Michelle Connor's Blog

American readers, please check a book isn't written in British English before you give it a one star and tell them to get an editor. Or that you understand all the differences in the language.

Many people think British written books are full of typo's when in fact they aren't, they are just written in British English. So, I've started to compile a list of differences.


British on the left, American on the right.

Grey – Gray
Towards – Toward
Colour – Color
Flavour – Flavor
Enrolment – Enrollment
Capitalise – Capitalize
Monologue – Monolog
Favourite – Favorite
Fulfil – Fulfill
Analyse – Analyze
Fibre – Fiber
Calibre – Caliber
Vaporise – Vaporize
Dialogue – Dialog
Fulfil – Fulfill
Apologise – Apologize
Saviour – Savior
Neighbour – Neighbor
Criticise – Criticize
Instalment – Installment
Instil – Instill
Skilful – Skillfull
Odour – Odor
Vapour - Vapor
Catalogue – Catalog
Wilful – Wilfull
Spectre – Specter
Authorise – Authorize
Litre – Liter
Skilful – Skilfull
Behaviour – Behavior
Organise – Organize
Theatre – Theater
Centimetre – Centimeter
Diarrhoea – Diarrhea
Meagre – Meager
Pretence – Pretense
Lustre – Luster
Harbour - Harbor
Counsellor – Counselor
Millimetre – Millimeter
Realise – Realize
Homour-Humor
Judgement - Judgment
Acknowledgement – Acknowledgment
Recognise – Recognize
Aluminium – Aluminum
Pyjamas – Pajamas
Fuelled - Fueled
Fuelling – Fueling
Kilometre – Kilometer
Plough – Plow
Omelette – Omelet
Sombre – Somber
Moustache – Mustache
Sceptic – Skeptic
Axe – Ax
Practise (verb) – Practice ( verb)
Practice (noun) – Practice (noun) The same for the noun.
Practising – Practicing
Whisky – Whiskey
Epilogue – Epilog
Prologue – Prolog
Cosy – Cozy
Woollen – Woolen
Ageing – Aging
Manoeuvre – Maneuver
Tyre – Tire
Mould – Mold
Defence – Defense
Offence – Offense
Honour - Honor
Licence (noun) – License (noun)
License (verb) – License (verb) The same for the verb.
Jewellery – Jewelery
Enthral – Enthrall
Rumour – Rumor
Travelling – Traveling
Traveller – Traveler
Travelled – Traveled
Marvellous – Marvelous
Quarrelling – Quarreling
Splendour – Splendor
Nought – Naught
Labour – Labor
Parallelled – Paralleled
Cancelled – Canceled
Mr Robinson – Mr. Robinson
Mrs Robinson – Mrs. Robinson


If you know of a word not currently on the list, leave a comment below. :)

👎👎👎💖✨WHERE RAVENS SOAR - FREE FOR THE DAY✨💖👎👎👎

GRAB YOUR FREE COPY BETWEEN: Monday, March 4, 2019, 12:00 AM PST - Tuesday, March 5, 2019, 11:59 PM PST

AMAZON CO UK LINK: HERE
AMAZON COM LINK: HERE

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Where Ravens Soar

👎👎👎THE BOUND AND THE REST OF THE SERIES ARE FREE UNTIL THE 19th NOVEMBER👎👎👎

THE BOUND:

AMAZON CO UK LINKMichelle ConnorThe BoundThe FreedThe Deceived
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THE DECEIVED:

AMAZON COM
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THE FREED:

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Blurb:

A captivating new YA serial fantasy trilogy, perfect for adults or teens.

When Aveline is betrothed to the lord of her village, it starts a journey that will take her far from home and everything she has ever known.
Embark on a coming of age journey with Aveline, as she stumbles into a dragon, a creature from fairytales and a battle she didn't even know were being fought.
Will she find the courage to play her part as a king's madness spreads across the land, or will she remain the scared girl she has always been?

Turn the page, the saga has begun.

Where Ravens Soar releases on 5th November. Only grab a copy if you have time to read the book please.

Thank you for the time you took reading this post. :)

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.♥.
As it is book cover reveal day for Where Ravens Soar I am giving away the first five chapters so you can all have a sneak peek.

Instafreebie Link.
.♥.

Where Ravens Soar

I'm currently editing a book seeped in Norse Mythology, but set in the modern world called Where Ravens Soar.

I thought I'd give you a sneak peek of the first chapter. I hope you enjoy.

Chapter One.

Throughout the gloomy, closed-in space, a deafening noise pulses from several throbbing speakers. Blinking strobes of multi-coloured lights capture, in slow-motion, the dancing, sweaty crowd. Heads thrash to the music's rhythm and a blur of limbs move through the haze of thick grey smoke filling the room.

With a numb butt, Finn perches on a waist-high wooden stool, her dangling feet tapping against one of its four slender legs. Her straight sable-black hair obscures the scowl which has graced her expression since she stepped into this dingy joint. Her cotton vest clings to damp itchy flesh, and moisture glides a pathway from the top of her back to the waist of her pants.

A rock band dominates the cramped stage behind her back. Throaty screamed lyrics join with the wailing melody of an electric guitar. The heartbeat of the bass-line reverberates around the small square building, resonating down her tingling spine. The noise is too much for Finn’s superhuman hearing, her eardrums and temples throb in time to the beat.

She glances at a young man who pushes in beside her. He flashes a flirty smile as he leans into her personal space, so close she can smell the alcohol on his breath. Pursing her lips, she shakes her head. With a disappointed frown, the male slips back into the throng. She watches as he weaves expertly through bouncing figures, three beers held above his head.

She's here to hunt and can't afford any distractions.

Scanning the rest of the room, Finn brings her drink to her lips. She might appear calm, but her hands reveal the adrenaline coursing through her veins as they shake against the bottle she holds.

She spots a man leaning over the far end of the grime-covered counter. A pearl of sweat sits on his upper lip, and his tanned skin appears washed out under the room's poor-lighting. Dressed in a black suit, he stands out against the pub's regular customers. Around his neck hangs a loose, pale blue silk tie, the top button of his crisp white shirt undone. Leather and ripped jeans are the usual attire for this dingy place. Her arse-kicking boots and black animal hide pants mean she blends in with the crowd; neither of his goons gives her a second glance.

Wolf-skin children have disappeared lately, with her sources pointing to this middle-aged man. He is tall for a human, six feet and two inches if she were to guess, but he's dwarfed by the two monsters framing him on either side.

Ice giants.

They stand with their shoulders stooped; though it doesn't prevent their twisted horns from knocking into light fixtures dangling from the wooden rafters. Bent, they must still be at least eight feet tall. A shimmering spell glamours the brutes so the humans don't see them for what they are. If they could, they would run for the exit.

A door slams open, and a cool breeze invades the room, fluttering soft strands of her hair against her neck. The stink of an unwashed body mixed with the stench of wolf drifts towards her. Underneath the initial whiff, the subtle smell of rotten leaves and mint lingers in the air.

Finn drums her fingers against the bar. The familiar scent nudges at her memories. Her mind flashes back to where a few of the latest children were taken. An ice cream melted on the pavement. Action figures left forgotten on a bedroom floor. A shattered bowl drowning in milk.

The lingering stench of an unknown wolf-skin was the only parting gift at each crime scene, and now she knows who it belongs to. Her back straightens, and her hands twitch with a need for steel to fill them.

Patience.

The male wolf-skin joins the man with the pale-blue tie. Finn grits her teeth, fists clenching. A crackling fills her left ear, then the deep growling voice of Augustus, her partner, comes through the earpiece. "Be calm, Finn. We'll get them."

She swivels her butt on the seat to face the small circular dance floor. Her enhanced eyesight picks out Augustus' mud brown eyes. They peer into her own from across the dim room. An answering flash of anger smothers their dark liquid depths and adds a tightness to her partner's square jaw.

Nodding her head in reply, she watches as Augustus' hulking form slips through the exit and into the night. It's been a hard case. It always is when children of any species are involved. Her hand moves to the corner of a photograph tucked into her trench-coat pocket. The edge feels soft against her fingertips, and she caresses the new creases.

She has memorised the toothy grin of the little girl whose image looks back at her from the wrinkled surface. Freckles cover a small button nose, and the young girl's chestnut hair hangs in pigtails tied by pink ribbons glinting in the sunlight. You would never guess the spirit of a wolf lives inside the girl.

Her name is Amy Moore. She's only five years old. The kidnapper's latest victim. Finn can't understand the pain her family must be going through. To her, the girl is one more face to add to the others haunting her nightmares.

Just over a week ago, Amy was there one minute, playing and laughing. The next, she'd vanished. Snatched from a swing set right from under her older brother's nose. No one saw a thing.

The girl was taken from a park only a few blocks from this dump, and this realisation makes Finn’s skin prickle. Her fists clench, and her body vibrates with the energy needed to kill something.

Eyes flickering from side to side, she avoids paying close attention to her prey. She doesn't want them getting spooked.

Her ears itch, and she hones her senses to drown out the pounding music and focus on her target’s conversation.

"I've chosen another, but I’ll need back-up this time. The boy's being guarded, and I'll need a distraction to snatch him," says the unwashed wolf-skin.

"That's fine. I already have a buyer lined up for the pelt. How soon can you move in on him?" asks the man in the pale blue tie.

It's all the proof she needs, and she can't stomach hearing another word. Her hands clench and open again, chest rising and falling.

She stands, kicking the stool back, and shoulders her way to the exit, squeezing through a mass of dancing, sweating bodies.

It might be too late to bring the children home, but not too late to make sure those responsible suffer before she sends them to Hel.

Maybe she could even talk Helreginn into continuing their pain and suffering once they get there. The goddess might act gentle on most days, but Finn’s heard the woman rules with a firm hand and has an evil streak she uses on those she deems unworthy. Finn would do it herself, but her mixed-blood won't allow her to enter Hel while life is still pumping through her veins.

Finn opens the door and walks into a dark alley. She steps over two black trash bags tipped on their sides, the contents strewn across the damp ground. The rotten stench of days' old food, urine, beer, and the sickening sweet smell of vomit invades the cool evening air. Finn’s stomach turns. Nose scrunched, she tries to block out the stink.

She pads toward the silhouette of a large figure leaning against the building’s brick wall, her footsteps echoing on the concrete pavement as she walks towards her partner. If she didn't know to look, her gaze would've skipped past his dark outline.

"I got confirmation. It's them," she whispers into the darkness.

"Didn't have a doubt. I'll take the bodyguards; you take the other two."

"Deal. Let's try for no witnesses this time. You know The Cleaner grumbles more than usual when she has to wipe human minds."

"Stuck up elf. So high and mighty," says Augustus, his bared teeth glinting.

"You should come home with me sometime. She's a walk in the park compared to the gods and goddesses I have to put up with whenever I go for a visit."

Tiny frown lines form between Augustus' bushy eyebrows. "I think I'll pass on that one. Odin is one scary dude."

Chuckling, Finn nudges her partner with her elbow. "Don't die on me; I'll take your spirit to Valhalla myself if you do. You know my grandfather has a fondness for your kind."

Augustus stares down at her, his eyes flashing with conviction. "I don't plan on it."

The trick when writing dialogue in fiction is to keep it simple. You're not trying to represent how real conversations happen in everyday life. Endless sentences of people talking over each other and speaking about meaningless things will not keep your readers interested. Your dialogue should convey the important facts you want your characters to tell your reader and skip all the little bits in-between.

“Hello, Edward. It's been a while.”

“Hello, Jane. Yes, it has. It's great to see you. How are you?”

“I’m great, thank you, and how are you?”

I think you get the idea.

Does this make you want to fall asleep?

It would your readers too. Instead, skip to the meat of the conversation.

"Hey, Edward. You're looking rough there."

"Yeah, the wife walked out on me again, and the bloody baby's been keeping me awake every night."

This dialogue would only work if the facts pointed out in it are part of the story, but it didn't take us long to learn the points I wanted to tell the reader.

His wife has walked out on him, and he's been left with the baby.

Dialogue is just another tool in your arsenal as an author and used to break up repetitive blocks of writing. Many readers love seeing white space on the page. Strange, I know. Used right it can also help to keep your readers gripped and turning the page, and by moving the plot forward and giving more depth to the characters and their motivations.


Punctuation in Dialogue.

When adding a related attribution after the dialogue, you punctuate your dialogue with a comma inside the quotation mark:
"On the floor," the matron said.

When the attribute before the dialogue is related to it, the comma goes after the attribution, and the appropriate punctuation mark goes inside the quotation mark at the end of the dialogue:
She said, "Where will I sleep?"

The matron said, "On the floor."

You place the punctuation inside the quotation marks when the dialogue ends with a question mark, period, or exclamation mark.
"Don't think pity will sway me, girl."

"What am I expected to wear if I don't get to keep my belongings?"
"No!"

When the attribute before the dialogue is related to it, the comma goes after the attribution, and the appropriate punctuation mark goes inside the quotation mark at the end of the dialogue:
She said, "Where will I sleep?"

The matron said, "On the floor."

If your character can't make up his mind what he is saying you use the em-dash between the different parts of the speech:
“Yes, you're right—no, that's wrong, I meant to say, no.”
If your character's conversation is abruptly interrupted, you use an em-dash inside the quotation mark:
“It wasn't lik—”

“I saw you!”
You use three ellipses' inside the quotation mark when the character becomes distracted and their dialogue subsides:
“I'm not sure…” said Blossom.




#writing #writingtips #authorblog #imwriting #author

This is one of those things in writing which you hear over and over again. Like many rules it isn't one that should be obeyed a hundred percent, sometimes a well placed sentence of tell can work, but I will leave that discovery to you.

This blog isn't for the well-versed author who understands the difference, it's for those of you who are just starting out and you don't understand the concept you keep being told about.

Imagine yourself standing in a forest.

Are you there?

Now describe what you hear, smell, feel and see.

Is there a breeze kissing your cheek or maybe the warmth of the sun warming your skin?

Can you hear the sound of the leaves rustling or a deer sprinting through the undergrowth?

What do you smell and see?

The different senses when described in your writing help draw the reader into you story and make them feel like they are experiencing what your character is.

Don't just tell your readers that your character is in a forest, let them experience the physical environment for themselves.

Writing is an art form, and like all the other types of creative work you are constantly learning, and improving.

I have a long way to go myself.

It isn't just the physical enviroment of your characters you can use the rule 'Show Don't Tell' with its the characters emotions as well. I know it's easier to tell your readers that your heroine is happy, sad, or any other emotion she might be feeling, but by using body language to show instead, you can drag your readers deeper into the story.

Make them feel the hairs on the back of their neck stand on end, or their heart galloping in their chest. If your hero just lost someone close to him in a tragic accident, make your reader feel his physical pain.

Below is a sample from Hers To Save.

Can you pick out all the places where I show, and bring you into the story?

Can you feel my characters fear?

If just told you Lief was scared, instead of showing you with his body language would it have the same impact?

Leaning against the contorted trunk of an ancient oak, Leif gulps in a lungful of decaying air. He hides in the murky shadows, veiled under the trees wide crown of twisted and dipped boughs. Staffs of moonlight pierce the dense canopy of the woodland, dusting the ground in patches of spectral brilliance. A carpet of scarlet leaves shimmers like a pool of spilled blood, making the hairs on his neck bristle and his skin to feel feverish.

Leif has never been known to be brave. When his father had ordered him as a young boy to follow in his footsteps, and learn the trade of butchery, he meekly obeyed. Now at twenty summers old, he was betrothed to the unsightly daughter of a tanner. It didn't matter if her cackling laugh and grating voice made his ears feel like they had hot pokers jabbed inside them; he had obeyed and got on one knee. Even though, in his current situation, the wedding may never come to pass, a small mercy indeed. Was it even now cowardice on his part that had him contemplating his escape? Should he not stay and help the women and children? Was that not the courageous thing to do?

Tendrils of spectral mist roll through leafy bowers and around thick wooden limbs, creeping across the forest floor. Unseeing menacing eyes glare out at him from within the silvery apparition. Grasping the thin cord around his neck, he pulls his crucifix free from the confines of his woollen brown cloak and touches the warm metal to his cold lips. Weaving closer, the ghostly creature hides the surrounding foliage beneath its gossamer wings. He knows it’s fear making the mist seem like a living thing, but he still eases away from the coiling vapour. The haunting ballad of a hunting horn sounding in triumph carves away at the eerie silence. No longer wanting to be alone, Leif heads toward the beautiful sound. Trees press in from all sides as he plunges through the heart of the forest, swiping low hanging branches out of his way.

This is a sample from my first written work, and like I said we are all learning along the way.




#writing #writingtips #authorblog #imwriting #author

Once upon a time...


We all know and love the fairytales from our childhood, from Snow White to Sleeping Beauty.
The simplicity of the storytelling offering an escape from reality for a short period of time.
So we need to understand the Wicked Stepmother's motive for being wicked? No, we enjoy the tale regardless of not having all the facts.
As a society, we have stepped away from the concept that a female needs a dashing prince to rescue or marry her in order to find her happily ever after, but that doesn't mean we don't still need fairy tales to believe in.