Reality vs. Fiction

"The way things happen in romance novels don't truly reflect the way things happen in our subjectively real universe." -- Someone's comment during blog discussion on romance.

The truth of the matter is nothing reflects the "real world" of experience. Not fiction, not nonfiction, not news reports, not even media like film and TV. Reality is simply too complex.

A writer uses her own vision of the universe to create her fiction. That vision is ordered so that the complex chaos of reality makes sense and has a pattern. 

If readers find her vision of reality to be truthful for them, (they buy into her vision and understand it), the writer has been successful. Part of that buying in while reading romance is seeing the complexity of the human personality and the male/female romantic relationship reflected in that writing.

Since so many women read romance, romance must reflect emotional, if not physical, reality for women.

In the same sense, most of us don't believe in vampires, but that doesn't prevent us from enjoying a good vampire romance. Those of us who analyze our responses to books see that the vampire romance reflects certain emotional needs and power issues for us so it is emotionally real although not "reality" real.

Semicolons in Fiction, CRAFT

QUESTION: Someone told me I shouldn't use semicolons in my stories. Why?

First, a grammar reminder about semicolons (;). The three most common uses of a semicolon are

*Compound sentences when a conjunction (and, or, but) isn't used.

The wind blew through the trees; the chimes sang like angels.

*Compound sentences when a conjunctive adverb (however, therefore, nevertheless) is used.

The wind blew through the trees; however, the chimes remained silent.

*Sentences with long, joined clauses which may have commas.

The wind blew through the trees, I was told; but because the chimes had become tangled, their sounds did not echo through the forest.

As you can see from the examples, most semicolon sentence structures have a formal quality to them that is uncommon in fiction but is often found in nonfiction. In other words, it belongs in nonfiction, not fiction, particularly genre fiction with its more vernacular style.

Use the semicolon as rarely as you would an exclamation point in narrative, and only when nothing else will do for clarity.

If you find yourself using semicolons quite often, your narrative voice is probably too heavy or didactic for popular fiction.

The Long and Short of the Submissions Process, MARKETS

Two respected agents blogged recently on the time it takes for a book to go from submission to acceptance.

Jessica Faust of Bookends talks about it in her March 11th blog.
http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/

Nathan Bransford of Curtis Brown talks about it in his March 6th blog.
http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/

Please note that both talk about books submitted by literary agencies. A book submitted by the author could take much, much longer.

NOTE: I'll be a guest at Stellarcon/Deep South Con (High Point, NC) this weekend. If you're there, come and say "hey." I'll be the matronly hobbit with the guest badge.
http://www.stellarcon.org/home

Reality versus fiction

"The way things happen in romance novels don't truly reflect the way things happen in our subjectively real universe. " -- Comment from reader


The truth of the matter is nothing reflects the "real world" of experience. Not fiction, not nonfiction, not bland news reports, not even media like film and TV. Reality is simply too complex.

A writer uses her own vision of the universe to create her fiction. That vision is ordered so that the complex chaos of reality makes sense and has a pattern.

If readers find her vision of reality to be truthful for them, (they buy into her vision and understand it), the writer has been successful. Part of that "buying in" is seeing the complexity of human personality and the male/female romantic relationship reflected in that writing.

Since so many women read romance, romance must reflect emotional, if not physical, reality for women.

In the same sense, most of us don't believe in vampires, but that doesn't prevent us from enjoying a good vampire romance. Those of us who analyze our responses to books see that the vampire romance reflects certain emotional needs and power issues for us so it is emotionally real although not "reality" real.