Links of Interest

FREE PROGRAM FOR WINDOWS USERS THAT SCANS FOR OVERUSED WORDS, PHRASES, AND CLICHES:

http://www.smart-edit.com/

GETTING INTERNAL THOUGHTS RIGHT:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/06/living-in-my-head-crafting-natural.html

PLACES NOT TO SPEND YOUR PROMOTION MONEY:

http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2012/06/more-money-wasting-opportunities-for.html

CHOOSING YOUR POINT OF VIEW:

http://blog.donnagalanti.com/wp/author-janice-hardy-choosing-your-point-of-view/

TELEGRAPHING YOUR PLOT: 

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/06/i-have-message-for-ms-reader-are-you.html

WAYS AROUND INFO DUMPING:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-much-background-info-is-enough.html

USING SKYPE TO PROMOTE:

http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2012/06/author-visits-by-skype.html

THE ACTION VERSUS THE ACTIVE NOVEL OPENING:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2012/06/writing-craft-action-vs-active-openings.html

AERIAL PHOTOS OF BRITISH LANDSCAPES AND BUILDINGS FROM 1919 TO 1953:

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/

PHYSICS AND MAGIC:

http://ffnp.blogspot.com/2012/06/modern-physics-and-magic-few-words-by.html

MAKING MAGIC MAGICAL:

http://suvudu.com/2012/06/making-magic-magical.html

USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO LEARN MORE ABOUT EDITORS AND AGENTS:

http://scotteagan.blogspot.com/2012/06/use-that-social-media-to-know-potential.html

USING TWITTER TO GAIN READERS:

http://forms.buddymedia.com/whitepaper-form_strategies-for-effective-tweeting.html

Hot, Warm, and Cold Viewpoints

QUESTION: What exactly is hot viewpoint? How is it different from other types of viewpoint?

Hot viewpoint is about the viewpoint character's emotional reaction to what is happening. Hot viewpoint is full of sensual details, strong emotions, and important/dangerous/violent actions. Most hot viewpoint moments are action scenes full of adrenaline, love scenes, or physical or emotional fight scenes which can include an argument between characters.  

Cold viewpoint has almost no emotion involved. It’s a simple recital of facts or what’s happening.

Warm viewpoint is halfway between them with emotions of importance, but not extreme importance.

Examples:

COLD: Pamela glanced at the doors' numbers as she passed them.  Room 82 should be just ahead.

WARM: Pamela smiled as she glanced at the hotel room number.  Tom said he's be in in Room 82.  He'd promised her champagne, roses, and a night of passion.  A night to remember.  She could hardly wait.

HOT:  The slight cheesy stench of the alien made Pamela's nose twitch as she leaned against the hallway wall.  Her hands were sweating so much she feared she'd drop the Colt she held in her right hand.  With a quick prayer for courage, she eased toward Room 82 and kicked in the door.

For a writer, it's not so important to know the difference in an intellectual way, but to understand it instinctively as we write.  If we are inside the character and feel what she feels, we are more likely to get it right.

Links of Interest

MARKET NEWS, FEMINIST SCIENCE FICTION ANTHOLOGY:

http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2012/06/12/open-call-for-submissions-feminist-speculative-fiction-anthology/

LITERARY ESTATES, THINGS TO THINK ABOUT FOR YOURS:

http://www.sfwa.org/2012/06/guest-post-writers-and-their-literary-estates-story-reprints/

RESEARCH AND GRAPHIC SOURCE, PUBLIC DOMAIN MATERIAL INCLUDING MAGAZINES:

http://publicdomainreview.org/

MARKET NEWS LINKS, MAINLY ROMANCE:

http://cindimyersmarketnews.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/avon-impulse-calls-for-submission-and-more/

USING SETTING AS CHARACTER,  AN INTERESTING IDEA I’VE NOT SEEN BEFORE:

http://www.rachellegardner.com/2012/06/using-setting-as-a-character-a-tip-for-novelists/

CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST PUBLISHAMERICA:

http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2012/06/class-action-lawsuit-filed-against.html

FIXING EPISODIC CHAPTERS:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/06/on-tonights-episode-fixing-episodic.html

MARKET NEWS, WHAT EDITORS ARE LOOKING FOR IN FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2012/06/got-epic-fantasy.html

HOOKING YOUR READER IN THE FIRST CHAPTER, HOW SOME GREAT AUTHORS HAVE DONE IT:

http://www.lbgale.com/2012/06/16/first-chapters-and-hooking-your-reader

SURVIVING THE ROLLERCOASTER THAT IS A PUBLISHING CAREER:

http://www.rachellegardner.com/2012/06/staying-steady-on-the-publishing-rollercoaster/

GETTING THE HISTORY RIGHT, WHAT WRITERS OWE THEIR READERS:

http://aidanmoher.com/blog/2012/06/articles/what-do-authors-of-historical-fiction-owe-to-history-by-d-b-jackson/

CULTURE IN WORLDBUILDING:

http://charles-tan.blogspot.com/2012/06/guest-post-bryan-thomas-schmidt-on.html

SURPRISE AND PLAUSIBILITY:

http://elflands2ndcousin.com/2012/06/19/surprise-plausibility-and-its-relationship-to-tension-and-plot-twists/

A Dollar of Trust

I recently read an online discussion of whether readers of paranormal romance are as put off by poor research or bad science as other readers. Whether you believe this is true or not, as a writer, you must consider this.

Imagine that a reader gives you a dollar’s worth of trust by reading your book. That trust means she expects you to give her certain things like a good story, interesting characters, and competent craft, among other things.

Every time your story fails in one of these elements, the reader takes away a bit of that money, and when there is no money left, the reader tosses the book without finishing it and will no longer trust you enough to buy the next book.

When the reader spots a grammatical mistake, she may take a nickel out of that dollar, or if she really hates grammatical errors, that error may cost you a quarter or the whole dollar. 

Do you really want to risk losing that reader by being sloppy with grammar, science, or plot logic?

Links of Interest

WRITING SMOOTH TRANSITIONS:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/06/moving-forward-writing-smooth.html

WRITING ADVICE FROM PIXAR, THE MOVIE COMPANY THAT MADE WALL-E AND TOY STORY:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/what-writers-can-learn-from-pixar_b52672

WHAT A SMOOCH MARK CAN TELL A FORENSICS TEAM:

http://forensics4fiction.com/2012/06/09/pucker-up-for-ah-lip-print-identification/

SHOULD THE FACTS BE CORRECT IN FICTION?

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2012/06/fact-and-fiction-by-leslie-budewitz.html

LIST O’ LINKS:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2012/06/twitterific_10.html

PROMOTION TIPS FOR YOUNG ADULT NOVELS:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/5-ya-marketing-tips-from-publishing-professionals_b52745

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SURPRISE VERSUS SUSPENSE:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2012/06/write-tip-surprise-v-suspense-by-bryan.html

BRUSH UP YOUR GRAMMAR, THAT VERSUS WHICH:

http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2012/06/that-which-confuses-us.html

PERSONAL INTERACTIONS TO SHOW CHARACTER:

http://talktoyouniverse.blogspot.com/2012/06/personal-interactions-reveal-character.html

PUNCTUATION HUMOR:

http://bryanthomasschmidt.net/2012/06/11/guest-post-your-punctuation-personality-type-by-leah-petersen/

PRECISION IN YOUR QUERY LETTER:

http://scotteagan.blogspot.com/2012/06/precision-and-accuracy-in-your-query.html

UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF EMOTION:

http://www.rachellegardner.com/2012/06/understanding-emotion/

Classifying Cross-Genre

If a novel is cross-genre, one of the genres must be the strongest and its genre tropes and plot must drive the novel throughout.

A sf romance is first and foremost a romance.  Linnea Sinclair's sf romance novels are driven forward by the romance. Catherine Asaro's novels are science fiction novels with a romantic element.  The science fiction plot and worldbuilding drive the novel forward, not the romance.

A werewolf novel that is driven forward by the worldbuilding and various werewolf political/pack struggles is urban fantasy.  A werewolf novel where boy wolf meets girl vampire, and they fall in love during various werewolf political/pack struggles is a paranormal romance.

The important thing to pull out of this is that you must understand what the central genre of your novel is so your novel doesn't fail by genre standards.  

When you are writing your book, staying within genre or subgenre expectations makes the book much easier to sell to the big publishers in NY.  

If you write what you want to write outside of those expectations, you are more likely to have a book that will only sell to smaller markets like an ebook publisher, or you will have to self-publish it.

You will also have a harder time finding the right readers for your novel.

Links of Interest

OFFERING REVELATIONS TO KEEP THE READER READING:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/05/joy-of-discovery-keeping-readers-hooked.html

PREPARING FOR A WRITING CAREER:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2012/05/preparing-for-writing-career.html

WORLDBUILDING TOOLS:

http://functionalnerds.com/2012/05/guest-post-tools-for-worldbuilding-by-bryan-thomas-schmidt/

PLOT TEMPLATE THAT WORKS FOR EACH SCENE AS WELL AS THE WHOLE BOOK:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/06/fill-in-blanks-plot-template-to-keep.html

CONTRACT BASICS:

http://chiseledinrock.blogspot.com/2012/04/contract-very-basics.html

WHAT YOUNG ADULT AND MIDDLE GRADE EDITORS HAVE BEEN BUYING:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2012/06/what-editors-have-bought-recently-young.html

BARRY EISLER ON WRITING:

http://www.alanrinzler.com/blog/2012/06/02/what-writers-can-learn-from-barry-eisler/

MARKET NEWS, STEAMPUNK ANTHOLOGY:

http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2012/05/steampunk-antho.html

WRITING TIPS:

http://goinswriter.com/tips-writing-book/

LIST O’ LINKS:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2012/06/twitterific.html

HINTS FROM AN AGENT ON ATTENDING RWA NATIONAL:

http://scotteagan.blogspot.com/2012/06/getting-ready-for-anaheim.html

STYLE BLUNDERS:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2012/06/style-blunders-in-fictionby-jodie.html

BRUSH UP YOUR GRAMMAR, MISPLACED MODIFIERS:

http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2012/06/grammar-abcs-m-is-for-misplaced.html

MAKING THE START OF YOUR NOVEL POP:

http://chiseledinrock.blogspot.com/2012/06/make-it-effortless-read.html

PUBLISHING NEWS, AMAZON BUYS AVALON BOOKS:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/amazon-buys-avalon-books-its-3000-backlist-titles_b52488

WHAT WOMEN’S FICTION AND LITERARY EDITORS HAVE BEEN BUYING:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2012/06/what-editors-have-bought-recently.html

BRUSH UP YOUR GRAMMAR, ACTIVE VERSUS PASSIVE VOICE:

http://scotteagan.blogspot.com/2012/06/passive-vs-active-voice-little-grammar.html

How Many Viewpoints Can You Have?

QUESTION: How many viewpoint characters can I use? And must I have the bad guy’s point of view?

The point of view character or POV is writing jargon for the person whose head you are inside during a scene in fiction. With the exception of omniscient viewpoint novels, all current genre novels have only one character’s POV at a time.

The number of point-of-view characters you use in a novel depends on genre needs as well as the story you have to tell. If your choice of POVs isn't mandated by the market, you use the number of POVs you need.

In STAR-CROSSED, I used six POVs because my story was so complex, and the novel was big enough at around 130,000 words to allow so many characters.  One of the POVs was my villain.  

I have also created complex suspense plots with only one or two POVs because the plot was so tightly connected that those POVs were enough.  None of those had the antagonist's POV.  

If the antagonist doesn't have a POV, the reader will still get a sense of the person because of what he does.  

The main characters are also discovering who or what this person is by following the clues of the crime or the situation.  As the characters learn about this criminal so does the reader.  

If this person's crimes are methodical, this gives the reader a bit of information about him.  If he cuts off the victims' fingers with a surgical knife, the reader learns something else about him.  

By the time the bad guy is unveiled, the reader should have a very good sense of this character without a POV.  At the moment of unveiling, the reader will usually be given the final pieces of this character's emotional puzzle.

Some writers have trouble writing the bad guys because they are concentrating on the good guys and the plot needs of the novel.  I always suggest that a writer write a summary of the plot from the point of view of the bad guy starting with the crime, if there was one, and move from that point to the final unveiling.

The bad guy's choices and his story must be as logical for his personality as the plot choices and story of the main characters.