I’m doing a Valentine’s Day 2010 Special.

Last year I did a Valentine’s Day Mystery Writing Challenge, in which everyone wrote mysteries for Valentine’s Day. We killed off Margaret Spoon. Which seems like an odd thing to do to her for Valentine’s Day, but even odder when you consider that I could just as easily have made it a Friday the 13th Mystery Writing Challenge. But I didn’t realize it was Friday the 13th until it was too late (that’s the kind of thing that will go wrong on Friday the 13th). And this year it’s Friday the 12th, which just doesn’t have the same zing.

Anyway, this year I’m offering 25% off my regular rates for all inquiries that come in on February 13th, 14th, and 15th.

You’ll notice that’s not just February 14th. That’s because I’m going to be celebrating Valentine’s Day on February 14th, which involves enough chocolate to sedate a herd of elephants, and I will not be online.

But I’ll be back on the 15th, and I’ll be in touch with you all then.

But mostly I’ll be in touch with everyone who inquires about that 25%-off Valentine’s Day Special.

1) Limit 250 words. This is one manuscript page. Yes, your entire Climax might be longer than that. But you’ve got to pack a wallop in the climax of a Climax, and in order to do that you’ve got to keep the wallop brief. Regardless of how long it takes you to set up the bowling pins, I want just the one page where you knock them down, the page that’s the focus of the whole kit & kaboodle, the page you’ve been writing toward since page one, the reason you’re writing this book. The quicker and shorter the better.

2) Two to three sentences giving the basic set-up: who the protagonist is, what they desperately need, why they haven’t been able to get it, plus what you’ve done to hoodwink them into thinking their troubles were more or less over directly prior to the Climax. Have mercy, guys, and keep this part as short as you possibly can. I don’t have time to read your entire synopsis if I’m going to have time to actually edit your piece. I don’t even need to know who the other characters are. I should be able to get the gist of the relationships and relative importance from the scene. Just two or three sentences.

3) Check these out to see examples of Climaxes from great works in literature. And yes, for the record, two of those great works were technically pulps when they were published. Books were edited better in those days.

Either email me your Climax or post it here in the comments. I’ll try to get the Free Edits posted within a day or two of receiving them. (Last time I only posted them once a week, but this time I’ll post them more often because we’re only going for two weeks.)

I’ll be publicizing the Free Edits of Climaxes on Twitter, so you’ll get readers checking your pieces out and following the links back to your blogs.

Good luck, everyone!

Knock us out of the park.

Read last week’s Free Edits, all posted.

Not bad for only five days!

Thanks to all of you, and I hope you’re preparing your Pulitzer acceptance speeches.

If you send me (please, one paragraph or no more than 150 words) your novel’s HOOK, I’ll do a free Edit on it and post it on the blog. That way we all get the benefit of learning what works in a HOOK by comparing and contrasting a variety of them.

Edited HOOKS will go up every Monday.

Just to remind you, your HOOK, folks, is the beginning of your novel. What you’re using to HOOK your reader. Picture a vaudeville stage, and your reader’s out there in the limelight, and you’re in the wings with a crook cane. What you are using to interrupt them in their finest hour, right when they’re hitting their warbling high C, and yank them willy-nilly into your parallel universe?

This special ends at midnight August 31st, employees of A. Victoria Mixon not eligible, void where prohibited.

Creative People Doing Creative Things: A Murder Mystery, by Gracie Fletcher

Look It Up, by Shea Joy

The Bizarre and Untimely Death of Margaret Spoon, by Elwood Gray

Thanks again to everyone who participated!