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Hi everyone at Give a Girl a Pen,

I wanted to share my exciting news. My debut novel, Dark Future a sexy time-travel romance, is coming out October 11th from Avon Impulse. And what can be better than a new novel out…a sale I tell you. Right now, Dark Future is on sale for .99cents at Amazon for a limited time. To whet your appetite here’s the back cover blurb.

Awakened in the middle of the night by a future version of herself, Kris Davenport is given a mission: go forward in time to save the world—and His life. Of course, her future self doesn’t tell her who he is, just sends her into an abyss and straight into an alien invasion.

He turns out to be ConRad Smith, the callous, untrusting Commander of Earth’s army and the world’s last defense. There’s only one way to know for sure if this strange woman is an alien spy—slice her throat. Except, he didn’t anticipate the heat he would feel as he interrogates the hot-tempered, warm-blooded woman. For a man whose sole focus has been survival, she’s more temptation than he can handle. But a world on the brink of destruction leaves no room for love…and time is running out.

Come check it out on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Future-ebook/dp/B005JSMM8Q

Thanks everyone for all your support. Happy reading!

KC Klein is the author of Dark Future, a sexy futuristic time-travel. She became serious about writing three years ago and was as surprised as anyone when her stories took a turn toward dark and snarky. Today, she divides her time between taking care of her family and driving in circles around Arizona, too busy creating stories in her head to pay attention to mere road signs. KC would love a visit at kckleinbooks.com.

Have you ever watched a play, tv show, or movie where background characters did nothing but stand around and watch? It gets old and boring quick. The same is true for background characters in your writing.

How your characters react in everyday situations is as important to how they respond in the “big scenes”. Without secondary responses, the pages of a book take on the same droll sense that watching someone on stage just standing there has. Boring.

We would like your thoughts and advice on how to up the background, yet still keep it in the back. Because even though it’s necessary, it still must not over power the importance of the scene it is in.

Okay, Anica had such a great comment, that I decided to add it to this post.

I think a lot of it is about knowing how your point of view character would look at the background characters and their activities. That’s the level of detail they should get.

Sometimes scenes seem to stop while the protagonist describes everything that other characters are doing – as you say, the background overpowers the scene. Mostly, I think the issue is that showing activities (e.g. what some character in the background is doing) implies (a) the passage of time, and, (b) that your protagonist spends the aforementioned time being aware of these activities, which means s/he’s paying enough attention to describe them at the level at which they’re described.

This can be especially problematic in big fight scenes. Often the author has introduced a bunch of characters over the course of a book or even a series, and s/he then wants to show the reader what all of them are up to during the big fight, but reading paragraphs on what other people are doing during an action sequence makes me think, “What about our protagonist? Is she just standing there watching?” (If so, there had better be a good reason, because that isn’t a very active or interesting course for her to take.)

Background details can be included; they just have to make sense in the context of what the POV character is doing at the time. In the fight scene example, maybe she could be fighting her way across the room, trying to ask each of her friends an important question, which would mean she would see what each of them is doing.

Thanks, Anica for your thoughts on this subject, I agree completely!

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I have four children, and they all love books. My youngest, 5, asks almost daily to go to the library and generally picks out books on reptiles. I’m learning a lot about them and realized that some of this information will come in handy in one of the books I’m writing.

We all know it’s never too early to help a child develop interest in books and learning.

So, what are you reading? Which books draw in your children?

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It’s a new year and we’d love to hear your writing goals. Share your successes from 2010 and what you’d like to accomplish for 2011.

This is a time for everyone to reflect on what they have in their lives to be thankful for. Often, in our writing, we struggle through the conflicts with our characters. Since this is the holiday season, I wondered, what do your characters have to be thankful for. And anyone who wants to share good news here as well, may feel free.

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Well, it’s that time, and in case you’ve forgotten, or have a life of your own, I’m one of ten finalists in the RT/ Brava contest. Each month the contestants vie for votes, and the last one standing gets a book deal. The first round is up, so go check it out. www.rtbookreviews.com/content/writing-stars-vote-first-paragraph-and-last-line.

It blows my mind that I’ve gotten the opportunity to have snippets from my manuscript published in a national magazine. How crazy is that?

This makes me reflect on the manuscript that’s featured in the contest, Dark Future. Not only is this my first manuscript, but I wrote it from an intimate place. The book started simply with my passion for telling stories. I wrote Dark Future before I knew what point of view was, active writing, or even much about grammar.

Dark Future was written from a place of truth. I took my life’s experiences and put them into book. I used my feelings of anger at my father’s abandonment, my fear of disappointing my mother, my isolation from being a new mom, and my need to get lost in a different world.

I’m still surprised at how dark some scenes from my story became. I remember feeling nervous as I wrote scenes that seemed more personal to me then just words on the page. It might have been different people in different circumstances, but they were the same feelings.

It’s scary to rip off the façade and show the world what’s underneath. It’s also addicting.

I began to write every spare second I could, longhand in a blank notebook, on a lunch hour or when the kids were napping. For me, simply completing this book was a huge accomplishment. I never dreamed it would get this far.

So, to whet your appetite, here is the pitch I used at a national conference one year.

Armageddon has arrived. One soldier stands between two worlds. One woman, chosen out of her time, stands in his way. Only together they can change the past…or face a  Dark Future.

Go and read my first paragraph and last line; it’s now up at the RT reviews books website. www.rtbookreviews.com/content/writing-stars-vote-first-paragraph-and-last-line.

And please remember to vote. This round goes from now until October 24^th, and it only takes 10 seconds!

KC Klein is the author of Dark Future, a sexy futuristic time-travel. She became serious about writing three years ago and was as surprised as anyone when her stories took a turn toward dark and snarky. Today, she divides her time between taking care of her family and driving in circles around Arizona, too busy creating stories in her head to pay attention to mere road signs. KC would love a visit at kckleinbooks.com.