s on) and my desire in fourth grade to learn to play the fiddle (that didn’t happen). 

 

What Books Have Lived on Long After the Last Page for You?

P.S. There’s still time to enter the All Things Magical Giveaway. Check it out right here. 

Author Bio: Maureen Bonatch grew up in small town Pennsylvania and her love of the four

seasons—hockey, biking, sweat pants and hibernation—keeps her there. While immersed in writing or reading paranormal romance and fantasy, she survives on caffeine, wine, music, and laughter. A feisty Shih Tzu keeps her in line. Find Maureen on her website, Facebook& Twitter

Be the first to know about Maureen's new releases by following her on Amazon or BookBub

The Fork in the Road

Writing a novel is filled with hundreds of plot decisions, both little and big, let’s call them forks in the road.Your character has a problem: should they do this or that?

Stephen King has described his process as one of archaeology, unearthing a story that’s already there. George R.R. Martin calls his method gardening, planting a seed and seeing what grows. This used to baffle me, but now I suspect they’re just better at choosing the right fork subconsciously.

My subconscious is a lazy jerk. If I try to write without an outline, I end up paralyzed by indecision every few pages or bored with what I’m writing because I’ve taken the wrong fork. A writer friend of mine, Barbara Geiger, calls this taking door number one. She says that the first two options your mind throws up as solutions are often dull and predictable and that it’s the third more original option that’s the way to go. Having figured out door three in advance allows me to write much faster.

Not that outlining means I know everything that's going to happen. I usually know where the road is going in general, but but as I’m writing a little voice will often pipe up telling me that the heroine has it too easy and that something should go wrong. What’s supposed to be a short scene balloons into a chapter. These small forks tend to be decided upon during the act of writing, during what’s called ‘flow’. For example, I'd always planned that Belinda would be kidnapped during the climax of In Truth & Ashes, but falling into a pit in the dark was something that just happened as I typed and I went with it. Unfortunately, I seem to spend half my writing time trying to enter the 'flow' state. Or getting pushed out of it because I've hit a snag.

Maybe pantsers are better at entering a 'flow' state than I am. 

When I get stuck writing, it’s usually a sign that I’ve made a wrong decision somewhere. If I backtrack a page or two I can usually pinpoint the moment and choose a different fork. If I’m really stuck I get out a piece of paper and list off options. Sounds mechanical, right? But the fork that I pick is chosen the same way pantsers write their entire novel: I go with the option that seems in some nebulous way ‘right’ or more interesting to me. There’s really no other reason for changing paths other than artistic sensibility. Trying to continue with the ‘wrong’ path feels like pushing a boulder uphill.

What about you? Do you make the plot up as you go along or outline first? Does your method always work for you? What do you do if it goes wrong?

Ghost Week: Failure at the Stanley Hotel

The Stanley Hotel

In August, my husband and I went to Denver. While we were there, we took a little side trip an hour-and-a-half north to a beautiful little town called Estes Park. The air grew thinner as we drove into the Rockies, but the drive on the way up was gorgeous, even if we couldn’t breathe. Estes Park was a cozy, touristy town filled with quaint shops, a surprising amount of people walking dogs, and a sparkling lake.

And looking down on it all was our destination: The Stanley Hotel.

In case you’re not familiar, the Stanley Hotel is where Stephen King wrote The Shining. The Overlook Hotel in the story is based on the Stanley’s ghostly history. Stephen King famously stayed in room 217, which is purported to be haunted.

 But we had reservations for the most haunted room in the entire place: room 401.

We were pretty excited. And nervous. Also, exhausted, after driving over nine hours to get there and

The famous hedge maze in the movie is not so big in real life.

not having quite as much oxygen as we were accustomed to, so we decided to forgo the hour-long walking tour of the ginormous hotel and opted, instead, for drinks and an early dinner in the bar. Seriously, the Colorado Mule Kick was fabulous.

No worries about missing the tour! Every two hours, the tour stopped right in front of our hotel room. We heard every word. Lord Dunraven, whose picture was outside our door, was a womanizer, even in the afterlife. Women who took off their wedding rings would find them missing the next morning. The staff always found the rings in the bathtub drain. Men would find their wallets in the toilet. And women who went into the closet would get pinched.

Spotted this in the tour office. All work and no play...

I took a million pictures in that room. Not so much as a single orb showed up. We heard no ghostly children playing in the halls. The antique elevator never acted up.

I don’t take my wedding ring off unless I’m make meatloaf or piecrust, so that was never an issue. But I just got my husband a cool "Agents of Shield" leather wallet for Father’s Day, so I stuck it in my purse to confuse the womanizing ghost. I guess it worked, because it was still there the next day.

Every single time I went to the closet to take pictures, I knocked first. “Hey, Lord Dunraven? I’m coming in to take a picture, please.” He never pinched me.

Maybe that makes it sound like we were cool cookies, waiting fearlessly for something to happen. But I’m going to be honest. We didn’t sleep very well. I totally psyched myself out. Every time I woke up, I imagined the earl would be standing over our bed watching us sleep.

I woke up a lot.

Colorado Mule Kick. Tasty!

Somewhere around 3:30 AM, the fear passed—though the expectation of a ghostly peeping Tom did
not. I didn’t care. I was so damn tired, if Lord Dunraven wanted to watch me sleep, fine, as long as he let me get some rest.

So, what did we learn? My husband and I really aren’t cut out for ghost hunting. We were totally unprepared, having not brought along any sort of EVP recorder, thermal cam, or night-vision goggles. We failed to ask the ghosts to communicate with us. And honestly, we went out of our way to be polite and not provoke him/them. We kind of sucked.

But it wasn’t a waste. It was an adventure, regardless of results.

And that Colorado Mule Kick was delicious.

Rachel writes stories that drop average people into magical situations filled with heart and quirky humor.

She believes in pixie dust, the power of love, good cheese, lucky socks and putting things off until the last minute. Her home is Disneyland, despite her current location in Kansas. Rachel has one husband, two grown kids and a crazy-catlady starter kit.





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Quest for the Perfect Ending Line

For tomorrow is another day.  Is there anyone out there who doesn't recognize the last line to Gone With the Wind?

The ending line of a novel doesn’t need to be as perfect as the first line, the hook.  As long as the ending satisfactorily ties up the book’s plot, or in the case of a series, at least leaves the characters with some breathing space, most readers will be happy. Nevertheless, the perfect ending line is like not only wrapping the plot up neatly, but tying it with a pretty bow.  And who doesn’t like a pretty bow?

I love ending lines that refer back to the very first sentence of the novel.  Or ones that are an in-joke between the two main characters.  They make me sigh with happiness.

Two Stephen King ending lines positively haunt me.  The first is from one of his Bachman books, The Long Walk: “And when the hand reached his shoulder again, he somehow found the strength to run.”  And from The Green Mile, “…sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.”  If you haven’t read the books, the lines will mean nothing, but if you have… shiver.

Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time, always started chapter one the same way, describing a wind blowing and then “...it wasn’t the beginning, but it is a beginning.” Long before the final volume, A Memory of Light, released my husband correctly predicted it would end with the line “...it wasn’t the ending, but it was an ending.”  Really, no other last line was possible.

I recently spent considerable time trying to craft the perfect ending line for my YA book, Angel Eyes.  I love the ending lines for books one and two in the series and I wanted the third book’s ending line to have the same oomph:

We would rather be your friends than your enemies. Don’t start a war you can’t win.  Violet Eyes.

More than anything, I wanted to learn to trust again. Silver Eyes.

The ending I eventually went with for Angel Eyes is… satisfactory, but not perfect. Sigh.

 Unstoppable. Michelangelo. Angel Eyes.

And now I’m getting close to the final chapter of a paranormal romance I’m working on, Where Lost Things Go, and I know I’ll soon be slaving over that ending line again.

What are some of your favourite or especially memorable ending lines of novels?