Category Archives: Jo Virden

Jo Virden, Reviews

Reviews vs. Ratings: Be Careful What You Ask For

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When I wrote My Darling Dorothy, I chose words with great care. Unfortunately, I didn’t transfer that care into the marketing aspect of this project.

For the past two months, I have been soliciting reviews of My Darling Dorothy with little success. It turns out that, for most people, the word “review” evokes a great deal of fear and trepidation. Visions of having to write a 300-500 word professional assessment complete with a summary of the story, a description and assessment of character development, story flow, and what you did and did not like about the book with quotes from the book to support your statements are conjured up in the mind of the person beings asked to do the review.

I realized, after some deep thought on the subject, that a better word to describe what I am asking for is “rating.” Amazon and Goodreads both allow readers to rate books with one to five stars depending upon how well they did or did not like the book. Adding a few words regarding why they gave the novel that particular number of stars completes my request. The key phrase is, “a few words,” not a full professional review.

Another area of trepidation a friend recently shared with me is the intimidation they felt regarding putting their name on their opinion. Amazon and Goodreads take care of that issue by allowing you to use your first name only, your initials or, if you desire complete anonymity, you can choose to be referred to as “An Amazon/Goodreads Customer.”

One last area I have uncovered that prevents people from writing a review is that they fear being honest. They don’t want to hurt the author’s feelings, so they figure doing no review is better than giving the novel a bad review. It turns out that this isn’t true. The mantra amongst all book-marketing professionals has been, in my experience, “reviews sell books.” Readers choose novels to read based on a variety of ratings, not just four and five-star ratings. As a matter of fact, it begins to look suspicious when a novel receives no 1-3 star ratings. Our mothers were right; you can’t please all the people all the time. It is only fair, however, especially when giving a low rating, that a few sentences are included regarding why that rating was given.

Accepting low ratings was not an easy thing for me to embrace. I would much rather people kept those opinions to themselves. Who wouldn’t? On the other hand, if low ratings outweigh high ratings, it is a clear message to me that I have some work to do. In the end, I value honesty over false praise.

The bottom line remains that I am looking for honest ratings/reviews posted on Amazon and/or Goodreads in an effort to sell more copies of My Darling Dorothy. If you haven’t read it yet, you are in luck. Click on the website listed below and you can download a free copy of this wonderful story.

https://storycartel.com/books/my-darling-dorothy

 

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Jo Virden

Writing Dialogue

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A frequently asked question at book club gatherings is, “How do you write dialogue?” The quick answer is that I don’t write dialogue, the scene dictates the conversation and the words flow.

The truth is that I have conversations in my head all the time; between my husband and me, a friend and me, or before I retired, my boss and me. I finally learned that the conversations were really my super-ego talking to me about some imagined shortcoming. The super-ego, being the tricky entity that it is, always disguises itself as a person in my life. So, in the case of having an imagined conversation with my boss, he would ask me why I hadn’t finished a report or what I was doing to increase our efficiency. I then had to defend myself and, as embarrassing as this may sound, I could actually work myself into a tizzy, becoming angry and defensive, when in reality the entire event took place in my head and nowhere else!

When I began writing My Darling Dorothy, I found dialogue fairly simple to write. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had learned the skill from those many years of conversations with my lovely super-ego.

The other method I employ when writing dialogue is to imagine I am watching a movie. In the case of My Darling Dorothy, I imagined scenes from films made in the 1940’s. Watching the characters sweep across the big-screen in my mind is a rather entertaining exercise and provides splendid fodder for dialogue development.

The more challenging skill is learning to balance narrative with dialogue. Sometimes it’s easier to express an idea through dialogue, but sometimes a narrative is more appropriate. I find knowing when to move from dialogue to narrative is easier to do in the editing process than while I am writing the first draft. Reviewing the dialogue as part of the flow of the entire chapter allows me to more clearly determine if it is appropriate. If I decide it isn’t working, I can then either switch to more narrative or, in many cases, delete the scene entirely.

Even in scenes where the dialogue is deleted, I find the exercise of writing the conversation helps clarify what I am trying to accomplish in the scene. I ask myself if it deepens the reader’s understanding of who the character is, or for that matter, does it deepen my understanding of the character?

This has been a brief explanation of my process for writing dialogue. I would welcome hearing from other writers about their technique. In the meantime, I think I’ll go have a glass of wine, close my eyes, and listen to the ongoing conversation/movie in my head that just might lead me to my next project!

 

 

 

Betcha Didn't Know, Jo Virden

AAA and the Planimeter

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Drawing on one’s experience and mixing it with necessary research becomes fodder for creative writing. It’s part of what makes writing historical novels so appealing. In this series, entitled “Betcha Didn’t Know,” I will be explaining some of the unknown history (at least for me) that came to light during the writing of My Darling Dorothy. I hope you enjoy learning more about this era as much as I did.

Let’s start this exploration with AAA and the planimeter. The character, Dorothy, in My Darling Dorothy is based on my mother who worked for the AAA in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. Growing up I assumed those initials stood for the American Automobile Association, but back then AAA had two meanings. In my mother’s case the initials stood for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Mom always referred to it as “the triple A.”

AAA was the administrative arm of the Agricultural Adjustment Act which was passed in 1933. It was a part of FDR’s New Deal and provided much needed relief to struggling farmers who were some of the hardest hit people during (and even before) the Great Depression.

The idea was to pay farmers to reduce their production of crops such as corn and wheat, and in some cases, to kill off their livestock. By reducing crop surpluses the value of crops would rise, thus improving the farmer’s condition. In order to pay the farmers correctly aerial photography was utilized to map the landscape. The photos were then used to calculate the area of a farmer’s property using a device called a planimeter. According to Wikipedia, “ A planimeter, also known as a platometer, is a measuring instrument used to determine the area of an arbitrary two-dimensional shape.” Using the planimeter allowed the AAA to more accurately measure a farmer’s fallow land and insure he was being correctly paid.

Dorothy and many of her friends worked for the AAA in Beaver City, Nebraska analyzing photos, calculating payments, typing checks and keeping records. The AAA paid well, at least for the times, and my mother made $2.50 per day. She spoke often about how much she enjoyed the job and how much fun it was to have her own money and to spend it on nice clothes. I was intrigued about the interaction among the young women in the office, especially during the war when it became increasingly difficult for some to remain faithful to their husbands. It only made sense that for some, fidelity was extremely difficult. The character Betty describes that sort of challenge.

I was also intrigued by the interaction that must have taken place between the young women and the farmers who may have come to the office to get their money in person. As many writers do, I drew upon my own experience, as a youngster, dealing with farmers in my father’s gas station. The character named Mr. Lundquist is a compilation of some of those encounters.

Mixing imagination with facts is a challenge for all writers, but when we get it right, it makes for interesting and compelling reading. I for one enjoy being entertained while, at the same time, learning new and interesting information about the past.

The Planimeter

planimeter 3

Jo Virden, World War II era

Thoughts about VE Day

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Seventy-one years ago yesterday, the war in Europe ended. It seemed a perfect time to begin my blog regarding reflections on writing “My Darling Dorothy,” a novel which is set in the decades surrounding World War II.

My understanding of VE day has always been anchored in the incredible photo of a soldier kissing a nurse in Times Square, confetti flying everywhere, the streets packed with jubilant people; laughing, crying, and waving American flags.It seemed only logical to me that the American soldiers in Europe celebrated in a similar manner until I read a letter from my father to my mother dated May 12, 1945, five days after VE Day. Here is an excerpt from that letter:

“Hello Darling – How’s my honey making out these days? What did you do to celebrate VE day, or did you celebrate? We all thought we would, but really it didn’t seem much different than any other day here. All the difference is that the shooting is over. The day that I’ll be happy enough to do any celebrating will be when I hit the shores of the good old US.”

This changed the way I went about writing the chapter in “My Darling Dorothy” which dealt with this historic event. I had to think like a soldier. Why would I celebrate when I am still living in a tent, still eating rations, still sleeping on a cot or in a sleeping bag in a foreign country, far from home and the people I love? While it’s true that they no longer had to worry about shots being fired, the worry and anxiety didn’t disappear, it simply changed focus to, “How and when am I going home?” I learned an important lesson about writing a novel with an historical base, something I should have remembered from my thirty-seven year nursing career: never assume.

As I continued reading Smitty’s (my father’s) letters, I learned about where a soldier’s focus shifted. Everything revolved around the Advanced Service Rating score. This was a fascinating discovery for me, something I knew nothing about until I read the following excerpt from the same letter quoted above.

“Sweating this point system out is as bad as sweating out an artillery barrage, almost. (Ha) I have 84 points. That isn’t enough to get me home very fast. Of course I’ll make it in time, I guess, but god only knows how long a time that will be.”

Reading between the lines, it’s fairly easy to feel the angst that is masqueraded as humor in his comment about waiting. Imagine making it through the entire war, in Smitty’s case three years, and then having to wait for an undetermined amount of time to go home. As a writer, this creates a challenge; to get the reader to feel the anxiety and worry, just as Smitty did, waiting to find out when it would finally end for him.

I’ll write more about the Advance Service Rating in future blogs. Today, I am going to spend a couple of minutes in silence, recollecting that incredible day, and feeling grateful that Smitty made it home.