Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Links of Interest


CREATING A GOOD SUBPLOT:



AUTHORS CONCERNED BY CRIMSON ROMANCE BEHAVIOR:



SHOULD YOU BLOG YOUR NOVEL?



THE BEST WAYS TO TRACK SITE TRAFFIC:



TEN TRAITS OF A GREAT PROTAGONIST:



THE MECHANICS OF MAGIC:



HOW TO RUN A WRITING GROUP:



MARKETING, START WITH THE RIGHT ATTITUDE:



HOW TO CONNECT WITH BOOK CLUBS:



CHARACTER AND CONFLICT:



AVOIDING BACKSTORY WHILE REVEALING CHARACTER:



MARKETS, SHORT STORY AND NOVEL:



SHOULD I SELF PUBLISH?



WRITING THE ENSEMBLE CAST:



WRITING YOUR CHARACTERS LIKE YOUR READERS:



FREE SCRIVENER TEMPLATES (PLOT):



Monday, June 24, 2013

Why Don't You Write a Real Book?


For some unknown reason, people like to denigrate fiction writers and what we write. Any science fiction or mystery writer will tell you about the comments they've received from jerks of various sorts.

But the most insulted of all writers is the romance writer.

Over time, I've heard from a number of my friends in the field who have asked for advice on how to reply to comments. 

Here are my suggestions. Many will work just as well with whatever fiction you write.

Most will work for readers as well.

The first comment is usually, "Why don't you write a real book?"


Rude reply: Why haven't you gotten a cure for foot-in-mouth disease?

Quotation reply: "Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none." Jules Renard. 

Considered reply: First, ask them to define "a real book." 

If they reply "non-fiction because it's useful and the truth. Fiction is a lie."

Fiction is the truth in parable form. In the BIBLE, Jesus and the Old Testament prophets explained eternal verities by the use of stories. The parable of the Good Samaritan is a perfect example. Is its message any less valuable because the Samaritan was a fictional character created by Jesus?

Fiction writers are telling the truth through their fiction. They create the world as they see it and offer their own beliefs. That belief may be as simple as "everyone has a true love and with courage and compromise can win that love." 

Is a novel any less valuable than the true-life story found in "Reader's Digest" which illustrates the same point? I don't think so. The only difference is the medium used to express that belief.

"But fiction isn't useful like non-fiction."

Yes, it is. Fiction is like that perfect school teacher who makes learning interesting. It gives information in small, easy to swallow doses. Historical novels give you history, science fiction science and the future of technology, mysteries and thrillers insight into the human mind and modern criminology techniques. 

Of course, some fiction offers little factual data and appears to only entertain. But that's all right too. Few people protest because most television shows and movies aren't useful, yet many feel the written word requires some justification. It doesn't. The written word has as much right to merely entertain as any other medium. 

There's no shame in just entertaining.

"But a real book is longer."

The average length of "literary novels" is the same as a Silhouette Presents or a Harlequin Romance. Usually, they're skinnier. Critics praise this shortness for its intensity. 

"But these are only women's novels."

Women aren't second-class citizens, and they aren't second-class readers either. You never hear anyone say Tom Clancy is only a men's novelist because many of his readers are male. Women writers and readers deserve the same respect. 

A hundred years or so ago, some male critic made a snippy remark about "those damn women scribblers" and their terrible books. He included Jane Austen and the Brontes in the comment. We should all wish to be in such company as "only" women writers.

"A real book is literary. It is the kind of book the New York Times reviews and college professors teach. It is great literature. It isn't popular fiction."

Almost every major noncontemporary fiction writer now taught in universities was a popular writer. The Neil Simon of his time, Shakespeare wrote bawdy jokes in his plays for the commoners.

Hawthorne was the Stephen King of his period. So was Poe. Mark Twain amassed a fortune through writing bestsellers.

Dickens' novels created a furor unequalled in modern times until the Harry Potter novels. For example, THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP was published in installments in a British magazine. As the ship carrying the last chapters docked in New York, a mob of fans waited for it. Men ran down the docks and screamed to the passengers, "Is Little Nell dead?" 

Only recently has the strange idea that popularity is a failure of literary standards materialized. I'm not certain where this idea comes from, but it smacks of the elitist mentality which believes the masses are incapable of appreciating art. 

Some authors whom literary critics have praised have become massive bestsellers. The same critics promptly change their opinion of the writer "who has sold out to popular acclaim."

"But today's popular novels aren't great literature."

No contemporary critic can truly define a current work as "great literature." Time is the only true test of that term. Books and authors praised a hundred years ago have disappeared except as footnotes in esoteric articles. 

Books which were damned as junk are taught in college. Read the scathing reviews of Melville's MOBY DICK if you want to see the perfect example of this. Melville's praised travel books are forgotten, but MOBY DICK is immortal. 

"Certainly you aren't comparing any romance to MOBY DICK or Shakespeare?"

Not really. I'm under no illusion that most romances are more than entertainment. But there's nothing wrong with entertainment. Is a chef condemned because he makes pastries instead of main dishes? Of course not. Is he any less a chef because he creates calories with little food value? No. 

To carry this analogy a little further, the pastry chef and the romance writer have a great deal in common. Any cook will tell you that creating an original cake recipe is much harder than making a casserole recipe. The ingredients and spices in a casserole can be varied with little problem. Variation in a cake, especially the important ingredients like baking powder and flour, can create disaster.

The romance is like that cake--airy, delicate, and delicious. But fail as a writer with one important element like character or plot, and the whole novel is rock hard and impossible to enjoy.

Other types of books, even the so-called literary books, are casserole books. The writer's touch need not be so delicate, and mistakes are much easier to be forgiven.

Lee Smith, a major Southern literary novelist, told me that she tried to write a Silhouette Presents when the market was wide open. The book was a failure, and her agent couldn't sell it. Lee confessed that she never intended to write another because they were too darn hard to write. 

The romance novel form is capable of generating great literature. Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters are perfect examples of this. 

Currently, some romance novelists are showing promise of creating the emotional and literary resonance necessary for great literature. Some of us are pushing the parameters of romance toward more literary acceptability. Only time will tell if great literature comes.

If nothing else, we're entertaining people and giving them love. We're taking them away from their troubles and pain. And what's more real than that?

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Links of Interest


TIPS OF COPYEDITING YOUR PROSE:



GIVING AWAY DIGITAL AT CONVENTIONS:



DEVELOPING A HIGH CONCEPT FOR YOUR NOVEL:



THE DANGER OF CREATING A PLOT TWIST THAT ALIENATES READERS:



HOW TO CREATE A STYLESHEET (COPYEDITOR’S BIBLE) FOR YOUR MANUSCRIPTS:



HOW TO PUT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ON AUTOPILOT:



DOES YOUR NOVEL HAVE TOO MANY CHARACTERS?



THE PROS AND CONS OF RELEASING SERIES NOVELS IN FAST SUCCESSION:



DATABASE LIST OF SITES USEFUL FOR WRITERS:



PROMOTION TIME LINE:



PROMOTING A RE-RELEASE OR AN OLD BOOK:



CHARACTER BLUNDERS:



A CHECKLIST FOR ADDING SUSPENSE:



HOW THE RIGHTS DEPARTMENT WORKS IN BIG PUBLISHING (SEE THE LINKS TO THE RIGHT FOR OTHER ARTICLES ON PARTS OF PUBLISHING HOUSES): 



RELATIONSHIPS IN ROMANCE, PART 1:



USING AN AUTHOR’S TRUST AS PART OF YOUR ESTATE PLANNING:



HOW TO USE FACEBOOK HASHTAGS EFFECTIVELY:



WRITING CHARACTERS BASED ON PEOPLE YOU KNOW:



THE MIDPOINT OF THE NOVEL:



HOW TO MAKE CHARACTERS SOUND LIKE THEMSELVES, NOT YOU:



WRITING THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR OR VIEWPOINT CHARACTER:



WHAT MAKES A GOOD SERIES:



HOW TO PROMOTE BOOKS:




Monday, June 17, 2013

The Danger of Too Rich and Too Smart



“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”--F. Scott Fitzgerald 

“Stupid is as stupid does.” --Forest Gump 


I have a weakness for British science fiction TV shows.  Everything from DOCTOR WHO to PRIMEVAL.  When I saw that Canadian TV had produced a sequel series called PRIMEVAL: NEW WORLD and that the SyFy Channel was showing it, I decided to give it a try.  

The premise is that temporary rips in time called anomalies allow dinosaurs and other creatures from the past and the future to come through and wreak havoc in our present.  These anomalies are only known about by a very few although raptors and an occasional T. Rex running amok in cities should give considerably more than a few a clue that this is happening.  

In the Canadian version of the show, a wealthy brainiac played by Niall Matter (hunky Zane from EUREKA) is the only person to realize this after a T. Rex chowed down on his wife.  Instead of alerting the media and the military, he goes on a one-man campaign to figure out what is going on and protect people from the predators.

To keep from causing a butterfly effect by killing these creatures, he tries to lure them back into the anomaly before it closes up.  

He is worth a serious chunk of change, but he has only a few paid people on his team and that’s it.  They have few weapons, and none are powerful enough to dent a dinosaur, let alone kill it.    

In Saturday's episode, the CEO of his company is telling another character how brilliant he is and how he’s such a strategist that he’s always ten steps ahead of everyone else.

Meanwhile, for no logical reason, the hero walks alone into a sewer where A GIANT SNAKE is lurking.  For protection, he has a small-caliber revolver and a flashlight.  He knows the monster snake is in there and the sewer is part of a closed system with just a few exits, yet he walks into its lair.  

When he pulled out the pistol which wouldn’t stop a pig, I said something extremely rude and started laughing.  The comment was directed at the writers, not the poor character, who survived this stupidity because he’s the hero.  

Unfortunately, I see the same kinds of errors about characters with brains, money, or both in much of my reading.

When you write a rich character, you have to consider what having money really means.  Someone rich can hire bodyguard, private detectives, and a small militia if needed. He can buy real weapons, not a small pistol.  He can have the ear of almost any politician or the military.  

Someone really bright and a talented strategist would post heavily armed people at every exit of that sewer system or block all the other exits so the snake would be forced to go out the exit near the anomaly.  

A writer should give the hero a reason like having his love interest or a small child trapped in the sewer for doing something so foolhardy.  

Giving a character money and brains requires that you really think about what he can do with that money and those smarts in a bad situation, or you’re the one who isn’t that bright to readers who won’t give you any money for that next piece of fiction you write.  

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Jim Butcher's STORM FRONT, Part 7 of 7


SUMMATION:  

Jim Butcher uses the detective PI mystery to drive the plot of this novel but makes it his own by using fantasy elements for the worldbuilding and characters.  

Harry is the strongest element in this novel with his courage, honor, and smart mouth, and he's a character we can care about through a series.  

STORM FRONT is a very strong beginning to a series that continues to grow in popularity and creative potential, and it's a story every urban fantasy writer should study carefully.


Friday, June 14, 2013

Jim Butcher's STORM FRONT, Part 6


THE OTHER CHARACTERS

KARRIN MURPHY

Murphy is Harry's foil in many ways.  

[A foil is a character whose differences highlight a central character.  For example, in Hamlet, rash, impulsive Laertes is deliberate Hamlet's foil.]
She works within and around the system, and she only occasionally gets caught in situations where she takes it on the chin.  Most of these situations involve helping Harry rescue someone.  Her mouth stays firmly shut at the right times, and she's capable of the bon mot or the vicious verbal attack when needed.  

She is also more of a realist about the world than Harry is.  

Like Harry, she is loyal and brave, and she is willing to risk anything for the innocent.

BOB

Bob is Harry's magical computer, his inner voice of cynicism about the world and magic, and his comic relief when things are bad. 

Although a supposedly emotionless being of spirit, Bob seems to develop both a conscience and a sense of loyalty to Harry as the series goes on.  Several times, Bob chooses to save Harry when he could do nothing.

MORGAN

Warden Morgan is not only a foil to Murphy's good cop, he is a foil to Harry's helpful wizard by being so rigid in his moral outlook and his job that he no longer functions as he should as a Warden.  Three Eye and the black wizard are his job, not Harry's.  

JOHN MARCONE

Marcone has an icy predator's soul, but he's also got a code of honor as strong as Harry's.  He is arguably the most interesting and unexpected secondary character in the series because he always surprises with his choices.  

The moment he walks into a plot, it is hard to guess if he's there to help or try to destroy Harry,  or do both.  The reader and Harry must keep an eye on him and must not be lulled by moments of good because the predator will emerge again.

VICTOR SELLS

As I mentioned in the section on the detective novel, Sells is Harry's opposite as well as his opponent.  Sells is not only the black wizard, he is the anti-Harry of the novel.  He is what Harry could be if he'd made different choices.

In that sense, Sells is an excellent plot device for showing Harry's backstory by making it front story.  He allows Butcher to give a wider view of magic by showing the dark side, and he is the perfect opponent for a first novel.

He also walks between the two worlds of our world and the magical world so he reflects the evil possible in both.

BIANCA, THE VAMPIRE

Unlike the other creatures here, Bianca isn't controlled by anyone else, and she's a thinking, plotting, and hating monster who now has Harry in her sights.  

Her part in this novel is small, and the information she proves could be gotten easily enough elsewhere.  Instead, she is a early taste of what the series will offer. 

PART SEVEN: