Spanning more than three decades, A Widow’s Silhouette successfully merges a wartime love story with realistic glimpses of daily life during the Biafran-Nigerian civil war and the reconstruction period afterward. When Jane’s parents’ finances begin to dwindle, her education abruptly ends. She relocates to live with her uncle Bryan and work as his secretary and an attendant at his gas station. One day she meets Bryan’s friend John, who falls deeply in love with her but is already married. John is torn between his late father’s wish for his marriage and his love for Jane. Is divorce an option? Set against a turbulent background of riots, civil war, and bloodshed, this tour de force follows not only the powerful story of Jane, but also the trials of her brother Michael and the beautiful Ugonma, whose lover, Ndubueze, deceives her and forces her into a life of prostitution. An eloquent and evocative work of historical fiction, this novel’s haunting voice and lush scenes will leave you breathless.
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson Author of The Frugal Editor, the winning-est in her award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers This article is excerpted from some editing I did for a writer of experimental fiction when I was on a Greater Los Angeles Writers Society panel writer of any genre can apply these suggestions to the chase, getaway, or high action scene in your script or manuscript before you send it to an agent or publisher or, better still, while you are writing the first draft. Sometimes even the most fascinating, interesting and irresistible detail can slow down the forward movement of your story. So as much as writers are told that detail is important, purge as much as you can from your action scenes and put it somewhere else or dribble it into narrative in other places in your manuscript. In the process, ask yourself if your reader really needs to know the color of the protagonist’s eyes. As important as detail is, some is better left to t
Comments
Post a Comment