books, digital or paperback?

For some people in the elder generation, electronics are a mystery, maybe even something akin to witchcraft and dark magic. "Computers scare me. I don't even want to turn one on," someone said to me. I even know of people who have trouble getting used to a cell phone. Technology is expanding so fast that each generation has a different view of the world and how to do things. The learning curve for baby boomers is greater than that of our children and grandchildren, who take each new electronic gadget for granted and quickly learn all of its nuances and capabilities.

For some of us, then, the idea of replacing our beloved books, richly bound pages with the smell and feel of paper and ink, with an electronic devise is nothing short of sacrilege. I may have felt that way myself when Amazon introduced its first Kindle.

But come on. If we are to live and grow and compete in the age in which we live, we must keep up. That is why Raven Publishing's books are now available as e-books. We at Raven want you to read them no matter which format you prefer.

Will you be getting an e-reader for Christmas? If you do, be sure to download your favorites. Each of the six Miranda and Starlight books are now available on your Kindle at Amazon.com and on many other e-readers or your computer. They can also be found at www.Smashwords.com, where thousands of books are available in several formats, you will find the Miranda and Starlight series and other books ready for download. Absaroka: Where the Anguish of a Soldier Meets the Land of the Crow is the most recently published book from Raven in Amazon's Kindle Store.

At a writing workshop, yesterday, we discussed the pros and cons of e-books. A digital book may never have the same intimate feel of a bound volume with pages, but wouldn't it be convenient to carry your entire library with you in a small, hand-held device for long hours spent in travel or in waiting rooms. I'll always treasure taking a book to bed with me and turning the pages eagerly as the story unfolds before I go to sleep at night. That doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy having a Nook, a Kindle or some other e-reader in my bag as I travel. Yep, I could be happy to have both.

Writers, Are You a Planner or a Pantser?

And is one better than the other? After a rich learning experience at the Flathead River Writers Conference in Kalispell, Montana, I have a new way of looking at my writing. Two of the presenters claimed very opposite methods of writing.

Larry Brooks, bestselling psychological thriller author, screenwriter, and instructor (www.storyfix.com) advocated that a writer, if she wants to be published, must plan. Lorna Landvik, a successful novelist, strictly listens to the voices of the characters in her head as they present themselves and writes what they tell her. According to Brooks definition, she is a pantser. He is a planner. Many bestselling authors plan their novels and know the beginning, middle and ending before they begin to write. There are others authors who say they have no idea how their novels will end when they start. So who is right?

As Brooks explained, neither method is right or wrong, as long as your end product is one that readers will read. In order for an agent or publisher to be interested, however, there are criteria you must follow, whichever method you use. And as far as method is concerned, its not black and white. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle along the continuum between the "anal retentive," plotting-every-single-scene-before-you-start planner, and the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, no-forethought-whatsoever pantser.

As I see it, and judging from my experience, the degree of "pantsing" you do will probably determine the number of rewrites you will need to do in order to shape a well-crafted novel that will meet success in the marketplace. On the other hand, the completely anal retentive, plot-driven story will end up stilted and unrealistic without the "heart" that draws the reader in with empathy for the characters.

Which is better? The method that works for you. Whether you plan every detail, just roughly outline before you begin, or run with the ideas as they flow, aim for a plot so gripping and characters so believable and sympathetic that the reader will have no idea which method you used in getting there.