I thought we could take a week off. I said, please talk amongst yourself.

Haha!  Not so fast.

Ok we are ready for you to come back and talk to us…lol

Where are you?  You stopped posting…

I just want you to know that if something happened, we’re here for you.

Shiloh became concerned.

recovering?
hiding?
okay?

And the coup de grace

Are you dead?

We are not dead! We took a week off.  It’s called vacation.

So then we come back and load  a new theme.  The old one was creaking a bit under the strain of WordPress updates and those super long thumbnails kind of drove me nuts.  They look nice, but getting a new thumbnail image of at least 600px in width for every post proved to be too much work.

We load the new theme.  Oh noes!  We don’t like it.  Your paper stack isn’t perfectly stacked – it’s not meant to be, btw – and the sidebar is in the wrong spot and there is too much and not enough space in the comments, and fuss-fuss-fuss.  Cry-cry-cry.

If you don’t like change, just wait until you read the Edge 4.  We’re killing everybody.   You guys said there wasn’t enough angst in FATE’S EDGE.  :

:rolls up sleeves::

I’ll give you angst.  Just you wait.

On a more serious note, I’ve reloaded a different theme with the exact same images.  This one has a little more power under the hood.  The comment page link is now more clearly marked: it’s right where the comment number is.

Today will be the prep day – tomorrow we officially start on Edge 4, so today we need to get the synopsis down and the character descriptions.

And how was your week?

PS.  For people who asked: this theme is very slightly modified News Theme, which can be found here: http://themehybrid.com/themes

The editing is taking every single iota of will I have.  Andrea is a very complicated character, deeply flawed and damaged.  While there are moments of complete hilarity in the novel, a lot of it is dealing with some harsh topics, like aftermath of abuse and relationship problems,

It doesn’t help that Andrea is somewhat confused about her own identity.  She is torn between shapeshifter and human, love for Raphael and anger at him, being a tough competent investigator in her professional life and a girlie girl in her private moments.

So the editing is slow going.  There are a lot of challenges here, which I find myself embracing.  Popcorn fun is great once in a while, but this sort of detailed character work is  difficult but also fun.  The only downside is that it requires a lot of brain power.  If only I could claw myself  free of the medicine fog, I’d be all set.

Today should be the day we start the Andrea’s revisions, but it might be a day of Skyrim instead.

Usually when we write a book, I know the beginning and end before we start.  Down to the final phrase.  A book should invoke a certain mood, and that begging and end frame helps to make sure the manuscript delivers that specific feeling we are aiming for.  Start – stuff happens – end.

With Andrea’s book – not so much.  It really needs a new beginning and a new end.

I feel like it needs to be bigger, better, badder.  More.  It needs to push the comfort zone boundaries a little.  I’ve watched the second Sherlock Holmes movie, and it’s a huge, grandiose movie.  That’s kind what I wanted, that OMG factor.

I keep waiting for the lightning to strike, but nothing.  No matter how much I strain my brain, the frame refuses to solidify.  We need a dramatic opening, but not too dramatic, because ACE is treating the spin-offs as a “new” series, and it must be written in such a way that a person who has never read a Kate book could pick it up.  Which means a lot of explaining of things.

I’m not sure why the hell is this so hard.  I think my brain is fried.  I thought of starting with a dream and seriously considered it, which means I am completely out of it.  Starting with a dream is generally a terrible idea.  You’re trying to establish trust with the readers, and tricking them in the very beginning of the story is usually not a good policy.

I made a new Skyrim character, a Red Guard thief.  I think I will crawl around some dungeons and hope something will congeal in my head.

How was your Christmas?

Milly from Australia – Page 5, Comment 31

Jennifer S – Page 1, Comment 39

Artangel – Page 6, Comment 4

Please email us, and I will send the manuscript your way.

I was sitting in my office, thinking my life was pretty good.   The magic was down, I had a hot cup of coffee and Great Big Sea on the old CD player.  The last couple of weeks had been awful. Well, that was a bit of an understatement.  Members of the Pack had broken my first law and joined Kate in the Midnight Games.  Derek got hurt, bad.   Kate almost died, and I have never been that scared, not since my family was murdered.  I had felt that same sense of helplessness as I held her limp form.  Still we won, the kid recovered his health if not his looks, and things had calmed down.

I even managed to put that fucking pervert in his place.  Such a waste, instead of reveling in the power of his true form, he hid like a coward behind beautiful masks and played seduction games.  Saiman was weak but very vain. I had stung his pride.  He would probably retaliate in some way.

I toyed with the idea of telling Jim to get rid of him.  It would be easy.  Saiman had no friends or family.  Who would miss him?  Besides Saiman dealt in knowledge and secrets, and I knew a jaguar who would love to spend some quality time with him and pry some information out of that pretty head.

I drank my coffee from my blue metal mug..  When I was a kid, after my parents died, I’d lived in the woods for a while and once I’d raided a holiday cabin.  They had a set of blue metal plates and mugs, the camping dinnerware.  I’d stolen it and their instant coffee and drank it by myself that night over my meager fire.  That first cup of coffee had tasted like pure heaven.  George, Mahon’s daughter, had found the same set of plates and gave it to me for Christmas.

A familiar scent and a knock on the door told me my head of security had arrived.

Think of the devil…

“Come in.”

Jim strode through the door, carrying a thick leather file.  At least an inch thick.  Great.  This would take forever.

Jim checked the hallway and closed the door behind him.  He was wearing his “we need to talk face,” which was quite different from his normal “I’m a badass don’t mess with me” face that Jim believed to be pleasantly neutral.  He wasn’t just physically imposing; he had the ability to radiate menace.  I think most of the time he was not even aware of it.  He would make a terrible kindergarten teacher, but he was perfect in his position as Alpha of Clan Cat and my second in command.  The rest of the clans did not necessarily like him but they respected his power and position.

“We need to talk,” he announced without preamble.

And there went my pleasant mood.  I braced myself.  “How bad is it?”  It sure as hell wouldn’t be good.

He put an old Polaroid down in front of me.  In it a young girl, maybe twelve or thirteen,  with swollen eye and a split lip, stared back at me defiantly.  I would know those eyes anywhere.

“Kate,” I said.  It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”  Jim sat down into the chair.  ”The best we can figure this was taken in Guatemala, over a decade ago.  She won a bare-knuckle boxing tournament.  The rest were boys, some as old as 16.”

“Is that a big thing down there now?”

“Yeah, I guess it beats watching roosters tear each other apart.”

And humans called us animals.  “Why are you showing me this?”

He held up a finger.  Apparently there was more.  Jim opened the file in his hand, took another picture and put it down.  Kate older now, a gladius in her right hand and a bandage on her left shoulder.

“Rio,” he announced, “two years later.  She fought in and won a citywide sword tourney, sponsored by one of the big gangs.  A way of scouting new talent I suppose.  Matches only ended when one of the fighters was crippled or killed.  She disabled most of her opponents, but the last guy, twice her size and age, she sliced his throat open in thirty seconds.  They called her ‘pequena assassina’ and still remember her.”

The little killer.  Kate would love that.  So her childhood had been horrific.  A lot of people had less than perfect childhoods.  Why did he feel it was so important?  There had to be more.

“I thought she was raised by Greg.”  Greg was a knight of the Order, a diviner, and an ally.  He died a couple of years ago.  That’s when I met Kate.  She came looking for his murderer.

Jim shook his head.  “No, this was before that.  But it segues nicely into the next bit.”

He pointed at the first and then the second picture, “Look closely, notice anything?”

It took me a few moments but I found him, the same man in the crowd, staring at Kate with what might be described as fierce pride or approval on his cruel looking face.  He was big, dwarfing the men around him.  Tall, powerful, well muscled, despite being in his late forties or early fifties.  His graying hair hung limply down to his broad shoulders.  His features once perhaps handsome had turned coarse, thickened by scar tissue and time.  He looked like an old boxer who spent too many days exposed to sun and wind.  Still he bore no resemblance to the young Kate in the photos.

Jim put another photo down.  In this picture Kate and the man sat in a bar, a bottle of something between them, too out of focus to read the label.  Kate looked about fourteen.

“They traveled together,” Jim said. “They never stayed anywhere for very long.  Every once in a while they would show up, enter some sort of martial contest or take a hard job, win, kill, and leave.  This was Cuba.  They were spotted once more in Miami, then not seen again.  At least not together.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“I have a pretty good idea.” He pulled out a thin manila folder labeled “Voron” out of the leather file and opened it on the desk in front of me.

Inside was a picture of the same man, younger looking, maybe by a decade or more, in some sort of combat fatigues.  He held a black axe in one hand and a man’s severed head by the hair in another.  His face was demonic, twisted by elation, reveling in violence, like an ancient battle mask.  He seemed to be roaring toward the sky.  He resembled nothing more than bloody god of war.  Invincible and terrible to behold.

“Why is he dressed like a soldier but holding an axe?’

“Technically it is a tactical tomahawk.  It was known to be his weapon of choice once he ran out of bullets.  Our information leads us to believe that this picture was taken over fifty years ago.  Magic was coming back but it was still weak and guns were more reliable.”

“A pleasant chap,” I remarked.

“You have no idea. By all accounts he was a gifted commander but prone to berserker rages.  In hand to hand combat he would be overcome by bloodlust and tear into his enemies like an animal.”

“I think I already know, but why not tell me who held this beast’s chain?”

“His master was Roland, Builder of towers and Lord of the People.”

Fucking shit. Metal groaned in my hand.  I put the crushed clump of blue down on my desk and shook the coffee off my hand.  Jim said nothing, just waited.

“Now you are going to tell me why Kate was raised by this man and why I should give a damn.” Why could nothing with Kate be simple?  Why couldn’t Jim ever just come by to tell me that he had bowled a perfect game or benched a personal best.  Maybe finally asked that weird tiger girl out.

“I like Kate,” Jim said. “I’ve known her for years and we’ve even saved each other’s asses, more than a few times.  I didn’t care much then where she grew up or who she was related to, only that she was good with a blade and did what she said she would.  She talked a lot of shit, but she could mostly back it up.”

Jim leaned back.   ”At present everything is different.  Personally I admire her. You could do a lot worse, but it’s my job to tell you what you don’t want to hear.  Now, I’m going to tell you a story and you are going to listen to me because I’m in charge of Pack’s security and I’m your friend.”

Fuck you and fuck your story. “Proceed.”

“This here is what you call an urban legend or modern day fairy tale.  It involves a very bad man, king of the vamps and all manner of horrible undead shitheads.  People like Ghastek and even this Voron, they flocked to him.  He can keep them alive, young.  He is old, real old, like he’s in the Bible old.  He built a great tower and even, according to some, made the first vampire.  For most he is a legend, like Merlin or Heracles.  Real smart people, college educated types, will tell you that he is a parable or an analogy.  Same types will tell you that Cain and Able is about hunting gathering cultures being replaced by agriculture and the rise of cities.  That Roland represents rulers and their laws imposing order on chaos and anarchy.  That he is every fabled builder or city founder.  That’s all good and well I suppose, but the truth is he exists.  We both know that.  The rest is not as easy.  There are a lot of stories about him, some true, some not.  What we do know is that every one of his children has rebelled against him.  Some rejected him, some the less fortunate sought to usurp him.  Gilgamesh, for example, left and founded Uruk.  Abraham took him on and lost.  Everything…”

I interrupted him, “Jim, where did you get this shit?”

“I did some checking.  I got my sources.”

“You asked Dali, didn’t you?”

He broke into a rare grin, “Yep, she is damn smart, took her awhile but she dug most of this up.”

“Does she know you like her?”

“We aren’t talking about me.  We are talking about you and your… hunny bunny.”

“In that case, professor, I’m terribly sorry for interrupting your fascinating lecture on bullshit, please proceed.”

He shrugged.  “Thank you, I will.  Now before you interrupted me, I was explaining that Roland had bad luck with his children.  Very tragic.  Now fast forward to about thirty years ago.  The main man has a new consort.  She is beautiful and everyone loves her.  Especially Roland.  He is smitten, and soon his lady is in a family way.  At first Roland is overjoyed.  It has been centuries since he spawned any little monsters and he is feeling sentimental.  Everybody is happy.  Then out of nowhere he changes his mind and tries to kill his blushing bride and the child she is carrying.  She flees with his Warlord.  It’s like King Arthur, but Lancelot is a butcher and Guinevere is knocked up.”

This story was just getting better and better.

Jim kept going.  “The two of them take off to parts unknown.  Like any man would be Roland is put out and looks for them.  He isn’t any man though, and nowhere in the world is safe for them.  He finds them and confronts her, while Voron fled with the child.  Roland kills his wife but not before she takes out his eye.  Grievously wounded and heartbroken, he leaves.  Alone.  Now Voron being a hopeless romantic, raises this child to be as deadly a killer as he can make her.  They travel, they train and he hones her into a living weapon.  One he will wield against his former master.  He tells her how her father tried to murder her and killed her mother.  At some point, he got careless and had to leave the girl with another man.  The killers were close when he disappeared.  His whereabouts are currently unknown.”

“That is a great story Jim, but what does it have to do with me?”  I was daring him to say it.

“You know damn well what it has to do with you. There are more pictures, more testimony from witnesses, more legends.  It’s all in there.”  He pushed the file across the desk toward me.  I kept my eyes locked on his, until he looked down.

“I’m sorry, he said. “I didn’t want to tell you all of this and if you love her, I will stand by you.  Both of you.  But you have to know.  He’s going to come for her.  He always does.”

“Then we will fight him.”  No man would ever take from me what was mine.

“Yes, we will but we might not win.”

“Who else knows?”

“Me, you, Doolittle suspects, Mahon knows and likes it not at all.  He sees her as a threat to the Pack.  He is not wrong.  He always hoped you would end up with one of the girls, George maybe.”  He smiled, “Keep it all in the family, I guess.  Kills him a little that you chose Kate.”

“He will get over it.”  George was my sister.  Kate… I didn’t want anyone else.  Just Kate.

Jim nodded. “Look, you, Kate, I get it.  I just wish it could have been somebody else. If Roland comes… We aren’t ready for him yet.  Even if we win, most of us will not make it.  I hope she is worth it.”

“Roland is coming anyway,” I said.  “Whether Kate is part of the equation or not.  She made a third of a demon army kneel.  She has power and she will be an asset.” And I loved her.

“What if she runs when her daddy shows up?”

I stared at him.  “Kate? We’re talking about the same woman, right?  When other people are running away, she runs into the fight.”

“Roland is very strong,” Jim said.  “Look, I don’t know that much about how their magic works, but from what Dali said, Kate took that sword to the gut because it was made out of her father’s blood. She couldn’t control it by just grabbing it.  She had to dissolve it into her body.  That tells you something.

It told me Kate had a long way to go before she could face her father.  She would need help and I would be that help.

“I am going to see her in a week,” I said.  “She’s making me dinner.”

Jim sighed.  “So you decided.”

“I decided.”

“Okay.”  He chewed on that for a while.  “Well, it will make my life easier.  I guess my people can stop chasing after you when you go to visit her apartment.”

I simply looked at him.

Jim rose and walked to the door.  “One thing.  If I were Voron, I’d program her to hide who she is.  The man wasn’t a moron.  He would’ve drilled it into her to hide.  Does she trust you enough to tell you who she is?  Because if there is no trust, you know this won’t work.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” I said.

There are good days and then there are not so good ones. Theoretically I know this, but practically not so good days kick my ass.

But I have my cup of coffee and I have made breakfast and now I need to suck it up and drive on. Onward and upward to mighty wordcount!

You, me, and possibly Laura if we can talk her into it.  ————-> Knitting party! We can embarrass our children/husbands and flaunt our embarrassing ways on the interwebs.  It will be glorious.

***

I got 2,102 words yesterday.  I have made a certain deal with a couple of friends, where we all are trying to meet our writing goals for November, and the one who fails the most will have to buy tea for the rest of the people from Tea Forte.

I am still in the running for that tea.  It was touch and go for a bit, but I am determined to kick butt today.  Must get tea!  I have two weeks to catch up.

***

We finally found a doctor.  She was very nice and all of us really likes her.  I feel a smidgeon less nuts.

***

Yesterday as we pulled up to the house, there were packages by the door.  Large packages.  (He also broke my camera by dropping it, so there are no actual pictures.)  First I opened the small package and there was a book in it.

Hmmm.  Small problem – I don’t own the bread machine.

Then I opened the medium sized package.

Bread saver.  Again, no bread machine.

Then I opened the third package.

It has a built in dry yeast dispenser.  It makes bread in two hours.  Two! Hours! Can you believe that?  It’s like a space bread machine.

I made bread last night and it was awesome.  Even the kids ate a little bit.

LITERAL ADDICTION Web Event

• Intro will be on : http://www.literaladdiction.com
• Q&A will be on http://www.literaladdiction.com/authors-corner.php/ and http:/www.bookmonsterreviews.blogspot.com/
• 3-5pm EST Live Chat will be on http://www.literaladdiction.com/author-chat.php/.

I have new hair! It has red in it!  I wasn’t going to do it, because ti was pricy, but the whole family told me to go, so I did.  On the plus side as I was laying in the chair, with gloss setting on my hair, lights off and soothing music playing, I realized the reason why I was having trouble with my word count in the past couple of days.  I need to write a character out of these last three scenes.  On a minus side, I need to rewrite the last 3K.  Grrr!

I promised you a snippet.

Barabas stepped into his place and leaned against my desk, his arms folded over his chest.  “As your attorney, I am forced to advise you to stay away from that crime scene.  We both know you won’t, but if you get caught, there will be repercussions.”

“Thank you for the warning.” Now I had advice from both doctor and a lawyer. “I’ll definitely take it under consideration.”

I had to go back to the scene.  Everyone in the room knew it.

“Also, you won’t like hearing this, but as a lawyer, I’m used to that.  Your position with the Pack is muddy.  This makes things a hell of a lot more complicated than they have to be.  Sort yourself out.”

He was right.  I needed to carve out some time and settle things with Aunt B.

Barabas looked at Julie.  “Please get your bag.  We’re going back to the Keep.”

Julie crossed her arms.  “But…”

“Julia,” Barabas said calmly.  “Please get your bag.”

Julie stomped to the kitchen and returned with her backpack.

“Take Ascanio with you, too,” I told him.

Ascanio heaved a heavy sigh and went to stand by the door.  Julie stomped on his foot as she passed him and he elbowed her in the ribs.

“Call me if anything,” Barabas told me.

“Sure.”

A moment and both the lawyer and the doctor were gone and I was left alone in the office.  I barred the door, locked it, and pondered whether it was worth it to force myself upstairs to the bed or if I should just lay down on the nice comfortable wooden floor.  My dignity won.  I was a hardass, God damn it.  I could deal with nine stairs.  I would kick their ass.

I dragged myself to the upstairs cot and collapsed face down.  I meant to take off my shoes, but the world slipped through my fingers before I had a chance to lift my head from my pillow.

Topics of discussion include OCGA 16-10-24, general definition of obstruction of justice, and behavior of said weremongoose.

Special requirements: must be able to use small words to explain things to me.I have watched Duane’s speech, and read the Georgia code, and read through Doyle’s Obstruction of Justice Congressional Report, and I’ve concluded that I need assistance, because Barabas sounds like a deranged Perry Mason.

Pay: none, but I will mention your name in acknowledgments.

Update: Help was found!  Thank you so much for all of your kind offers of assistance!

“…An important plot point in the very first scene mentions that the character has so much business she can’t handle it all thus she might need to take on an apprentice.  Then eight chapters later the same character says business has been slow lately…. I’m writing you … wondering if this IS the sort of detail that is generally caught by editors or beta readers or is there someone else that maybe does a cold read at the end of the editing process? ”

It should have been caught.  In theory.  In practice stuff like this gets through.

There two possibilities here: either CE didn’t not see this or the author chose not to accept the correction.  I have learned that no matter how many passes you make, you will still find errors in a manuscript.  In general though, the more eyes see the manuscript prior to publication, the better.

[hr]

P. writes

“I know the best advice given to new/young writers is read, read, read and write, write, write. So, I read and read, but while writing I’ve discovered a block I can’t seem to get past. While writing short stories or fables this doesn’t bother me so much, but when trying to put an idea for a longer story on paper, I try to stay away from emulating the authors of the genre I’m trying in – that is, I try to write in third person :] – but somehow I can’t find the voice I’m looking for. I can’t decide how to narrate my story. The narrative decides how you explain the characters and how you unfold the story, right?  So, my first question – how did you find your voice? How did you KNOW it was the right style to write your story in?

Emulating other authors is normal.  I’ve pointed it out before – almost every successful writer goes through a stage where he or she writes a derivative work.  That’s how we learn to write.  :)

“…That is, I try to write in third person” – does it feel “right” writing in the third person or is this a choice you are making to distinguish yourself from other writers?  If it’s the second, then your voice troubles might be happening because you are forcing yourself into the pattern you don’t subconsciously feel is comfortable for you.  Here is a secret: at the end of the day, nobody really cares if the narrative is in the first or third person.  The questions that an agent or editor will ask themselves when reading someone’s work: are the characters engaging?  Is the worldbuilding unique?  Does the narrative move well?  Third or first doesn’t really enter the evaluation process.  :)

“The narrative decides how you explain the characters and how you unfold the story, right?”  

No.  The point of view character determines how the story is told.  We read for the characters.  The style of the narrative is always determined by the character, whether the character speaks directly (1st person), indirectly (3rd person) or the author becomes a character himself (omniscient.)

Therefore, your point of view character creates the style in which the story is told.

“Pia was blackmailed into committing a crime more suicidal than she could possibly have imagined, and she had no one to blame but herself.

Knowing that didn’t make it easier. She couldn’t believe she had been so lacking in good judgment, taste, or sensibility.

Honestly, what had she done? She had taken one look at a pretty face and forgotten everything her mom had taught her about survival. It sucked so bad she might as well put a gun to her head and pull the trigger. Except she didn’t own a gun because she didn’t like them. Besides, pulling the trigger on a gun was pretty final. She had issues with commitment and she was so freaking dead anyway, so why bother.”

-DRAGON BOUND,  Thea Harrison

(I started it last night.  Will let you know how it is.)

This is Pia talking.  Pia the scared, shifty thief, who is having regrets and is mad at herself.

“Moon. Glorious moon. Full, fat, reddish moon, the night as light as day, the moonlight flooding down across the land and bringing joy, joy, joy. Bringing too the full-throated call of the tropical night, the soft and wild voice of the wind roaring through the hairs on your arm, the hollow wail of starlight, the teeth-grinding bellow of the moonlight off the water.

All calling to the Need. Oh, the symphonic shriek of the thousand hiding voices, the cry of the Need inside, the entity, the silent watcher, the cold quiet thing, the one that laughs, the Moondancer. The me that was not-me, the thing that mocked and laughed and came calling with its hunger. With the Need. And the Need was very strong now, very careful cold coiled creeping crackly cocked and ready, very strong, very much ready now—and still it waited and watched, and it made me wait and watch.

I had been waiting and watching the priest for five weeks now. The Need had been prickling and teasing and prodding at me to find one, find the next, find this priest. For three weeks I had known he was it, he was next, we belonged to the Dark Passenger, he and I together. And that three weeks I had spent fighting the pressure, the growing Need, rising in me like a great wave that roars up and over the beach and does not recede, only swells more with every tick of the bright night’s clock.”

DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER, Jeff Lindsay

Dexter Morgan, serial killer.

The Angel

In which our hero experiences Hope, the greatest gift * The bacon sandwich of regret * Somber reflections on capital punishment from the hangman * Famous last words * Our hero dies * Angels, conversations about * Inadvisability of misplaced offers regarding broomsticks * An unexpected ride  * A world free of honest men * A man on the hop * There is always a choice 

They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged.

The man going to be hanged had been named Moist von Lipwig by doting if unwise parents, but he was not going to embarrass the name, insofar as that was still possible, by being hung under it. To the world in general, and particularly on that bit of it known as the death warrant, he was Alfred Spangler.

And he took a more positive approach to the situation and had concentrated his mind on the prospect of not being hanged in the morning, and, most particularly, on the prospect of removing all the crumbling mortar from around a stone in his cell wall with a spoon. So far the work had taken him five weeks and reduced the spoon to something like a nail file. Fortunately, no one ever came to change the bedding here, or else they would have discovered the world’s heaviest mattress.

GOING POSTAL, Terry Pratchett

The author is talking. The long-suffering, wise, secret god of Ankh-Morpork.  :)

Think of your characters as a compass or a tinted window.  We, the readers, perceive the world through that character. He or she determine if we view other characters in a positive or negative light and his life experiences and temper dictate how the story sounds.

Kingsley was short and sort of plump. He needed a haircut and his big gray moustache was untrimmed. He had on a green and black plaid woolen shirt and a leather vest. His half glasses were halfway down his nose so he could stare over them while he talked. He looked like an overweight Titus Moody. He owned and edited the third largest newspaper in the state, and he had more money than Yoko Ono.

Parker, Robert B.. Pale Kings and Princes (Spenser) (pp. 1-2). Dell. Kindle Edition.

I was at the downstairs bar in the Parker House drinking Killian Red Ale with Rita Fiore, who was an assistant DA from Norfolk County and, myself excepted, the best-looking law person in Boston. In point of fact I wasn’t exactly a law person anymore, and in point of more fact Rita wasn’t drinking Red Ale with me. She was drinking Glenfiddich on the rocks and smoking long Tareyton cigarettes.

“The DEA guy’s name is Fallon,” Rita said. “I’ve known him two, three years, he’s okay.  Just don’t talk too fast.”

“Or use big words?” I said.

Rita nodded. Her thick reddish hair lay on her shoulders, and her tailored black suit fit snugly. Her stockings were patterned with flowers. Everything was nicely proportioned, very trim.

Parker, Robert B.. Pale Kings and Princes (Spenser) (p. 9). Dell. Kindle Edition.

 What do we know about this character?  He is older – he makes references to Yoko Ono and not Bill Gates.  He evaluates other man on the basis of their threat potential: he notes that his opponent is short, soft, and has poor eyesight.  He evaluates women on the basis of physical beauty – he notes woman’s hair color and her clothes.  He is neat in his attire and physically trim, because he finds those qualities attractive in others.  He is self-aware – he knows that the woman is not there because she is besotted with him – and is prone to self-deprecation.

Think about your character.  Your character will determine your narrative voice.  :)