Continuing with author Kaylan Doyle, the first question in particular I found interesting as Kaylan and I had totally different reactions to Margie Lawson. I blogged about her courses here before. Now, listening to Kaylan, I wonder if Margie is a person who presents better in person compared to the written, online courses. Anyway, Kaylan has a lot of interesting things to say here.

Lisa:  Your pacing is fast, the story moves quickly – beginning to end – and still adds a lot of rich detail. How do you manage to keep up the speed, keep the reader in the moment, keep the pages turning?

Kaylan:  My biggest struggle is with pacing. Several years ago an agent remarked that she loved my manuscript, but it read like a slow-moving promenade. Definitely not good. She also said if I revised, she’d love to read it again. Panic struck! I had no clue – either how to identify my problems or how to fix them. I found a local two-day workshop taught by Margie Lawson. I learned so much that I went on to complete her lecture packets and attended her Master Immersion workshop. The tools Margie taught me took my writing to the desired level. She’s the best, in my humble opinion! J

For ‘descriptions + speed’, I search for dual-purpose adjectives. These not only identify and describe an object, but also limit the number of words. An example would be something like ‘the cut-crystal ceiling’. In four words, I have a mental picture of looking up through a clear faceted sparkling ceiling at the sky overhead. It’s a little added work, but I believe the results are well worth it.

Lisa:  What do you do to identify pacing problems? And what are the fixes?

Kaylan  In my first edit phase, I do a ‘search’ (and destroy) on key words – finding and replacing passive words with powerful ones. They are: not, had, was, that, would, could, which.

This is my short list and I weed these mercilessly. My rewritten/reordered sentences are always more powerful than the original. I also apply a secondary list of ‘weak or overused words’ to make sure each sentence is as full and rich as possible.

Lisa:  Can you share that second list and explain what you mean by weak or overused?

Kaylan:  Sure! J They are: it, they, them, were, some, really, turn, stood reached, lifted, picked up, bent, might, very, feel, sometimes, even, indeed, maybe, look, smile, said. The second part of this includes a search for words ending in *ing* or *ly*. These often prove to be adverbs which almost always weaken the sentence rather than amplifying it.

In the overused/weak category, these are the comfortable words. Take smile, for example. If you search your manuscript for it – you may find several usages in the same chapter. Okay, maybe on the same page. J The challenge is to avoid substituting a synonym like ‘grin’ and continuing on. How many times does your character ‘look’? Instead – using non-verbal body language – we can paint a mental picture of the character’s actions in our reader’s mind.

Lisa:  In your novels, do you always have a strong female protagonist? If so why, and do you have those     you use as models?

Kaylan:  The women in my family, my friends, and women I admire all have steel spines. Whatever the task or challenge, no matter how difficult, I’ve seen them take a deep breath, gather their internal resolve, and make it happen. Or accept and cope with dignity. My female protagonists, modeled on women I know, are a composite of traits. But the single common denominator they all share is core strength. Based on adverse circumstances (for which I am responsible … J), my women may question themselves, or appear weak. Forced to dig deep within, they always find untapped reservoirs of strength and purpose to save others or themselves.

Lisa:  There is a comedic twist, dry humor although the subject matter is often dark, bloody. Do you draw on people you know or where do you find it?

Kaylan:  You know those people who always seem to laugh (or find humor) in those inappropriate situations? Like when someone takes a tumble, and they could be injured, but the fall was so incredibly funny that your head almost explodes from trying NOT to laugh? That would be me. I have always seen the ‘black’ or ‘gallows’ humor and I just let it out to play in my characters.

On a serious side, people often use humor to lighten terrible subjects, to stave-off fear, or to distract others from uncomfortable or dangerous situations. Just another way, I believe, that we deal with the horrible when we have to. Because we do this in our everyday lives, I love developing my characters’ senses of humor – no boundaries, no hurt feelings (well, except for another character). J

Lisa: Have to admit, in my own writing, the things that make me laugh out loud are usually rather black! I love Kaylan’s word search. I do the same thing, and my favorite word, used way too much, and cut ruthlessly is ‘that’. I rarely find a sentence that isn’t stronger without it. Except maybe the one I just wrote.

Thanks so much to Kaylan for taking the time to do this interview. Words of wisdom, shared with humor. Doesn’t get better than that.

Following is part of an interview with Kaylan Doyle, author of Survivors’ Dreams.  I caught up with her not too long after her return from a very successful book launch at DragonCon. Please feel free to ask her questions and leave comments. I’ve always thought writing science fiction would be extremely hard, but Ms. Doyle makes it sound like a fun challenge.

Lisa: How do you come up with names when writing science fiction/fantasy?

Kaylan: I generally think of a personality type which relates to a given name – often a nickname comes first. With Rak’khiel (Kel), I knew my female protagonist was warrior race, a “killer”, if you will. Kill became Kel, and with the Kra’aken language using a double letter separated by an apostrophe, Kel became Rak’khiel. I work phonetically so that there is a rhythmical, melodic feeling to the names. I admit Prince Helrazr was a tongue-in-cheek pun– because he is a handful, and a favorite with the ladies.

Lisa: On a related note, how do you keep them unique without being too different, so that a reader struggles with pronunciation or feels pulled out of a story?

Kaylan: By using nicknames whenever I can – they are short, and it doesn’t slow the pace for my readers. I’ve read enough science fiction/fantasy to be aggravated by unpronounceable names thirteen letters long – I try very hard not to do that.

Lisa:  I can build a world where I live that will be unique to some readers, but still have a frame of reference. If I write about a tree, readers will picture what that means to them. Yet when world-building everything is original. So how and where do you start, and yet still give readers a frame of reference?

Kaylan: Oh, you’ve hit on the fun part! Take a tree – some of mine are red and silver – there are no limits. I reference the standard item – so my readers know what I’m describing and then I let imagination run crazy. I always try to include the senses – the sight of leaf color or bizarre shape of the tree, the touch and feel of the weird colored bark, the smells can be anything from nice to nasty – cinnamon to burning ozone.

Lisa: Do you find building a character that lives in a different universe harder, or are the principles the same?

Kaylan: It’s the same, truly, but with such complete freedom. Aliens don’t have to be nice, or kind, or helpful.  Their culture, their rules, their rights and wrongs – they can be perfectly awful by our standards and great guys by theirs. So yes, I use our structure, but I often twist their societal requirements or customs.

Lisa: The idea of not just creating a story, but creating a whole unique foundation for that story fascinating. When writing this type of fiction, where do you stumble, what comes easiest, what do you most look forward to, what do you most dread?

Kaylan: Oh boy. I knew what the problems between Kel and Razr would be, and I knew the planet of Olica would be hostile to them. What I didn’t know was why, or who. To arrive at that, I wrote Kra’aken history and backstory until I found an old enemy species. To be honest, the only parts of the story I find difficult to write are the serious love scenes. What I truly love are the scenes where my strong female protagonist, with true justification, kicks backside with extreme prejudice.

Lisa: Two of your main characters come from a world, through a portal, and end up in proximity to each other, even though they are in no way similar. You’ve written this in a very believable fashion, but did you at any point worry about the plot becoming a coincidence, and how did you avoid that pitfall?

Kaylan: No, the possibility of coincidence never entered my mind. It probably should have – it would have been easy for the story line to feel contrived. J But when Kel and Razr told me their adventures, they also presented the logical “how” that they managed to wind up on the same world at the same time. Lucky for me!

Part 2 will soon follow…