A Bit of Humor

Writers are often told--ad nauseum, it seems--to show rather than tell. Mary was happy becomes Mary felt like she was a balloon on steroids. Yep that's a little over-the-top, but it gives you an idea of how we should express ourselves when we write. It makes for interesting reading.

My book, Looney Dunes, is a lighthearted mystery. To introduce it, I decided to write Top Ten Ways You Know You're Not At A Destination Island:

1. When ordering a drink, those tiny paper umbrellas are replaced with tiny wool hats.

2. The local store for kids supplied their play sand for the beaches.

3. The movie theatre is showing Mary Poppins. From 1965.

4. The lone lifeguard is eighty years old.

5. There are no seagulls. They've left for better places.

6. When you pick up seashells, the undersides say "Made in China."

7. Locals say the island is hoppin'. There are five visitors. You included.

8. The island's bottled water comes from the marsh on the bayside. And it's "filtered for your health."

9. You arrive with emotional baggage and issues. You fit right in.

10. There aren't any swim-up bars, pirate-themed bathrooms, or the sounds of steel drum music playing 24/7. Instead there are fishermen who double as town historians, a hair salon owner stuck in the big hair of the '80s who is also a first responder, elderly women who call their house the Mother Ship, and a psychic whose shells surrounding her shack must not be touched. But you're there for nine months, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, till sanity do you part, amen.

The island in my book, Looney Dunes, isn't quite like the above. Well, except for numbers nine and ten. Those last two are apt descriptions of Dune Island, where the main character, Stormy Deane, lands after inheriting an old boarding house near the ocean. She has phobias for dirt, germs, and relationships, yet she now must live with her former cheerleader sister and two elderly women among the debris of a house neglected for too long. But on her first night there, during a storm, she hears thumping coming from inside the walls. And the thumping sound is more like footsteps than tiny mice feet. Creepy dismembered dolls abound, and someone or something is out to get her. Stormy is sure of that. Or else it's her paranoia working overtime.

See? In showing, rather than telling, you get a feel for what my book is about. It has voice. And it will have legs, too, once it makes it to the top ten ebooks of all time. :)