The Devil in Midwinter

“THE DEVIL IN MIDWINTER” / ELISE FORIER EDIE

Alpena, MI (April 8, 2014) – World Weaver Press (Eileen Wiedbrauk, Editor-in-Chief) has announced The Devil in Midwinter by Elise Forier Edie, a new paranormal romance novella, and previously featured in A Winter’s Enchantment,  is available in trade paperback and ebook today, Tuesday, April 8, 2014.

Praise for The Devil in Midwinter: “The Devil in Midwinter is a beautiful tapestry of myth and legend and love, woven into a small town romance.” — Amalia Dillin, author of Forged by Fate “A mash-up of Mexican folklore and the classic Sleeping Beauty, set in the orchards of Washington, The Devil In Midwinter is a stunning romance that put me in mind of the lush works of Charles De Lint.” — Kristina Wojtaszek, author of Opal

A handsome stranger, a terrifying monster, a boy who burns and burns… Mattawa, Washington, is usually a sleepy orchard town come December, until a murder, sightings of a fantastic beast, and the arrival of a handsome new vintner in town kindle twenty-year-old reporter Esme Ulloa’s curiosity—and maybe her passion as well. But the more she untangles the mystery, the more the world Esme knows unspools, until she finds herself navigating a place she thought existed only in storybooks, where dreams come alive, monsters walk the earth and magic is real. When tragedy strikes close to home, Esme finds she must strike back, matching wits with an ancient demon in a deadly game, where everything she values stands to be lost, including the love of her life.

The Devil in Midwinter is available in trade paperback and ebook via Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, Kobo.com, OmniLit.com, other online retailers, and for wholesale through Ingram.

Elise Forier Edie is an author and playwright based in southern California. Recent works include the play “The Pink Unicorn,” which performed at the United Solo Theatre Festival in New York, a short story, “Leonora,” published in Penumbra magazine and several plays, included in the anthology “Original Middle School Scenes and Monologues,” edited by Kent R. Brown. She is a member of the Authors Guild, the Romance Writers of America (RWA) and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). She is married to actor Keith Edie. When she is not writing, she likes to make quilts and soup, but rarely at the same time. Visit Elise Forier Edie on these sites to follow her or list her as one of your favorite authors: Amazon, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter @EliseForierEdie, and www.eliseforieredie.com.

World Weaver Press is a publisher of fantasy, paranormal, and science fiction, dedicated to producing quality works. As a small press, World Weaver seeks to publish books that engage the mind and ensnare the story-loving soul.

Publication Date: April 8, 2014 • NA Paranormal Romance $9.95 trade paperback, 155 pages  • $4.99 ebook ISBN: 978-0615990002 Publicity/review requests: publicity@worldweaverpress.com Information: www.worldweaverpress.com/books/devil-in-midwinter

WRITING SCRIPTS AND WRITING FICTION: 5 SIMILIARITIES AND  5 DIFFERENCES

Before I became a fiction writer, I was a professional playwright for twenty years.  I am often asked “how is writing fiction different from writing plays?” 

I have two really short answers to that question.

One is, “Scriptwriting isn’t that different from writing fiction.”

The other is, “Ohmigod, they have nothing to do with each other.”

Here is how plays and books are similar:

1)     They are both meant to entertain. Fiction and plays are written to provoke a specific emotional response from an audience.  At the very least, it’s the writer’s job to craft something that will divert the audience’s attention.  At the very best, it’s the writer’s job to craft something that will thrill, surprise and change their audience.

2)     Plays and fiction generally follow certain expected patterns.  The simplest pattern is this: characters in an environment try to do something and they change as a result.   The playwright and the fiction writer create the characters, environment, and then track changes through a carefully crafted series of obstacles, plans and complications.  The more original, artful, and specific the pattern is, the more interesting, unpredictable and satisfying the story.

3)     Telling the truth is important. Craft is great.  Skill is essential.  But a truthful fool can tell a more effective story than a smart liar.  If you’re just trying to follow the rules and attract an audience, you’ll never write anything good.  Audiences follow their hearts and they know if a writer is following hers.

4)     If you dare announce at a cocktail party that you are a fiction writer or a playwright, you will swamped with people wanting to tell you all about their idea for the book or play they think you should write. The only time this doesn’t happen is if you write romance fiction or musicals. Then everyone sidles away and ignores you for the rest of the evening.  (This is probably the reason I mostly write romance fiction and musicals.)

5)     It is hard to write good books and good plays.  Making good art is hard work, no matter what the medium

Here is how they are different:

1)     A play is really just a set of instructions for other artists to create an experience for an audience.  Ultimately, the playwright has no control over the finished product.  Well-written plays can be ruined by shoddy direction and bad acting.  Terrible plays can be made terrific by good staging and excellent timing. 

2)    A bad book is an awful thing but a bad play is utterly unforgiveable.

If a fiction writer writes and publishes a terrible book, the audience can throw the thing in the trash or delete it from their Kindle and only feel slightly pissed off about a dumb and/or icky experience.  If a playwright writes a truly terrible play, and it actually gets produced, actors have to drag themselves through ridiculous banalities night after night and the poor audience is stuck suffering the dark for two to three hours, with no escape. OhmiGod.  I would not wish that fate on my worst enemies, really I wouldn’t.  The only thing worse than a crappy play is an off-key music recital and maybe eggplant.

3) A playwright never works alone, not really.  Even if he drafts alone, in the end there will be a whole team to help him put the play on its feet, from a dramaturg to a lighting designer. And when the play is produced, the playwright can sit in an audience during a performance and watch the audience listen to the story he made up.  He can share in the weeping, edge-of-the-seat drama, feel when the jokes land, and thrill to a standing ovation.  It’s a crazy good time when everything comes together.  There’s nothing like it in the whole world. Meanwhile, the fiction writer, even if she is lucky enough to meet some of her adoring fans, will never get to know how her creation really landed. She doesn’t get to be there to hear the gasps and see the tears.  For the fiction writer, everything is done in isolation.

4)Playwriting is dialogue, and short description, period.  All the good stuff actually happens in between the lines and isn’t written at all.  Rather, it is implied by the playwright, and then created and discovered by actors.  Playwrights make their characters specific in terms of their background and needs, but a lot of the shading and nuance are created by other artists.  In fiction writing, the world of the story and its characters go straight from the author’s hands to the reader’s imagination.  How things look, sound, smell and taste, what the characters are thinking, whether they are drinking coffee or gin and tonics, whether they run across the room or saunter—all of these become choices a fiction writer has to make.  It’s a wonderful and awful responsibility.  As a playwright learning to write fiction, I always have to ask myself, “What is too little?  What is too much?”

5)     Only a finite number of people will ever see your play, even if it’s a big, fat hit.  A play is alive and therefore a fleeting thing—only in a certain space, for a certain time.  But a piece of fiction can last forever.  The successful playwright generally has a lot of fantastic memories and a very exciting life.  The successful author labors in solitude, but gets a body of work that she can always hold in her  hands and show to her grandchildren and great grandchildren.