This blog is really just a teaser for my next blog, which I hope will be on narrative and descriptions. I'm not big on descriptions myself, particularly character descriptions since they are usually unnecessary. Most readers build up pictures in their mind of the main characters without much help from the writer, and after a while, if the writer starts inserting descriptions which disagree with how the reader is building the character in their head, well, the results are generally a dissatisfied reader.
That's not to say some description isn't necessary, because it is. But sort of like a minimalist artist, you're better off saying too little than too much. I wasn't going to go into much here, because I intend to have actual example which I don't have in front of me right now, but I do remember one. It's from Sue Grafton's wonderful alphabet mysteries, you know, the ones like 'A is for Alibi' and so on. In it, her main character is a female private investigator. Because the series is done in first person, you never really get much in the way of description, which is good. I mean, how many of us go around thinking: Oh, I've got beautiful blue eyes, or looking longingly at ourselves in mirrors. If you do, I suggest a good mental health professional.
Anyway, one of the things I remember most about Kinsey, the main character in these mysteries, is a little aside where she decides her mop of hair needs a little trim, so she trims it with her nail scissors. There wasn't much more to it, except that you know that because of the time period and a little bit more description thrown in here and there, what she's describing is a sort of home "shag" hairstyle for a woman with wavy brown hair, cut at different lengths with nail scissors. Perfect. No elaborate descriptions, no mirrors. Just a note in passing, which is a great way to drop in descriptions on the fly.
An audience will actually read and digest that sort of description. It's the long, long descriptions (oh, say a paragraph) that I skip over (oh, my, did I just admit that I, a writer, skips over descriptions? Yes, sweetie. Sorry.) There are remarkably few descriptions that I don't skip over. Those all have some tone or aspect in them that makes the descriptions fun or interesting to read. For example, my favorite writer, Elizabeth Eyre. I always read her descriptions because of the sly wit and the fact that she makes even inanimate things like wind have purpose and personality. P.G. Wodehouse is another one who writes descriptions with a purpose and great deal of humor. If you don't read his descriptions, chances are good, you're going to miss a chuckle.
I don't read descriptions which are just "mood setting" or just...descriptions. They're boring. If they don't make a point, aren't funny/sly/witty or interesting for some reason, then I don't give a darn about them.
Of course this has also driven my agent to mention to me that I could use some descriptions in my writing. Hmmm.
So that's what my next blog is going to be about. Writing descriptions that aren't boring. That an audience won't just skip over because they don't add anything important to the story.
How's that? A deal?
Monday, March 20, 2006
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Writers and Resiliency
Okay, it took me roughly two and a half days to cut bait and let my four historical mysteries and plots for 4 more sink beneath the surface of the waves. I can't say that I'm not casting longing glances back over my shoulder at them, nor can I say that some small part of me isn't hoping that my agent can sell the ones she's still flogging, but I've cut that line. I'm just having a little issue with it tangling around my ankles, trying to pull me under the waves with it. Or them. (That darn grammar stuff--sheesh.)
I guess I'm either a writer or masochistic to have already decided not to let those really sincere rejections stop me. Are all writers masochistic? I think some have to be. No matter how many blows I take and how many times very knowledgeable people in the publishing industry try ever-so-gently to tell me that my concepts are not fit for barnyard animals, I keep coming back for more. "More please," she says, holding out her empty bowl.
"Hit me again. Please. But harder this time, because I didn't quite get the message before."
Oh, but how I envy my critique partner who decided one sunny day to write a historical, finished it, sent it off to a handful of agents, signed with the agent, and got the book published without any visible effort or angst. All without breaking into a cold, smelly sweat. Magic does happen for some, don't think that it doesn't. Not all writers are full of tales of woe and rejection.
Does that mean that she has more talent than I do? I honestly can't say. She's also a member of Mensa. She's undoubtedly smart. She does write very well, and she has lovable characters. Is that the answer? If it's not the answer, it is certainly a major, well-heeled constituent.
But enough about talking about other people. This is about me and my angst as a writer.
So, now that I've thrown away all the work I've done for the last five or six years (who's counting?) what will I work on now? I'm not really sure. I'm still drawn to mysteries. They are probably 80% of what I read.
If I can't write historical mysteries, then what about contemporary? Ummm. I'm not sure. I need a different angle, I mean, that's what I loved about the historical ones I was writing - I had this framework all worked out with the "Second Sons, Discreet Inquiries" detective agency and the stories written as Tales with a terminal twist...
I've got a vampire tale "with a terminal twist" that I might try on the contest circuit. I wrote it as a change of pace and to "cleanse my palette" after writing so many historical mysteries. My agent isn't too keen on that radical a "change of venue" and paranormals can be a tough sell, but you never know. It's one possibility, so I'm editing the heck out of the first few chapters and hope to send it to some contests in April to see what the general populace think about it. If it goes over like week-old fish, I'm not going to agonize over it. Well, that's probably a lie, and it'll probably be in a future blog, but I'm not planning on agonizing over it.
What else can I do? My brain is a little rusty on contemporary stuff, but maybe something along the lines of a chick-lit mystery. I've tried dark/gritty and I just can't do that. I'd love to be able to write something that Hard Case Crime would publish (I've been reading ALL their books the last few months) but I just can't get that Scumbag Noir flavor into my writing. It comes out more like a mildly depressed P.G. Wodehouse trying to imitate Raymond Chandler. Too weird for words. And I'm probably giving my writing too much credit to even mention Wodehouse and Chandler in a paragraph which is tainted by references to my writing.
Okay, enough self-deprecation. I'm not being paid enough to beat myself up for longer than a few minutes at a time.
I'm going to send that darn vampire thing out to as many contests as I can afford, starting in April.
Then, I'm going to get to work on something contemporary. Something with some dead bodies. Something with a chick-lit tone, maybe, and a few con men perhaps, even though they are sort-a more 1940's than 2006. There is no way I'm going to write something without something dead in it. On that one point I shall stand firm. I mean, I know people are telling me to write romance, but I'm afraid my idea of romance doesn't completely coincide with the rest of America's idea of romance. My concept is...
You're sitting next to this big, hulking guy who you suddenly realize isn't so bad. He notices you noticing him, which you can tell by the kind of half-smile on his face while he watches the made-for-television movie on tv. You assume the smile isn't in response to the good guy's sidekick just getting blown away by the bad guy's sawed-off shotgun.
Suddenly, he puts down his beer and glances over at you, and you realize a commercial just started.
He says, "You wanna?"
"Wanna what?"
"Do stuff?" he asks, waggling his brows at you.
"Oh, sure." You put down your beer, too, and you rip off each other's clothing and you do stuff.
Then, this being a romance, you're lucky enough to have both your beers--which are still ice cold and almost full (this being a romance)-- sitting there when you're done, and the commercials are over so you didn't miss any of the movie.
Now, that's romance.
Hmmm. Maybe I really could write Scumbag Noir in a chick-lit kind of tone, except when my characters are done doing stuff they find a dead body laying in front of the tv. Good Grief, just think what the crime lab/CSI folks could find at THAT crime scene. It almost makes me shudder...with glee.
Maybe I should talk to my agent first though, so she won't think I've gone completely nutso on her. Geeze, I hope she doesn't read my blog, or she'll already know that I'm completely nutso and that I wa-a-a-ay over-react when she forwards those polite e-mail rejections to me.
Well, that might be good for her to know. Lower her expectations. I like low expectations. You can only go up once you're down!
I guess I'm either a writer or masochistic to have already decided not to let those really sincere rejections stop me. Are all writers masochistic? I think some have to be. No matter how many blows I take and how many times very knowledgeable people in the publishing industry try ever-so-gently to tell me that my concepts are not fit for barnyard animals, I keep coming back for more. "More please," she says, holding out her empty bowl.
"Hit me again. Please. But harder this time, because I didn't quite get the message before."
Oh, but how I envy my critique partner who decided one sunny day to write a historical, finished it, sent it off to a handful of agents, signed with the agent, and got the book published without any visible effort or angst. All without breaking into a cold, smelly sweat. Magic does happen for some, don't think that it doesn't. Not all writers are full of tales of woe and rejection.
Does that mean that she has more talent than I do? I honestly can't say. She's also a member of Mensa. She's undoubtedly smart. She does write very well, and she has lovable characters. Is that the answer? If it's not the answer, it is certainly a major, well-heeled constituent.
But enough about talking about other people. This is about me and my angst as a writer.
So, now that I've thrown away all the work I've done for the last five or six years (who's counting?) what will I work on now? I'm not really sure. I'm still drawn to mysteries. They are probably 80% of what I read.
If I can't write historical mysteries, then what about contemporary? Ummm. I'm not sure. I need a different angle, I mean, that's what I loved about the historical ones I was writing - I had this framework all worked out with the "Second Sons, Discreet Inquiries" detective agency and the stories written as Tales with a terminal twist...
I've got a vampire tale "with a terminal twist" that I might try on the contest circuit. I wrote it as a change of pace and to "cleanse my palette" after writing so many historical mysteries. My agent isn't too keen on that radical a "change of venue" and paranormals can be a tough sell, but you never know. It's one possibility, so I'm editing the heck out of the first few chapters and hope to send it to some contests in April to see what the general populace think about it. If it goes over like week-old fish, I'm not going to agonize over it. Well, that's probably a lie, and it'll probably be in a future blog, but I'm not planning on agonizing over it.
What else can I do? My brain is a little rusty on contemporary stuff, but maybe something along the lines of a chick-lit mystery. I've tried dark/gritty and I just can't do that. I'd love to be able to write something that Hard Case Crime would publish (I've been reading ALL their books the last few months) but I just can't get that Scumbag Noir flavor into my writing. It comes out more like a mildly depressed P.G. Wodehouse trying to imitate Raymond Chandler. Too weird for words. And I'm probably giving my writing too much credit to even mention Wodehouse and Chandler in a paragraph which is tainted by references to my writing.
Okay, enough self-deprecation. I'm not being paid enough to beat myself up for longer than a few minutes at a time.
I'm going to send that darn vampire thing out to as many contests as I can afford, starting in April.
Then, I'm going to get to work on something contemporary. Something with some dead bodies. Something with a chick-lit tone, maybe, and a few con men perhaps, even though they are sort-a more 1940's than 2006. There is no way I'm going to write something without something dead in it. On that one point I shall stand firm. I mean, I know people are telling me to write romance, but I'm afraid my idea of romance doesn't completely coincide with the rest of America's idea of romance. My concept is...
You're sitting next to this big, hulking guy who you suddenly realize isn't so bad. He notices you noticing him, which you can tell by the kind of half-smile on his face while he watches the made-for-television movie on tv. You assume the smile isn't in response to the good guy's sidekick just getting blown away by the bad guy's sawed-off shotgun.
Suddenly, he puts down his beer and glances over at you, and you realize a commercial just started.
He says, "You wanna?"
"Wanna what?"
"Do stuff?" he asks, waggling his brows at you.
"Oh, sure." You put down your beer, too, and you rip off each other's clothing and you do stuff.
Then, this being a romance, you're lucky enough to have both your beers--which are still ice cold and almost full (this being a romance)-- sitting there when you're done, and the commercials are over so you didn't miss any of the movie.
Now, that's romance.
Hmmm. Maybe I really could write Scumbag Noir in a chick-lit kind of tone, except when my characters are done doing stuff they find a dead body laying in front of the tv. Good Grief, just think what the crime lab/CSI folks could find at THAT crime scene. It almost makes me shudder...with glee.
Maybe I should talk to my agent first though, so she won't think I've gone completely nutso on her. Geeze, I hope she doesn't read my blog, or she'll already know that I'm completely nutso and that I wa-a-a-ay over-react when she forwards those polite e-mail rejections to me.
Well, that might be good for her to know. Lower her expectations. I like low expectations. You can only go up once you're down!
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
I Should Have Read My Own Blog
The title says it all: I should have read my own blog. The one where I said nothing good happens if I get a little confidence. I should have stayed depressed and sure I would always be one of those pitiful writer wannabe hacks who write for years but never produce anything good enough to get published.
Why would I say that?
Sunday night, I decided it was time to revise my web site and turn the focus to what I hoped would be a historical mystery/romance series revolving around a detective agency called: Second Sons, Discreet Inquiries. I had already written 4 manuscripts with this concept and each ended with a "bonus epilogue" containing a minor, but I hoped enjoyable, twist. I even thought I could use: Tales with a Terminal Twist, as a sort of an all-encompassing sales line.
My agent loved the manuscript I sent her (it was actually the second, but we're not going to talk about my previous abortive effort) and she started trying to sell it. Then, I sent her a second one. This one, she was not so thrilled with, but she's gamely trying to sell that one, too.
Well. Of course, since it's now been months, I got a little confidence that maybe it would sell. I mean, my agent loved the first one, didn't she? So I decided I really was going to be a writer, a published writer, and I redid my web site to be a writer's web site. Even though I hadn't sold yet, I figured I was close so instead of a more hobby (writing and gardening) web site, I created what I considered to be a professional writer site.
Besides, I had read all these other blogs from other writers who said things like: you have to have confidence and present yourself as a professional writer, and if you do, you'll be a professional, published writer.
Sounded like good advice. The sort of solid advice one gives to Olympics-bound athletes. Confidence. That's the ticket.
Naturally, whatever forces power the universe duly noted this slight but significant increase in my level of confidence. Normally, I have none since I've learned that confidence, any confidence, on my part inevitably leads to disappointment and disaster, but for some stupid reason I keep trying to overcome that. I keep trying to take other people's advice.
After showing this minute, microscopic cell's-worth of confidence, I imagine some sort of cosmic conversation went on like this:
"Did you see that that woman actually thinks she might get published?"
Snicker.
"I think she's almost got confidence that she'll sell. She's revised her web site, too. Thinks she's going to get this Second Sons concept off the ground."
Loud guffaw.
"We can't have this. Swat her down like a mosquito in August, and this time, since she had the nerve to redesign her web site around this concept and included excerpts from three of her manuscripts, I want the entire thing crushed. I want everything she's written for the last 4 years, and everything she plans to write for the next few years to be entirely worthless."
"You got it, boss. Entire waste and devastation. No problem."
The day after I revised my web site, I got a boat-load of rejections. Coincidence? Coincidence that I got the rejections the day after I revised my web site to be more professional and to commit to this concept of historical-set mysteries (with a pathetic touch of romance)?
Well, they weren't just the "sorry, not right for us" kinds of rejections. These were the "you're not in tune with the market" kind of rejections. No one wants historical-set mysteries and particularly not with a romance. Your romance was too subtle. It wasn't hot enough. It stunk on ice. Revisions would be so massive that it wouldn't be worth thinking about.
Three publishers didn't even want to look at my work because they loathed even the concept.
Since pretty much everything I've written during the last four years and everything I plan to write over the next few years rests on this concept, I'm basically sitting in a leaking boat watching a great white shark circle me. Waiting. Watching. Hitting the hull with its tail to make the boat sink a little faster. Oh, and I have a nosebleed which seems to make me of even greater interest to the circling shark.
So now what?
I'm going to have to pull back on the web site, for one thing. There's no point in talking about an entire flotilla of related manuscripts that aren't going to make it out the door. Toss out all the plots I'd worked out and have lined up, waiting to be written. Forget about Second Sons. Forget about the Archers.
If I'm not going to write these historical-set mysteries (with a touch, but not hot enough, of romance) then what am I going to write? My brain was entirely wrapped around this idea. I had already tried the contemporary route six years ago but found it more interesting and "natural" for me to set my stories in the late Regency period. I don't know why, but ideas just flowed when I switched to historical-set.
But that's not going to sell, so I have to get over it right now.
Time to stand back. Other writers tell me to try other genres. Mentally, it feels like trying to divert the ocean. It feels like what they're really telling me is that I don't fit in. I'm not one of them. I'm not a writer.
Am I going to give up? Today, I don't know. Tomorrow, I can't say.
Why would I say that?
Sunday night, I decided it was time to revise my web site and turn the focus to what I hoped would be a historical mystery/romance series revolving around a detective agency called: Second Sons, Discreet Inquiries. I had already written 4 manuscripts with this concept and each ended with a "bonus epilogue" containing a minor, but I hoped enjoyable, twist. I even thought I could use: Tales with a Terminal Twist, as a sort of an all-encompassing sales line.
My agent loved the manuscript I sent her (it was actually the second, but we're not going to talk about my previous abortive effort) and she started trying to sell it. Then, I sent her a second one. This one, she was not so thrilled with, but she's gamely trying to sell that one, too.
Well. Of course, since it's now been months, I got a little confidence that maybe it would sell. I mean, my agent loved the first one, didn't she? So I decided I really was going to be a writer, a published writer, and I redid my web site to be a writer's web site. Even though I hadn't sold yet, I figured I was close so instead of a more hobby (writing and gardening) web site, I created what I considered to be a professional writer site.
Besides, I had read all these other blogs from other writers who said things like: you have to have confidence and present yourself as a professional writer, and if you do, you'll be a professional, published writer.
Sounded like good advice. The sort of solid advice one gives to Olympics-bound athletes. Confidence. That's the ticket.
Naturally, whatever forces power the universe duly noted this slight but significant increase in my level of confidence. Normally, I have none since I've learned that confidence, any confidence, on my part inevitably leads to disappointment and disaster, but for some stupid reason I keep trying to overcome that. I keep trying to take other people's advice.
After showing this minute, microscopic cell's-worth of confidence, I imagine some sort of cosmic conversation went on like this:
"Did you see that that woman actually thinks she might get published?"
Snicker.
"I think she's almost got confidence that she'll sell. She's revised her web site, too. Thinks she's going to get this Second Sons concept off the ground."
Loud guffaw.
"We can't have this. Swat her down like a mosquito in August, and this time, since she had the nerve to redesign her web site around this concept and included excerpts from three of her manuscripts, I want the entire thing crushed. I want everything she's written for the last 4 years, and everything she plans to write for the next few years to be entirely worthless."
"You got it, boss. Entire waste and devastation. No problem."
The day after I revised my web site, I got a boat-load of rejections. Coincidence? Coincidence that I got the rejections the day after I revised my web site to be more professional and to commit to this concept of historical-set mysteries (with a pathetic touch of romance)?
Well, they weren't just the "sorry, not right for us" kinds of rejections. These were the "you're not in tune with the market" kind of rejections. No one wants historical-set mysteries and particularly not with a romance. Your romance was too subtle. It wasn't hot enough. It stunk on ice. Revisions would be so massive that it wouldn't be worth thinking about.
Three publishers didn't even want to look at my work because they loathed even the concept.
Since pretty much everything I've written during the last four years and everything I plan to write over the next few years rests on this concept, I'm basically sitting in a leaking boat watching a great white shark circle me. Waiting. Watching. Hitting the hull with its tail to make the boat sink a little faster. Oh, and I have a nosebleed which seems to make me of even greater interest to the circling shark.
So now what?
I'm going to have to pull back on the web site, for one thing. There's no point in talking about an entire flotilla of related manuscripts that aren't going to make it out the door. Toss out all the plots I'd worked out and have lined up, waiting to be written. Forget about Second Sons. Forget about the Archers.
If I'm not going to write these historical-set mysteries (with a touch, but not hot enough, of romance) then what am I going to write? My brain was entirely wrapped around this idea. I had already tried the contemporary route six years ago but found it more interesting and "natural" for me to set my stories in the late Regency period. I don't know why, but ideas just flowed when I switched to historical-set.
But that's not going to sell, so I have to get over it right now.
Time to stand back. Other writers tell me to try other genres. Mentally, it feels like trying to divert the ocean. It feels like what they're really telling me is that I don't fit in. I'm not one of them. I'm not a writer.
Am I going to give up? Today, I don't know. Tomorrow, I can't say.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Getting Out There
All writers need a web site.
That's really the main point of this post, so if you're in a hurry, you've read all you need to read.
Get a web site and get your domain name reserved now. What is a domain name? It's that www.yourname.whatever address that folks are going to type into their web browser to get to your web site.
There is a lot of domain name "squatting" going on, so I advise you to grab whatever name you want now, pay a domain name registration service such as www.register.com, or www.namesecure.com or www.godaddy.com or any one of a number of other services. For less than $9.95 per year you can reserve your name, e.g. www.amypadgett.com, and make sure that some cyber-squatter doesn't grab your name for whatever nefarious reason they have. (Don't forget the www.whitehouse.com versus www.whitehouse.gov debacle where some folks of ill-repute got the www.whitehouse.com domain name before the legit presidential folks could get their big-brother governmental hands on it. What a mess. Don't let that happen to you!)
This is not an idle remark and it's not just the White House that has had the problem. I have a wonderful fellow writer friend who has been publishing a slew of novellas and whose agent is working to get her published as a single title. This friend had a web site but due to some issues with her web hosting service, she had to move it to a different service and in the process, some cyber-squatter got her original domain name, forcing her to move from www.charlottefeatherstone.com to www.charlottefeatherstone.net. Since most people will automatically add the .com to the end of a web site name, it makes it a little awkward.
If you run into a situation like that, where your name and most versions of it are already taken, I would recommend using the country extension instead of the .net extension. (I don't like the .net extension because it's generally used by folks in the computer industry to indicate organizations/companies/industries related to the networking industry, which is not particularly applicable to writers and will make propeller-heads like me, crazy.)
Each country in the world, including the U.S.A. has an extension which can be used instead of the regular .com, if the name you want to attach to the .com extension is already taken. For example, the United Kingdom has the .co.uk extension for the country extension. The United States has the .co.us extension.
All this naming stuff, however, is not exactly the point I wanted to make in this blog.
I just spent the weekend going back over my website and making some modest changes. One of the changes is relatively important, however, and it's a change I would encourage others to make.
Of course, it may be that others don't need to make this change and as usual, I'm just weird.
When I originally started my web site, I did not have an agent and I had no idea when I would be published. I didn't want the site to be a "writer wannabe" site. As it turned out, I became heavily involved in the Wilmington Cape Fear Rose Society as the newsletter editor, and I also began writing articles about the history of roses. So, I made my web site a sort of "all my interests" site with sections on gardening/roses including newsletter issues (I'm still working on getting the old issues up there), birding, and writing.
That's fine, but what that made it was a hobby site.
Now that I have an agent and am closer to being a published writer, I realized that one of the writer's biggest tools in the publicity toolkit is their web site. I had to do a makeover to begin to change it from being a hobby site to a writer's site that just included sections on other things such as rose gardening, instead of the hobbies being the main focus. I couldn't take down the rose gardening sections, however, because I get a lot of visitors on those pages and I maintain the newsletters online for my rose society. Besides, it's writing even if it's nonfiction, and it provides information to writers on...roses. And roses during the Regency period.
The importance of turning it into a more writing profession and less hobby-oriented site was brought home to me by another writer, Mai Thao, www.maichristythao.com. She has a gorgeous web site and actually got her first writing contract when someone visited her web site, read her excerpts and contacted her.
Don't go all crazy at this point and think this is the answer to your prayers for getting published.
This was most likely an aberation. I seriously doubt editors and agents are cruising the internet looking for new writers, because they get enough manuscripts in the mail to keep them occupied well into the next century. However, this is one example of how important a site can be. You just don't know who is surfing the net out there and who may discover you at random.
Nonetheless, fantasies aside, the most critical thing a site does for you is to provide a avenue for publicity and a place for fans to go for more information and news. Do not pooh-pooh this aspect. It is incredibly important. And since it takes time for search engines, such as www.google.com to find your website and catalog the pages, the sooner you can create one and get some "content out there," the better it will be when the time comes to actually use it professionally to publicize your books.
Over the past year, I've noticed a lot of major authors have done amazing web site overhauls, which to my mind means they have also realized how critical this is. I would encourage you to take a look at three of my favorite sites. They have beautiful designs and give you a feel for what should be on an author's site:
www.tessgerritsen.com
www.suegrafton.com
www.lindseydavis.co.uk
Surprisingly enough, I also use sites like www.microsoft.com to see how they lay things out because they really are web site professionals and know exactly how to present a lot of information in a graphically pleasing way. Or, just look at your favorite web site.
If I had to give one (okay, 2) piece of advice, it would be:
Keep the site visually clean. Use a lot of white space. And watch what words you use, particularly if you include excerpts. If you use a lot of dirty words, your pages may be found, but they may be put on the "porn" site list so people with parental filters turned on may not get to your site. Your site may not even be listed as a choice when people use things like www.google.com to search. Think about it.
Excerpts
I'm a little torn on the excerpt issue. I've heard pros and cons. Last year, I had excerpts, then I took them down and now I've got some very short ones back up. The pros are that they can give your audience a feel for your writing and they may gain you new readers. The cons are that you're providing "free reading material" which may not make your publisher happy. There are a lot more pros and cons. This issue deserves a lot of consideration. I have noticed that most professional, big-time writers like the ones I have listed above do not have excerpts. I find this very telling.
On the other hand, I've heard readers say they like the excerpts on web sites because they can more easily determine if they will like an unfamiliar writer's voice and they are more likely to buy a book to try them.
This leads me to the conclusion that it may be good to have excerpts until you are well-known enough to despense with them.
Anyway, that's about it. Web sites are important to writers; and readers, too!
That's really the main point of this post, so if you're in a hurry, you've read all you need to read.
Get a web site and get your domain name reserved now. What is a domain name? It's that www.yourname.whatever address that folks are going to type into their web browser to get to your web site.
There is a lot of domain name "squatting" going on, so I advise you to grab whatever name you want now, pay a domain name registration service such as www.register.com, or www.namesecure.com or www.godaddy.com or any one of a number of other services. For less than $9.95 per year you can reserve your name, e.g. www.amypadgett.com, and make sure that some cyber-squatter doesn't grab your name for whatever nefarious reason they have. (Don't forget the www.whitehouse.com versus www.whitehouse.gov debacle where some folks of ill-repute got the www.whitehouse.com domain name before the legit presidential folks could get their big-brother governmental hands on it. What a mess. Don't let that happen to you!)
This is not an idle remark and it's not just the White House that has had the problem. I have a wonderful fellow writer friend who has been publishing a slew of novellas and whose agent is working to get her published as a single title. This friend had a web site but due to some issues with her web hosting service, she had to move it to a different service and in the process, some cyber-squatter got her original domain name, forcing her to move from www.charlottefeatherstone.com to www.charlottefeatherstone.net. Since most people will automatically add the .com to the end of a web site name, it makes it a little awkward.
If you run into a situation like that, where your name and most versions of it are already taken, I would recommend using the country extension instead of the .net extension. (I don't like the .net extension because it's generally used by folks in the computer industry to indicate organizations/companies/industries related to the networking industry, which is not particularly applicable to writers and will make propeller-heads like me, crazy.)
Each country in the world, including the U.S.A. has an extension which can be used instead of the regular .com, if the name you want to attach to the .com extension is already taken. For example, the United Kingdom has the .co.uk extension for the country extension. The United States has the .co.us extension.
All this naming stuff, however, is not exactly the point I wanted to make in this blog.
I just spent the weekend going back over my website and making some modest changes. One of the changes is relatively important, however, and it's a change I would encourage others to make.
Of course, it may be that others don't need to make this change and as usual, I'm just weird.
When I originally started my web site, I did not have an agent and I had no idea when I would be published. I didn't want the site to be a "writer wannabe" site. As it turned out, I became heavily involved in the Wilmington Cape Fear Rose Society as the newsletter editor, and I also began writing articles about the history of roses. So, I made my web site a sort of "all my interests" site with sections on gardening/roses including newsletter issues (I'm still working on getting the old issues up there), birding, and writing.
That's fine, but what that made it was a hobby site.
Now that I have an agent and am closer to being a published writer, I realized that one of the writer's biggest tools in the publicity toolkit is their web site. I had to do a makeover to begin to change it from being a hobby site to a writer's site that just included sections on other things such as rose gardening, instead of the hobbies being the main focus. I couldn't take down the rose gardening sections, however, because I get a lot of visitors on those pages and I maintain the newsletters online for my rose society. Besides, it's writing even if it's nonfiction, and it provides information to writers on...roses. And roses during the Regency period.
The importance of turning it into a more writing profession and less hobby-oriented site was brought home to me by another writer, Mai Thao, www.maichristythao.com. She has a gorgeous web site and actually got her first writing contract when someone visited her web site, read her excerpts and contacted her.
Don't go all crazy at this point and think this is the answer to your prayers for getting published.
This was most likely an aberation. I seriously doubt editors and agents are cruising the internet looking for new writers, because they get enough manuscripts in the mail to keep them occupied well into the next century. However, this is one example of how important a site can be. You just don't know who is surfing the net out there and who may discover you at random.
Nonetheless, fantasies aside, the most critical thing a site does for you is to provide a avenue for publicity and a place for fans to go for more information and news. Do not pooh-pooh this aspect. It is incredibly important. And since it takes time for search engines, such as www.google.com to find your website and catalog the pages, the sooner you can create one and get some "content out there," the better it will be when the time comes to actually use it professionally to publicize your books.
Over the past year, I've noticed a lot of major authors have done amazing web site overhauls, which to my mind means they have also realized how critical this is. I would encourage you to take a look at three of my favorite sites. They have beautiful designs and give you a feel for what should be on an author's site:
www.tessgerritsen.com
www.suegrafton.com
www.lindseydavis.co.uk
Surprisingly enough, I also use sites like www.microsoft.com to see how they lay things out because they really are web site professionals and know exactly how to present a lot of information in a graphically pleasing way. Or, just look at your favorite web site.
If I had to give one (okay, 2) piece of advice, it would be:
Keep the site visually clean. Use a lot of white space. And watch what words you use, particularly if you include excerpts. If you use a lot of dirty words, your pages may be found, but they may be put on the "porn" site list so people with parental filters turned on may not get to your site. Your site may not even be listed as a choice when people use things like www.google.com to search. Think about it.
Excerpts
I'm a little torn on the excerpt issue. I've heard pros and cons. Last year, I had excerpts, then I took them down and now I've got some very short ones back up. The pros are that they can give your audience a feel for your writing and they may gain you new readers. The cons are that you're providing "free reading material" which may not make your publisher happy. There are a lot more pros and cons. This issue deserves a lot of consideration. I have noticed that most professional, big-time writers like the ones I have listed above do not have excerpts. I find this very telling.
On the other hand, I've heard readers say they like the excerpts on web sites because they can more easily determine if they will like an unfamiliar writer's voice and they are more likely to buy a book to try them.
This leads me to the conclusion that it may be good to have excerpts until you are well-known enough to despense with them.
Anyway, that's about it. Web sites are important to writers; and readers, too!
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
What I've Learned The Hard Way
After just finishing up our taxes (we owed so no nice, big, fat tax refund to play with, boo-hoo) my mind is a little blotto, but I'm going to give this a try anyway. If I'm majorly incoherant, well, it's because the little guys in the back of my mind are screaming and running around frantically trying to think up ways to cover our tax bill.
So, what have I learned over the last, oh, say thirty years or so?
First (and this applies to any endeavor, but it most especially applies to writing) you have to know what you want to accomplish. This is not as easy as it sounds. I'll give you two examples from my work, one is writing-related, the other is my paying job-related. Just to confuse you, I'm going to do my paying job-related one first.
Back around 1987 or so, I was a first-time supervisor, a first-time project manager, and was pretty much the entire project team on a development project. The project wasn't exactly new, it was to develop a replacement computer system. The folks who had hired me had tried a couple of times before, failed, and now had really angry customers on their hands. In fact, their customers were in law enforcement so it was legal for them to carry guns on their job, which should have made my employers a little more success oriented.
At any rate, during our first meeting, these huge, burly guys filed into the room (I'm 5'4"), placed their sidearms on the table and said, "So, what is it that you think you're going to do for us?"
(I'm thinking, other than pee in my pants?) I replied, "I'm going to develop a replacement computer system for you. Now, what did you have in mind and what features do you need for this system?"
During the next 9 months, which was all the time I had to do this, I made a few false starts before I realized what people say isn't always what they mean. Sometimes you *think* you know what your goal is, but you're wrong because what your customer is telling you they want may not be what they need. What you must get at is their goal.
That sounds like a lot of gobbledy-gook, so here's what I mean, exactly. These customers said they didn't want to see wants-and-warrants listed on the dispatcher's screen when they called in during a stop, but they wanted to be able to click on some link and flip to the information. Well, maybe, but maybe not. Turns out, they desperately did need to see wants-and-warrants, first thing.
What I needed to find out was what it was they were going to do with the information and when they were going to need it because not immediately displaying it turned out to be the wrong decision. I had to ride with a few of them while they worked, question them about their procedures during a stop, find out what information they passed to the dispatcher, and what they needed in return. Turned out, the first thing they do is pass on the information for the dispatcher to do a search for wants-and-warrants and then the dispatcher needed to immediately pass any relevant information to the officer so s/he knows if s/he is dealing with a dangerous person. (Remember, this was back in the middle to late 1980's so the officers didn't have those cute little wireless devices in their vehicles to do their own searches.)
So I learned that getting someone's list of specifications doesn't necessarily get you to the right place. You need to understand what the underlying goal is and how that product is going to be used to meet that goal. You can then create the right end product.
Well, yeah, but what does that have to do with writing, or anything else for that matter?
Because with writing, painting, or just about any human endeavor, to be successful depends upon how clearly you understand both the goal and how you are going to meet that goal, and the goal may not be obvious.
Writing
When I first started writing (for the third time - I already had written three manuscripts at various intervals, but then I got really, really serious and wrote 8 more) I thought I understood this lesson from my paying job. I was going to write a romance, right? I read them, I understood the structure and thought I was ready.
Wrong. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Sure, I did understand certain things, but there was a lot I didn't understand down to my bones. I thought each of my scenes pushed the story forward. I had conflict between the hero and heroine. However, there were still critical things missing because basically, like that first computer project, I had my specifications but I didn't understand the difference between just having bad things happen to good characters (plain specifications), and having events happen that are inevitable given who the characters are.
Now folks are probably already laughing up their sleeves at me, figuring I'm just a "plotter" who develops a plot and then just shoves their characters into the situations. Those authors who are character driven don't have this problem. Maybe, but I doubt it, because there is a lot more to this than just forcing characters willy-nilly into specific plot situations.
Remember that goal thing I was talking about? Well, part of this, part of the inevitability of events must also rest upon the underlying theme. Argh!!! I'm just writing commercial fiction for crying out loud! I'm not going to worry about a theme. Then don't, but don't come crying to me when your story doesn't gel, your characters seem cardboard, and it just doesn't work.
A theme is really that goal, that in-depth understanding of what you're trying to accomplish, and without that, you begin to lose the ability to do things like, oh, I don't know, like determine if each scene is really necessary and if it does what needs to get done or is just boring/repetitive/filler. It's what will create the gift for your reader at the end of the story, the thing that gives them that happy sigh of completion and fulfillment.
Of course, you also have to understand your character's goals for letting you drag them through this story, because you have to know why they are acting the way they are acting and doing what they are doing. Don't let them opt for the easy, "Oh, I kill people because I'm a raving madman" line. Make them tell you about all their little dark secrets, so you can understand them and write their actions with conviction, knowing that under the circumstances, the characters have to act they way they are acting because it is who they are. They have consciously or unconsciously made the choices that brought them to this place. Understand their choices. For example, just because a child is abused, doesn't mean they will inevitably turn out to be a mad-dog killer. Lots of people go through horrible abuse or terrifying ordeals and while they may have odd quirks as a result, they are kind, decent human beings.
Like I said, don't take the easy way out. Get to know the whys behind the character's actions.
Some writers are just so gifted that they can happily write without doing all this work of figuring out the theme or goals or anything else like that, so, well, good for them. If you're one of them, I applaud you and wish I was one of you. I'm not.
The more I write, the more critical I am of my own work and the more depth I crave, even though on the surface they are just light, fluffy little mystery stories with a touch of romance. My characters may be amusing and even crazy, but with each new manuscript, I'm trying a little harder to get them to tell me their whys. Why are they doing these things? Why do they act the way they act?
On a side, but related note, I've also finally realized that being funny for the sake of being funny doesn't make a story worth reading.
What do you think?
So, what have I learned over the last, oh, say thirty years or so?
First (and this applies to any endeavor, but it most especially applies to writing) you have to know what you want to accomplish. This is not as easy as it sounds. I'll give you two examples from my work, one is writing-related, the other is my paying job-related. Just to confuse you, I'm going to do my paying job-related one first.
Back around 1987 or so, I was a first-time supervisor, a first-time project manager, and was pretty much the entire project team on a development project. The project wasn't exactly new, it was to develop a replacement computer system. The folks who had hired me had tried a couple of times before, failed, and now had really angry customers on their hands. In fact, their customers were in law enforcement so it was legal for them to carry guns on their job, which should have made my employers a little more success oriented.
At any rate, during our first meeting, these huge, burly guys filed into the room (I'm 5'4"), placed their sidearms on the table and said, "So, what is it that you think you're going to do for us?"
(I'm thinking, other than pee in my pants?) I replied, "I'm going to develop a replacement computer system for you. Now, what did you have in mind and what features do you need for this system?"
During the next 9 months, which was all the time I had to do this, I made a few false starts before I realized what people say isn't always what they mean. Sometimes you *think* you know what your goal is, but you're wrong because what your customer is telling you they want may not be what they need. What you must get at is their goal.
That sounds like a lot of gobbledy-gook, so here's what I mean, exactly. These customers said they didn't want to see wants-and-warrants listed on the dispatcher's screen when they called in during a stop, but they wanted to be able to click on some link and flip to the information. Well, maybe, but maybe not. Turns out, they desperately did need to see wants-and-warrants, first thing.
What I needed to find out was what it was they were going to do with the information and when they were going to need it because not immediately displaying it turned out to be the wrong decision. I had to ride with a few of them while they worked, question them about their procedures during a stop, find out what information they passed to the dispatcher, and what they needed in return. Turned out, the first thing they do is pass on the information for the dispatcher to do a search for wants-and-warrants and then the dispatcher needed to immediately pass any relevant information to the officer so s/he knows if s/he is dealing with a dangerous person. (Remember, this was back in the middle to late 1980's so the officers didn't have those cute little wireless devices in their vehicles to do their own searches.)
So I learned that getting someone's list of specifications doesn't necessarily get you to the right place. You need to understand what the underlying goal is and how that product is going to be used to meet that goal. You can then create the right end product.
Well, yeah, but what does that have to do with writing, or anything else for that matter?
Because with writing, painting, or just about any human endeavor, to be successful depends upon how clearly you understand both the goal and how you are going to meet that goal, and the goal may not be obvious.
Writing
When I first started writing (for the third time - I already had written three manuscripts at various intervals, but then I got really, really serious and wrote 8 more) I thought I understood this lesson from my paying job. I was going to write a romance, right? I read them, I understood the structure and thought I was ready.
Wrong. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Sure, I did understand certain things, but there was a lot I didn't understand down to my bones. I thought each of my scenes pushed the story forward. I had conflict between the hero and heroine. However, there were still critical things missing because basically, like that first computer project, I had my specifications but I didn't understand the difference between just having bad things happen to good characters (plain specifications), and having events happen that are inevitable given who the characters are.
Now folks are probably already laughing up their sleeves at me, figuring I'm just a "plotter" who develops a plot and then just shoves their characters into the situations. Those authors who are character driven don't have this problem. Maybe, but I doubt it, because there is a lot more to this than just forcing characters willy-nilly into specific plot situations.
Remember that goal thing I was talking about? Well, part of this, part of the inevitability of events must also rest upon the underlying theme. Argh!!! I'm just writing commercial fiction for crying out loud! I'm not going to worry about a theme. Then don't, but don't come crying to me when your story doesn't gel, your characters seem cardboard, and it just doesn't work.
A theme is really that goal, that in-depth understanding of what you're trying to accomplish, and without that, you begin to lose the ability to do things like, oh, I don't know, like determine if each scene is really necessary and if it does what needs to get done or is just boring/repetitive/filler. It's what will create the gift for your reader at the end of the story, the thing that gives them that happy sigh of completion and fulfillment.
Of course, you also have to understand your character's goals for letting you drag them through this story, because you have to know why they are acting the way they are acting and doing what they are doing. Don't let them opt for the easy, "Oh, I kill people because I'm a raving madman" line. Make them tell you about all their little dark secrets, so you can understand them and write their actions with conviction, knowing that under the circumstances, the characters have to act they way they are acting because it is who they are. They have consciously or unconsciously made the choices that brought them to this place. Understand their choices. For example, just because a child is abused, doesn't mean they will inevitably turn out to be a mad-dog killer. Lots of people go through horrible abuse or terrifying ordeals and while they may have odd quirks as a result, they are kind, decent human beings.
Like I said, don't take the easy way out. Get to know the whys behind the character's actions.
Some writers are just so gifted that they can happily write without doing all this work of figuring out the theme or goals or anything else like that, so, well, good for them. If you're one of them, I applaud you and wish I was one of you. I'm not.
The more I write, the more critical I am of my own work and the more depth I crave, even though on the surface they are just light, fluffy little mystery stories with a touch of romance. My characters may be amusing and even crazy, but with each new manuscript, I'm trying a little harder to get them to tell me their whys. Why are they doing these things? Why do they act the way they act?
On a side, but related note, I've also finally realized that being funny for the sake of being funny doesn't make a story worth reading.
What do you think?
Thursday, March 02, 2006
HELP: Writer's Block? Stalled?
HELP: Writer’s Block? Stalled?
Like an airplane with the engine suddenly giving out in mid-flight, I sometimes stall and start a nosedive straight toward the corn fields below. This happens to me at least once a year, usually in late spring, early summer, and pretty much lasts through the summer. When the days turn cool again in late summer, I get a sudden surge of creative energy that lasts through the holidays. If I want to get any writing done, that’s when I need to do it, holidays, guests and unroasted turkeys be damned. Some years, I’ve written two complete 400 page manuscripts during the period from September 1st through January 30th.
While exciting, this is not the best way to manage your writing life, not to mention what it does to your personal life when you’re already juggling another (paying) job, a household and a 2 acre garden, not to mention family and friends who may feel a little neglected sitting down to the dining room table only to discover that the turkey is still sitting--raw--in its pan on top of the stove. (Just five more minutes--I swear I’ll have this scene done in five more minutes, honestly, can’t you just shove that pan in the oven for me? I’ll be with you in ten minutes or so, twenty tops, okay maybe thirty, but then we’ll have the whole evening Okay, I didn’t realize it’s past nine already, but I swear I’ll be down soon...)
So many writers complain about writer’s block or stalling out, but I know in my own case its due to several very specific things and if I can get control over them, I can beat that thing like an uncooked turkey. I suspect that many others have similar issues.
Before I go into long-winded psycho-babble, I will offer the solution right up front. The only solution to writers block or stalling out is to write. That’s right, just write. Write at least five days a week, every day of those five days. Set aside a chunk of time and just do it. There is nothing I can say that takes the place of this. It is the only way to beat writer’s block into submissions. Just write.
Now that you know the answer, you don’t really need to read any further, but I do have some other observations based upon my own, limited experience.
Over-thinking, or Thinking at All
If you stop to think about writing, to think about if you feel like writing, you’ll never write. When you’re feeling depressed about your writing not going anywhere or you feel like all your good ideas have somehow morphed into useless dross, then of course you’re not going to feel like writing. Nonetheless, you’re a big girl or boy now and you’ve got a job to do, so just do it. Don’t stop to get in touch with your feelings (gag). The last thing you want to do right now is to get in touch with your feelings because right now, you’re feelings probably consist of one or more of the following:
v My writing sucks. Why am I torturing myself this way?
v I’ll never be published. Why do I keep trying?
v This manuscript stinks on ice. Why continue with this worthless piece of stinky shine-ola?
v I’ve gotta be crazy to think I’m a writer. Who am I kidding?
v I have no idea what I’m doing. What am I doing?
Honey, every blessed one of us is convinced their life is one big desperate charade consisting of trying to make people think they know what they are doing (they don’t), that they are successful (maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, maybe they’re going to fail at any minute if they can’t keep those plates spinning on top their poles), and that people of the opposite sex find them hugely attractive.
Let’s face it, we all feel that way. If we don’t, then we’re probably psychotic sociopaths because those are the only people I know who are so filled with self-confidence that they think they’re smarter than everyone else and will never get caught. Not that I personally know any. Or at least, I don’t think that I know any.
What is the solution? Stop fretting over your feelings. Stop pausing to evaluate how you feel about writing. Just write. That’s all, just write. The more you write, the better you will feel about your writing, because your writing will get better. It can’t help getting better because it’s an art and like any other art, the more practice you do, the better your performance.
Stuck or Stalled
Sometimes you go on a vacation or take a break of some kind or reach a point in your manuscript where you sort of forget what you were going to do. Unfortunately, the longer you remain in this state and don’t write, the more stuck you become. You’ve walked right into the quicksand and you’re sinking and unless you grab a nearby branch and pull yourself out, you’re going to go down.
This happens to me for the reasons I mentioned above: I took a break and forgot what I was doing, or, I’ve hit page 150. You see, around page 150, my characters have taken on a life of their own and now control things. My plot, sketchy at the best of times, now no longer bears any resemblance to anything these people want to do.
At this point, I need to sit down and sketch out what I now think could happen. I need to review what has been done and renew my acquaintance with my characters and get their take on where they think things are going to go or should go. In other words, I re-plot it or I review my characters to make sure I still understand them.
Lest you think this takes a long time, I rarely spend more than an hour or two re-plotting. I just want to get a few more scenes and twists in my brain to carry me through the next 150 pages or so, bringing me to 300. At around page 300, I need to be thinking of the final chapters, which are admittedly the hardest for me (others say the endings are easy, but I find the end to be absolute torture to write). So when I hit 300, unless I’m on a roll, I sit down again for another hour or two and plot out the rest.
Lately, I’ve taken to writing the last chapter or two after I’ve written the first 150 pages because it eases my dread of the end of the book.
Now, when I say “plot” I’m being very loose with that term. My plotting consists of writing about three brief sentences, summarizing what I want to get done in a chapter. Each sentence equates to a scene. This is my formula and you will need to work out what feels natural for you.
Stubborn characters
Kill them off. The death of a stubborn character will often have a jarring effect upon the remaining characters and make them toe the line for you. The prospect of an early and grisly death will quite frequently make previously uncooperative characters very helpful and perhaps bring them groveling to your feet if you’re very lucky. If they aren’t, you can let lose a serial killer. There’s nothing like a little murder to improve the tension in a manuscript and get the action back on track.
Seriously, maybe that’s why I write stories that contain a mystery element. I find that a dead body will absolutely make the middle of the book come alive. No sagging middles for me.
For those who don’t like murders or mysteries, you’re going to have to sit down and have a serious discussion with your characters. You need to understand them and figure out what they are doing and more importantly why they are doing it. A really big problem for many writers is that they actually don’t understand their characters. The hero and heroine are just cutouts from a glamour magazine without any real personality or motivation. I suggest you go back through and create a grid of what your characters what, why they are where they are, and what they think they’re going to do next. This should help you bring the plot back in line with your characters’ conflicts and give you the impetus to write again.
Above all else, it is the characters and emotion that will sell the manuscript and drive the plot.
Finally
To cure writer’s block, you need to write. You also need to read and watch entertainments such as television or movies, because those will also sometimes set a spark to the creative spirit. The old, “Heck, I can do better than that” scenario. You want that. You need that.
You need to get back to work and write.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
CRAFT: Give Yourself a Break
Two posts in one night? Can anyone say...procrastinating?
Just thought of another thing I wanted to mention, because it's taken me a long time to allow myself to do this, and I still have to remind myself that it's okay. In fact, I'm trying to remind myself right now that this is okay, because I've reached the point in my novel, Grave Mistakes, where I need to take my own advice.
But it's so hard, she whines, because I want to write in an orderly fashion...
You see, I have this idea that you start writing on page one and you continue writing sequentially until you hit page 400 (or page 400 hits you, whichever comes first). The problem is, this doesn't always work. And yet...I keep trying to toe-the-line and be a good girl and write each page one after the other. Because I know all the reasons why you should do this particularly since I write mysteries.
Because you need to know what happened first before you can say what happened next. Because if you write out of order, things may not hang together properly. Because plot shifts happen where what you thought was going to happen doesn't happen because the characters don't cooperate.
Well, shut my mouth. Maybe that works for some people. Maybe it doesn't.
Everyone has to find their own winding little overgrown path through the dark, twisted woods.
I think my problem is that I may have some old-timey director partially reincarnated in about 20 or 30 brain cells in the back of my head. Because I can follow the rules and do about the first 150 pages in a perfectly linear, sequential form and then my brain short-circuits. Because I see my book in scenes and like some directors, I don't necessarily film those scenes in the order in which they will appear in the final movie. Or book. In fact, my brain wants to see those scenes in some weird order that only it can comprehend. Sometimes I wish it would let me in on the secret.
So around page 150, I stall because my brain wants to write some scene that is pages or chapters away from where I am, but I resist. I don't want to do that. I want to write page 151. So I struggle. I write maybe a line or paragraph a day instead of pages. My mind balks. My creativity resists and starts a protest march, complete with banners proclaiming: Resist! Resist the tyranny of a small mind! Ignore the rules! Jump ahead! Jump backwards! Jump diagonally across a river you didn't even know was there!
It takes a while before I finally give up and start writing out of order. Where I can just start to write the scenes that need to be written. Ironically, sometimes I find that when I do shove the scenes where they belong in the book, they need very little connective tissue generated between them. Sometimes, none at all. Sometimes, just a little. Rarely do I have to rewrite what came before, or after.
Here's the real irony. The scenes I write this way are the BEST ones. It's the easy-to-write scenes that just flow from my fingertips in a linear fashion through the first 150 pages that have to be rewritten, gutted, rewritten, overhauled, sent to the moon and back, and then redone. The hard ones later which are written out of sequence and feel like I'm trying to dig my way through the walls of Sing-Sing with a plastic spoon that end up needing very little, if any, revisions. Weird.
Therefore, all you writers who stall out, I propose that you consider this as an opportunity to discover if you are just revolting against some pre-conceived notion of how you are supposed to write your novel. If so, stop. Don't be so revolting. Allow yourself to write out of order if that's what it takes. Or allow yourself to write IN ORDER if that what's what you need to do. Do what you need to do.
The point is, no one can tell you what the RIGHT process is to write a book. That's for you to discover. It's a journey, enjoy it while it lasts.
Just thought of another thing I wanted to mention, because it's taken me a long time to allow myself to do this, and I still have to remind myself that it's okay. In fact, I'm trying to remind myself right now that this is okay, because I've reached the point in my novel, Grave Mistakes, where I need to take my own advice.
But it's so hard, she whines, because I want to write in an orderly fashion...
You see, I have this idea that you start writing on page one and you continue writing sequentially until you hit page 400 (or page 400 hits you, whichever comes first). The problem is, this doesn't always work. And yet...I keep trying to toe-the-line and be a good girl and write each page one after the other. Because I know all the reasons why you should do this particularly since I write mysteries.
Because you need to know what happened first before you can say what happened next. Because if you write out of order, things may not hang together properly. Because plot shifts happen where what you thought was going to happen doesn't happen because the characters don't cooperate.
Well, shut my mouth. Maybe that works for some people. Maybe it doesn't.
Everyone has to find their own winding little overgrown path through the dark, twisted woods.
I think my problem is that I may have some old-timey director partially reincarnated in about 20 or 30 brain cells in the back of my head. Because I can follow the rules and do about the first 150 pages in a perfectly linear, sequential form and then my brain short-circuits. Because I see my book in scenes and like some directors, I don't necessarily film those scenes in the order in which they will appear in the final movie. Or book. In fact, my brain wants to see those scenes in some weird order that only it can comprehend. Sometimes I wish it would let me in on the secret.
So around page 150, I stall because my brain wants to write some scene that is pages or chapters away from where I am, but I resist. I don't want to do that. I want to write page 151. So I struggle. I write maybe a line or paragraph a day instead of pages. My mind balks. My creativity resists and starts a protest march, complete with banners proclaiming: Resist! Resist the tyranny of a small mind! Ignore the rules! Jump ahead! Jump backwards! Jump diagonally across a river you didn't even know was there!
It takes a while before I finally give up and start writing out of order. Where I can just start to write the scenes that need to be written. Ironically, sometimes I find that when I do shove the scenes where they belong in the book, they need very little connective tissue generated between them. Sometimes, none at all. Sometimes, just a little. Rarely do I have to rewrite what came before, or after.
Here's the real irony. The scenes I write this way are the BEST ones. It's the easy-to-write scenes that just flow from my fingertips in a linear fashion through the first 150 pages that have to be rewritten, gutted, rewritten, overhauled, sent to the moon and back, and then redone. The hard ones later which are written out of sequence and feel like I'm trying to dig my way through the walls of Sing-Sing with a plastic spoon that end up needing very little, if any, revisions. Weird.
Therefore, all you writers who stall out, I propose that you consider this as an opportunity to discover if you are just revolting against some pre-conceived notion of how you are supposed to write your novel. If so, stop. Don't be so revolting. Allow yourself to write out of order if that's what it takes. Or allow yourself to write IN ORDER if that what's what you need to do. Do what you need to do.
The point is, no one can tell you what the RIGHT process is to write a book. That's for you to discover. It's a journey, enjoy it while it lasts.
CRAFT: Addendum to S-E-X Scenes, Part 2
This is going to be exceptionally short because I made a deal with my husband that he would cook dinner and I would write. He held up his end of the bargain, but I've yet to write this evening and I HAVE to get back to Grave Mistakes but I also realized that I made very few, if any, points in my previous post about writing s-e-x scenes.
There was one point that I wanted to make. I think I alluded to it, or even said it in passing, but I wanted to drive it home with a sledgehammer.
If you want sizzling tension, make it realistic. Well, of course, you say, rolling your eyes. But you see, that's one of the biggest problems I see in a lot of romances. They go in for all this purple prose or have these characters with physical characteristics that are just so over-the-top that it's like watching some computer-generated, comic-book action. The closer the characters are to real, live, flawed, not-so-perfect physical specimans, and the closer your descriptions are to reality (and not some flowery, poetic stuff) the hotter the tension. It's hotter because you've made it something others have felt and know about. They understand it on a gut-level. They feel it, or at least have felt it at some point in their lives. Or will feel it. (Does that cover, past, present, future and plu-perfect?)
Believe it or not, all that poetic jazz is mostly intellectual stuff and that's why it skims the surface without really getting in under the skin the way a more realistic description would. It doesn't create the same level of tension. It, in effect, divorces the reader from feeling the action even though the writer is trying their darndest to make it really, really feel-able.
It's sort of like that kid you end up knocking upside the head because they're annoying you by trying so frickin' hard to get you to like them.
Have you ever noticed that the most popular person in the family is the one who is never there, never comes to family gatherings, can't be depended upon to help anyone, and yet, when they show up, it's like - Oh, WOW, s/he's HERE! This is great! Let the Par-ty begin!
Right.
Because they don't try so hard. They may give a darn, but it certainly doesn't show. Paradoxically, this is what makes their sudden, unexpected appearance so wonderful. They're not TRYING so hard. Their presence is not the usual, hum-drum everyday occurrence. They're not the drudge doing their familial duty, day-in, day-out, ho, hum.
So, stop TRYING so hard. Stop trying to make your characters and love scenes utterly unique and unusual. By trying so hard, you're making them, well, ho-hum, purple-prose fodder good for those "it was a dark and stormy night" contests and not much else.
Reality is so much easier on everyone.
Of course, that may be just me. Hmm. No, maybe not. I mean, when I get that feeling I'm generally not interested any more in just reading about it. I have a husband who is quite handy and it's far easier to go grab him than to hunker down with some book to try to get my jollies. So I don't think it's just me, although I suppose it could be. Or, no, I really meant it. Okay, enough waffling, second guessing myself, and general mental torment.
Oh, sure, there are plenty of readers who like that flowery jazz, but I repeat: if you really want to hike up the tension, make it as realistic as possible. Don't use a lot of fancy, cutsey terms for things. Stay away from the emerald green eyes, heaving, melon-like breasts, and erections like foot-long sausages. I certainly plan on staying far, far away from those things.
So, I'm curious, what do you like to see that really turns up the tension in a book for you?
There was one point that I wanted to make. I think I alluded to it, or even said it in passing, but I wanted to drive it home with a sledgehammer.
If you want sizzling tension, make it realistic. Well, of course, you say, rolling your eyes. But you see, that's one of the biggest problems I see in a lot of romances. They go in for all this purple prose or have these characters with physical characteristics that are just so over-the-top that it's like watching some computer-generated, comic-book action. The closer the characters are to real, live, flawed, not-so-perfect physical specimans, and the closer your descriptions are to reality (and not some flowery, poetic stuff) the hotter the tension. It's hotter because you've made it something others have felt and know about. They understand it on a gut-level. They feel it, or at least have felt it at some point in their lives. Or will feel it. (Does that cover, past, present, future and plu-perfect?)
Believe it or not, all that poetic jazz is mostly intellectual stuff and that's why it skims the surface without really getting in under the skin the way a more realistic description would. It doesn't create the same level of tension. It, in effect, divorces the reader from feeling the action even though the writer is trying their darndest to make it really, really feel-able.
It's sort of like that kid you end up knocking upside the head because they're annoying you by trying so frickin' hard to get you to like them.
Have you ever noticed that the most popular person in the family is the one who is never there, never comes to family gatherings, can't be depended upon to help anyone, and yet, when they show up, it's like - Oh, WOW, s/he's HERE! This is great! Let the Par-ty begin!
Right.
Because they don't try so hard. They may give a darn, but it certainly doesn't show. Paradoxically, this is what makes their sudden, unexpected appearance so wonderful. They're not TRYING so hard. Their presence is not the usual, hum-drum everyday occurrence. They're not the drudge doing their familial duty, day-in, day-out, ho, hum.
So, stop TRYING so hard. Stop trying to make your characters and love scenes utterly unique and unusual. By trying so hard, you're making them, well, ho-hum, purple-prose fodder good for those "it was a dark and stormy night" contests and not much else.
Reality is so much easier on everyone.
Of course, that may be just me. Hmm. No, maybe not. I mean, when I get that feeling I'm generally not interested any more in just reading about it. I have a husband who is quite handy and it's far easier to go grab him than to hunker down with some book to try to get my jollies. So I don't think it's just me, although I suppose it could be. Or, no, I really meant it. Okay, enough waffling, second guessing myself, and general mental torment.
Oh, sure, there are plenty of readers who like that flowery jazz, but I repeat: if you really want to hike up the tension, make it as realistic as possible. Don't use a lot of fancy, cutsey terms for things. Stay away from the emerald green eyes, heaving, melon-like breasts, and erections like foot-long sausages. I certainly plan on staying far, far away from those things.
So, I'm curious, what do you like to see that really turns up the tension in a book for you?
Sunday, February 26, 2006
CRAFT: Writing S-E-X Scenes, Part 2 - Tension
I'm back from the frozen north and ready to tackle the next part of this subject: writing s-e-x scenes that don't make you wince or just flip over them.
Disclaimer: Remember, these posts are my opinions and only my opinions. I say this because too many people think I'm trying to write rules. I'm don't write rules. I'm pointing out things that worked for me as a reader and writer. Your mileage may differ.
So, tension. Tension, tension, tension. This particular piece of the puzzle actually should have come before my previous post, because it's about leading up to "it", although in a way, it is also about "it". Because I don't believe describing "it" in glorious technicolor detail is all that exciting. It's what leads up to it that is exciting. Yet another reason, in my opinion, to either just keep leading up to "it" or interrupting "it" or shutting the door on "it" because that way, you can keep the tension going. Think of it this way, there are any number of guys and gals who flirt, manipulate and seduce each other with great excitement, only to lose interest once the conquest is made and they've gone to bed with their target. The old, "I'll call you tomorrow" syndrome.
This is true of a great many readers, too. It's the chase that is exciting. That's why they call it tension, or s-e-xual tension. Once you have s-e-x, the tension is released.
I'm a big fan of coitus interruptus, particularly when it occurs right before the actual deed gets underway. However, this may be because I truly like to make my characters suffer for what they eventually get--off camera.
So, how do you do this tension stuff without sounding idiotic or sophomoric? I have to admit that I throw away a lot of books because they handle this so poorly. I'm so sick of all these longing glances and throbbing/wet/hot body parts, and on a seemingly unrelated topic, I have to tell you that if I read one more book where either the hero or heroine has green eyes, I'm going to vomit. Please avoid adding gratuitous unusual characteristics to your characters hoping to make them more attractive.
I'm going to say this once, and once only: Green eyes are a cliched joke. This is the sort of thing that gives romances a bad name, because the authors try too darn hard to make their characters over-the-top, uniquely attractive. For crying out loud, stop with this already! And I'm particularly sick of things like a hero/heroine who is of Oriental/Spanish/Native American/African American extraction and yet has green eyes! Stop, stop, stop with the over-reaching cliches to make your characters unusual. Please. I'm begging you. I'm not saying that it isn't genetically impossible, I'm just saying everyone is doing it and I'm sick of it.
I had to get that off my chest because it really was making me crazy. I long for a hero with nice, normal brown eyes. Or gray eyes. Or blue eyes. I don't even really mind green eyes, if they genetically go with his appearance just not when they are due to over-reaching for the unusual.
People can be attractive with quite normal physical attributes.
Now that I've reduced my tension, I'm going to briefly go through a masterful example of s-e-xual tension created by Theresa Monsour in her book Cold Blood. This is a great suspense and I highly recommend it (and hope I'm not going to violate any copyright laws with what I put below). One of the things I like about this book is the great s-e-xual tension and the restraint with which she presents this. She's one of the few authors I can read now that do this well, don't make me wince, and don't include long-winded s-e-x scenes that bore me and kill the plot's momentum.
Enough flattery. Her lawyers ought to now be happy enough to let me get by with the few quotes I've included below.
What makes s-e-xual tension work? Well, it isn't wet panties or an embarrassing bulge in the pants. It is how it happens in life. There are two ways the magic can occur: barely perceptible, growing slowly over time; or wham! Both ways are valid and we've either experienced both ourselves, or know others who have.
For many of us, it may be a sort of unperceived thing that just hit us, all of a sudden, wham-right-between-the-eyes. This seems to happen a lot to co-workers, who are working with someone closely and may either get along, or not get along, until one day you're working late and your eyes meet over that pizza you just ordered because you know you're going to be there until midnight to get that project finished, and wham! All of a sudden you realize how attractive your co-worker really is.
This is kind of what happens to Paris Murphy and Duncan. Their relationship starts out a little strained, with both sniping at each other. Paris thinks Duncan may be a dirty cop who either has taken drugs in the past or is still taking them. The tension between them is done so subtly and with such grace that you don't even realize it is happening until it hits you when Paris realizes how attractive Duncan is.
So here's the way Theresa Monsour does it. This is not a complete analysis, nor do I try to include all references, I just selected a few to show you the gradually heightening tension.
He wore an oxford shirt with sleeves rolled up, dress pants and a tie--Christianson ordered all his commanders to wear ties--but his clothes looked as if Duncan had slept in them for a week. He had sneakers on his feet. Murphy recognized the brand. Pricey running shoes. The tread was worn. Did the slob actually exercise? The blazer he'd brought to work was on the floor next to his desk and there was a dirty stripe across the back; he'd run over it with the casters of his chair.
...
She got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Had Yo-Yo [note: Murphy's nickname for Duncan is "Yo-Yo"] cooked up some theory and sold it to the cops up north? Duncan craved being in the middle of all the action. She hoped he hadn't dragged her into the middle with him.
...
She wanted to bolt out of the chair and tell him to go f-ck himself. Leave the room. Slam the door behind her. He'd love it, though. A big scene in the office.
...
"It's not our case."
"Not it is. Get your butt up there, Potato Head." [note: Duncan's nickname for Murphy is Potato Head and it really irritates her.]
Okay, what did we learn from that scene? I chopped out some parts because while they were important to the plot, they were not critical to how she is working to create the tension.
The scene above establishes Murphy's view of Duncan, that he is a slob and loves to create scenes. This drives many of her actions. But the real jewel is highlighted in green. Monsour is inserting a small idea that Duncan isn't the complete slob/waste of air that Murphy thinks he is, and Monsour is doing this from Murphy's view, so Murphy knows this, too.
Subtle.
See what I mean? No overt drooling or hard, throbbing things in anyone's pants.
Next bit.
Her cell phone rang while she was loading her bag into the Jeep. She pulled it out of her purse. "Murphy."
Duncan: "...Every time you pick up the phone you sound worse than the last time."
She silently cursed his perceptive ear.
... She appreciated Duncan's concern, but wasn't ready to spill her guts about anything personal.
...
She wondered if she could run her theory by him. ...
Hmm, he "might" exercise and he's perceptive. And Murphy is starting to think about running ideas by him. No heaving bosoms and longing glances, but something positive is going on here. Now, we are a little unsure if Murphy's just seeing him as less of a jerk and bonding with him as her boss, or if something a little more is going on here, mostly because she's seeing someone else at the time (although we don't care much for the current boyfriend). So again, we're taking slow, easy steps. The sort of steps that occur in real life. That's what makes this work. It's not over-the-top.
Next. [I've skipped a few more scenes that build a bit more on the positive, but I think you've got that idea now.]
"Sorry," he mumbled. "Been saying that to you a lot lately." He took his feet off the desk and stood up. Unbuttoned his left shirt cuff and started rolling up the sleeve while he talked. "I take it Mason is the one slipping us the copies of the treads and prints."
She stared at his left arm. No tracks. "Yeah. Erik," she said distractedly. ...
"What time should I pick you up?" He unbuttoned his right shirt cuff.
"Seven," she said. "Cocktails and appetizers at seven, dancing at eight."
"Dancing, huh? I better warn you. I'm a damn good dancer. Better keep up." He rolled up his right shirt cuff. "Where's it at?"
She studied his right arm. Again, no tracks.
...
He sat back down, rested his arms on the desk and caught her studying them. A tight smile stretched across his face. "You heard that bullshit story, too." Her mouth fell open; she didn't know how to respond. "I'm surprised you swallowed it. A smart cop like you. How long would I have lasted on the streets if I was doing that shit? Who fed you that crap? Your new boyfriend? Tell Mason he can kiss my ass."
She stood up. The cordial meeting had turned ugly. "My turn to say it. I'm sorry." She picked up her purse, threw the strap over her shoulder and turned to walk out. She put her right hand on the knob, pulled the door open a crack.
He bolted out of his chair and was right behind her. Pushed the door shut with his right hand. "Not so fact," he said in a low voice. "That hurts, Paris. That really fucking hurts. We worked together."
She kept her back to him. ... She said again in a low voice, "I'm sorry."
He planted his left hand on the other side of her. "Well 'I'm sorry' ain't gonna fix it."
They were standing too close. She felt trapped. Wished there was someone else in the office. At the same time she noticed he smelled good. Irish Spring soap and a cologne she recognized but couldn't place.
...
She turned and looked at him. He was genuinely hurt, and she felt bad. For the first time she noticed he had blue eyes. Not dark blue like hers. Light blue. Then she silently berated herself for noticing his eyes. Noticing his scent.
With her facing him, he suddenly realized how close they were and it seemed to embarrass him. He quickly took his hands off the door and lowered his arms. Took a step back from her. Folded his arms across his chest. "My record speaks for itself."
...
She couldn't keep from looking in his eyes. Bloodshot. Angry. Incredibly blue. If Jack was young James Caan and Erik was old James Dean, Duncan was Robert Redford after a rough weekend.
...
WHAM!
That's when she realizes it. Oh, she's not in love, but she's now fully aware of him. I'm not a big fan of dropping the names of actors in by way of describing someone - it has a tendency to date your writing. Nonetheless, this scene does double, triple time to advance the plot (for the sake of brevity, I cut out the plot-related stuff), make her aware that Duncan is NOT a drug addict like she thought, and finally, to make her aware of him as a man.
This scene was unbelievably full of sizzle. You don't get the full effect because you don't have the full context, but it was incredibly full of tension.
After this, Monsour has Duncan come pick up Murphy for their undercover "date" and Murphy gets to see him dressed up and realize how physically fit he really is, and how good he looks. Their relationship progresses step by step from there, complicated by her old boyfriend.
I highly encourage you to buy the book to see a primo example of how to do this development of a relationship and turn up the sexual tension in a realistic way. In fact, you might buy two copies so you can mark up one with a highlighter. *Grin* Now that ought to make the copyright Gods happy enough to overlook my "stealing" of Monsour's scenes!
What are some books you've read with good examples of s-e-xual tension?
Disclaimer: Remember, these posts are my opinions and only my opinions. I say this because too many people think I'm trying to write rules. I'm don't write rules. I'm pointing out things that worked for me as a reader and writer. Your mileage may differ.
So, tension. Tension, tension, tension. This particular piece of the puzzle actually should have come before my previous post, because it's about leading up to "it", although in a way, it is also about "it". Because I don't believe describing "it" in glorious technicolor detail is all that exciting. It's what leads up to it that is exciting. Yet another reason, in my opinion, to either just keep leading up to "it" or interrupting "it" or shutting the door on "it" because that way, you can keep the tension going. Think of it this way, there are any number of guys and gals who flirt, manipulate and seduce each other with great excitement, only to lose interest once the conquest is made and they've gone to bed with their target. The old, "I'll call you tomorrow" syndrome.
This is true of a great many readers, too. It's the chase that is exciting. That's why they call it tension, or s-e-xual tension. Once you have s-e-x, the tension is released.
I'm a big fan of coitus interruptus, particularly when it occurs right before the actual deed gets underway. However, this may be because I truly like to make my characters suffer for what they eventually get--off camera.
So, how do you do this tension stuff without sounding idiotic or sophomoric? I have to admit that I throw away a lot of books because they handle this so poorly. I'm so sick of all these longing glances and throbbing/wet/hot body parts, and on a seemingly unrelated topic, I have to tell you that if I read one more book where either the hero or heroine has green eyes, I'm going to vomit. Please avoid adding gratuitous unusual characteristics to your characters hoping to make them more attractive.
I'm going to say this once, and once only: Green eyes are a cliched joke. This is the sort of thing that gives romances a bad name, because the authors try too darn hard to make their characters over-the-top, uniquely attractive. For crying out loud, stop with this already! And I'm particularly sick of things like a hero/heroine who is of Oriental/Spanish/Native American/African American extraction and yet has green eyes! Stop, stop, stop with the over-reaching cliches to make your characters unusual. Please. I'm begging you. I'm not saying that it isn't genetically impossible, I'm just saying everyone is doing it and I'm sick of it.
I had to get that off my chest because it really was making me crazy. I long for a hero with nice, normal brown eyes. Or gray eyes. Or blue eyes. I don't even really mind green eyes, if they genetically go with his appearance just not when they are due to over-reaching for the unusual.
People can be attractive with quite normal physical attributes.
Now that I've reduced my tension, I'm going to briefly go through a masterful example of s-e-xual tension created by Theresa Monsour in her book Cold Blood. This is a great suspense and I highly recommend it (and hope I'm not going to violate any copyright laws with what I put below). One of the things I like about this book is the great s-e-xual tension and the restraint with which she presents this. She's one of the few authors I can read now that do this well, don't make me wince, and don't include long-winded s-e-x scenes that bore me and kill the plot's momentum.
Enough flattery. Her lawyers ought to now be happy enough to let me get by with the few quotes I've included below.
What makes s-e-xual tension work? Well, it isn't wet panties or an embarrassing bulge in the pants. It is how it happens in life. There are two ways the magic can occur: barely perceptible, growing slowly over time; or wham! Both ways are valid and we've either experienced both ourselves, or know others who have.
For many of us, it may be a sort of unperceived thing that just hit us, all of a sudden, wham-right-between-the-eyes. This seems to happen a lot to co-workers, who are working with someone closely and may either get along, or not get along, until one day you're working late and your eyes meet over that pizza you just ordered because you know you're going to be there until midnight to get that project finished, and wham! All of a sudden you realize how attractive your co-worker really is.
This is kind of what happens to Paris Murphy and Duncan. Their relationship starts out a little strained, with both sniping at each other. Paris thinks Duncan may be a dirty cop who either has taken drugs in the past or is still taking them. The tension between them is done so subtly and with such grace that you don't even realize it is happening until it hits you when Paris realizes how attractive Duncan is.
So here's the way Theresa Monsour does it. This is not a complete analysis, nor do I try to include all references, I just selected a few to show you the gradually heightening tension.
He wore an oxford shirt with sleeves rolled up, dress pants and a tie--Christianson ordered all his commanders to wear ties--but his clothes looked as if Duncan had slept in them for a week. He had sneakers on his feet. Murphy recognized the brand. Pricey running shoes. The tread was worn. Did the slob actually exercise? The blazer he'd brought to work was on the floor next to his desk and there was a dirty stripe across the back; he'd run over it with the casters of his chair.
...
She got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Had Yo-Yo [note: Murphy's nickname for Duncan is "Yo-Yo"] cooked up some theory and sold it to the cops up north? Duncan craved being in the middle of all the action. She hoped he hadn't dragged her into the middle with him.
...
She wanted to bolt out of the chair and tell him to go f-ck himself. Leave the room. Slam the door behind her. He'd love it, though. A big scene in the office.
...
"It's not our case."
"Not it is. Get your butt up there, Potato Head." [note: Duncan's nickname for Murphy is Potato Head and it really irritates her.]
Okay, what did we learn from that scene? I chopped out some parts because while they were important to the plot, they were not critical to how she is working to create the tension.
The scene above establishes Murphy's view of Duncan, that he is a slob and loves to create scenes. This drives many of her actions. But the real jewel is highlighted in green. Monsour is inserting a small idea that Duncan isn't the complete slob/waste of air that Murphy thinks he is, and Monsour is doing this from Murphy's view, so Murphy knows this, too.
Subtle.
See what I mean? No overt drooling or hard, throbbing things in anyone's pants.
Next bit.
Her cell phone rang while she was loading her bag into the Jeep. She pulled it out of her purse. "Murphy."
Duncan: "...Every time you pick up the phone you sound worse than the last time."
She silently cursed his perceptive ear.
... She appreciated Duncan's concern, but wasn't ready to spill her guts about anything personal.
...
She wondered if she could run her theory by him. ...
Hmm, he "might" exercise and he's perceptive. And Murphy is starting to think about running ideas by him. No heaving bosoms and longing glances, but something positive is going on here. Now, we are a little unsure if Murphy's just seeing him as less of a jerk and bonding with him as her boss, or if something a little more is going on here, mostly because she's seeing someone else at the time (although we don't care much for the current boyfriend). So again, we're taking slow, easy steps. The sort of steps that occur in real life. That's what makes this work. It's not over-the-top.
Next. [I've skipped a few more scenes that build a bit more on the positive, but I think you've got that idea now.]
"Sorry," he mumbled. "Been saying that to you a lot lately." He took his feet off the desk and stood up. Unbuttoned his left shirt cuff and started rolling up the sleeve while he talked. "I take it Mason is the one slipping us the copies of the treads and prints."
She stared at his left arm. No tracks. "Yeah. Erik," she said distractedly. ...
"What time should I pick you up?" He unbuttoned his right shirt cuff.
"Seven," she said. "Cocktails and appetizers at seven, dancing at eight."
"Dancing, huh? I better warn you. I'm a damn good dancer. Better keep up." He rolled up his right shirt cuff. "Where's it at?"
She studied his right arm. Again, no tracks.
...
He sat back down, rested his arms on the desk and caught her studying them. A tight smile stretched across his face. "You heard that bullshit story, too." Her mouth fell open; she didn't know how to respond. "I'm surprised you swallowed it. A smart cop like you. How long would I have lasted on the streets if I was doing that shit? Who fed you that crap? Your new boyfriend? Tell Mason he can kiss my ass."
She stood up. The cordial meeting had turned ugly. "My turn to say it. I'm sorry." She picked up her purse, threw the strap over her shoulder and turned to walk out. She put her right hand on the knob, pulled the door open a crack.
He bolted out of his chair and was right behind her. Pushed the door shut with his right hand. "Not so fact," he said in a low voice. "That hurts, Paris. That really fucking hurts. We worked together."
She kept her back to him. ... She said again in a low voice, "I'm sorry."
He planted his left hand on the other side of her. "Well 'I'm sorry' ain't gonna fix it."
They were standing too close. She felt trapped. Wished there was someone else in the office. At the same time she noticed he smelled good. Irish Spring soap and a cologne she recognized but couldn't place.
...
She turned and looked at him. He was genuinely hurt, and she felt bad. For the first time she noticed he had blue eyes. Not dark blue like hers. Light blue. Then she silently berated herself for noticing his eyes. Noticing his scent.
With her facing him, he suddenly realized how close they were and it seemed to embarrass him. He quickly took his hands off the door and lowered his arms. Took a step back from her. Folded his arms across his chest. "My record speaks for itself."
...
She couldn't keep from looking in his eyes. Bloodshot. Angry. Incredibly blue. If Jack was young James Caan and Erik was old James Dean, Duncan was Robert Redford after a rough weekend.
...
WHAM!
That's when she realizes it. Oh, she's not in love, but she's now fully aware of him. I'm not a big fan of dropping the names of actors in by way of describing someone - it has a tendency to date your writing. Nonetheless, this scene does double, triple time to advance the plot (for the sake of brevity, I cut out the plot-related stuff), make her aware that Duncan is NOT a drug addict like she thought, and finally, to make her aware of him as a man.
This scene was unbelievably full of sizzle. You don't get the full effect because you don't have the full context, but it was incredibly full of tension.
After this, Monsour has Duncan come pick up Murphy for their undercover "date" and Murphy gets to see him dressed up and realize how physically fit he really is, and how good he looks. Their relationship progresses step by step from there, complicated by her old boyfriend.
I highly encourage you to buy the book to see a primo example of how to do this development of a relationship and turn up the sexual tension in a realistic way. In fact, you might buy two copies so you can mark up one with a highlighter. *Grin* Now that ought to make the copyright Gods happy enough to overlook my "stealing" of Monsour's scenes!
What are some books you've read with good examples of s-e-xual tension?
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
CRAFT: Writing the Dreaded S-E-X Scenes, part 1
It's lame to start with an excuse, but get over it. This is only part one because I'm getting ready to go on a trip (for work--not pleasure) and haven't had time to pull together all the references I wanted for this article--er, blog.
As some of you may have guessed many of my blogs on writing are meant to encourage *me* or help me work out some kind of issue I'm having. I don't actually have any issues with s-e-x (why am I writing the word like that? Because I don't want all the Internet search engines to think this is a p-o-r-n site, that's why) but on the whole, I'm bored when I read about it. What goes through my head at the point in the book where "this sort of scene" happens is (variously):
As some of you may have guessed many of my blogs on writing are meant to encourage *me* or help me work out some kind of issue I'm having. I don't actually have any issues with s-e-x (why am I writing the word like that? Because I don't want all the Internet search engines to think this is a p-o-r-n site, that's why) but on the whole, I'm bored when I read about it. What goes through my head at the point in the book where "this sort of scene" happens is (variously):
- If I want titilation, I'll go rip off my husband's clothes. Get on with the action.
- You can't possibly make me believe that a normal human being would have s-e-x at this point when they: a) have a crazed murderer/monster/serial killer stalking them just feet away; b) the man and woman don't even like each other and haven't stopped yelling at each other since page 5; c) are doing it on a rug/rock-strewn ground/other really uncomfortable place that's totally hard on the knees/back/elbows; and c) have no bathroom facilities for washing up afterwards (okay, this last is my own issue, I'll admit that)
- *Wince* throbbing manhood? Oh, my *wince* this is just embarassing to think someone wrote this, and someone else edited it, and a whole lot of someone elses published this!
- When are we going to get back to the action?
- Oh, the heroine regrets this? Well, duh. Then why did she do it? Is she not an adult? Is she not in control of her own actions? Okay, now really when are we going to get back to the action? Flip, flip, flip, oh, here we are...
Think of the s-e-x scene as a fight scene. The first thing they have in common is that if they go on too long, even though you think it's exciting, it stalls the plot or real action in the story. That's right. Even the most exciting thing, if too protracted, gets to be a drag. There are only so many right fists to the jaw and judo throws a hero can do before readers start flipping pages. There are only so many laves of tongues a reader will endure before they get bored.
So, keep it short and exciting. That's sort of a broad point, but it's a relatively easy one to make, before we get to the harder parts. Ahem. Focus, please. Now, you're all prepared, right, to make this scene short and intense so that the action moves right along and you don't stall. Because that's the other problem with so many love scenes. It's also why you will find hundreds of articles about how to pick up the tension post-coitally. It's because a lot of authors have long love scenes that bring the tension and entire story to a screeching halt.
So, I would ask you to think about it this way. If you were editing something, say, a manuscript and there was a scene in it which stalled the story to the point where you had to figure out how to restart it after the scene is completed, would you leave that scene in the book? Why would you leave a scene in a book that kills the action and tension? You wouldn't. Now, a lot of people are screaming at this point, that this is a love scene so they have to leave it in! S-E-X sells! Yes and no. Lots of books sell without it, or with the actual "doing it" taking place off stage. It's a lot worse to have a book stall in the middle which gives the reader a convienant place to stop reading, than it is to not have s-e-x in the book. For many of us, that's even a relief, because the physical actions don't really propel the story any further and it's an unwanted digression. However, there are some exceptions where it does become, if not necessary, than at least helpful.
So, you want your scene to accomplish something and not be so protracted that you lose your readers. What to do, what to do... Well, you already know one thing: keep it short. Let's look at the other way(s) to keep your scene from stalling out. (One way. The other ways will be in the other articles I write on this subject, sometime after I get back from the frozen north.)
Don't do anything stupid. Don't have them make love when Jason, Michael Myers, and Jack the Ripper are standing outside the door conferring on the relative merits of dismemberment versus simple throat cutting.
And decide what the scene is going to accomplish. Because of the nature of s-e-x, this is going to have to be something emotional (much as that may make many of us very uncomfortable). It is not, however, about lust. So let me say that again. It is not about lust. The scene should be about one of the components of the conflict between the man and the woman. This man and woman, the ones in the book (not the generic Man vs Woman, Mars vs Venus thing).
When you know what the scene should do in terms of the characters and their journey through your story, then make the scene accomplish it. It's that easy.
Here's one example. It's from The Knight and the Rose by Isolde Martyn. In this story, the woman has been completely abused by her husband and now has a distaste for s-e-x (sorry, but I really was serious about avoiding Internet censors). Martyn has shown us very graphically the character's torment at the hands of her husband, but now we have a new guy on the scene. A kinder, gentler guy. However, we know the heroine, Johanna, really does have this problem. It's not going to be quick and easy for her to get over it. There are a few scenes leading up to the one I have below, where the hero, Gervase, woos her, so this scene comes on page 307 (in my copy of the book) so it's not at the beginning. Johanna is already beginning to slowly get over much of the abuse thanks to the previous wooing scenes...
"I--your hand is like ice."
"Warm it for me. Breathe on it." He held his palm to her lips. She complied. His mouth curled in a smile. He bent his fat to hers again, his lips urging hers to part for him while his hand moved to touch the tip of her right breast. He did not grab like Fulk had done. [Note: Fulk was her abusive husband - already we have a reference and understand why this is an important and necessary scene.] This man's touch was gentle, tantalising, teasing.
Johanna began to feel the magic. Sensations swirled with the casing of her hips. She was trying to fathom how it was possible that by caressing her nipple to a pieak, he could unleash a sense of softness between her thigs. Then she gave up the labour of thought and surrendered to the feelings flowing through her.
"That is wondrous," she murmured.
"You like it? Welcome news. We may progress further."
He stroked a finger down over her belly and drew battle plans across her skin; sorties and forays took place.
"Hmmm." She would have purred, had she been a cat. "I shall go to sleep if you do that much longer." His fingers tormented her breast again and she wriggled.
"This next part is important. It could take a while but you will enjoy it, I promise. Lie still." His fingers slid over the nest of hair between her legs. She tensed. He stroked the hair, soothing her and then slid his whole hand between her legs to palm her. Surprisingly the feeling that he was setting a hand of ownership upon her stirred her pleasurably and Johanna, who had sworn never to let a man's hand near her thighs again, was astonished at her own reaction. Then he parted her and began to gently caress her.
She tightened her defences instantly against him.
"No, you are becoming too intimate," she protested, pulling at his wrist to stay him.
The remark was somewhat late but he complied. "Then you will never know. It is your decision."
"Very well, a little longer then."
It only goes on a few more lines, but you see the point. This scene was the next step in his seduction of her (I mean that in a positive sense) because she needed to be seduced. Her reaction when she "tightened her defences instantly against him" was critical and necessary. She did not just forget all the previous abuse. What woman could? This made it believable and a necessary next step in her recovery. In fact, Gervase is intelligent and sympathetic enough to know he needs to help her first and he actually walks away from this scene unfufilled, himself, although Johanna is quite satisfied.
This book makes the love scenes take the normal small steps, petting, kissing, almost-did-it, did-it, which make them a believable sequence and not only are they believable, but they are critical to Johanna's journey from scared, abused woman to a strong woman who can once again enjoy all aspects of life. In other words, these scenes were necessary steps in the character's journey.
That's all I have time for tonight. I have to pack.
I'd love to know what makes s-e-x scenes work for you and why you do or don't include them.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Stuff and Nonsense
Link to another very down-to-earth blog about writing which everyone should read:
http://www.jakonrath.com
It's JA Konrath's site and he has excellent advice for all writers, but especially newbies.
Whew. I just put another issue of the Wilmington Cape Fear Rose Society newsletter to bed so instead of writing the mildly coherant blog I've been thinking about, which would have been on writing s-e-x scenes for those who aren't so thrilled with the idea, I'm just going to babble for a while. Spring is coming, which means it's time to get out there and try to get control over the poison ivy, Virginia creeper, Beauty Berry, jessimine vines and other weeds that have completely taken over the garden while I sat inside writing. Since moving here, I've come to LOATHE vines. There are no good vines. They entwine my roses, azaleas and other plants and eat everything. ARGH! Sometimes when I look out at our overgrown gardens, I think a scorched earth policy is not such a bad thing.
You know, I need to quit my paying job so I have time to actually garden and write about gardening. And write about writing. And then actually write. There is not enough TIME. I can't even remember the last time I went out birding, although I'm seriously glad I've learned a few bird calls, since most of my birding these days consists of whizzing around in a car on errands and hearing some bird call through my open window and screaming, "Oh! There's a Red-Tailed Hawk...somewhere around here!" I don't actually have time to see them anymore, I just hear them. But, I'm told that counts, too.
I did manage to write a few new pages, though, this last weekend thanks to the rain which kept me from doing the serious trimming that needs to be done in the garden.
All of this babbling is really leading up to something that is actually critically important to writers (although it sort of applies to gardeners and even birders). No matter how hectic your schedule becomes, or how depressed about your writing you are, you need to sit down at least once a day, every day, and just write. But not that journal stuff. That journal (or blog) stuff can wait until after you've written your real writing stuff, your fiction (or non-fiction, if you're writing non-fiction). Doing a journal, or blog, is on the nice-to-do list. It's not on the must-do list. The things on your must-do list are items like: shower (yes, you really must), eat, write, and sadly, one day, die.
If you don't write, you're never going to be a writer and certainly never a published writer.
Here's a secret. If you're really, really depressed and you've just gotten a handful of rejections back that say things like: "You're the worst writer I've ever had the misfortune to encounter" or "Never submit anything else to me again, you pathetic hack..." then what you need to do after you go out and scream with rage for about twenty minutes, is come back inside, sit down at your favorite writing medium (e.g. a computer, typewriter, or pen-and-paper) and write. Just write. The more depressed you are, the more you think you'll never publish, the more you need to sit down and force yourself to write.
It doesn't matter if you only manage to write one sentence. Just the act of writing will begin to lift your depression. Why? Because you are doing something about it. Let's face it, you're depressed because you've worked long and hard and submitted your best work and gotten your face smashed into the wall. The process is essentially like the lottery. What you're trying to do is find that one editor who understands your message and appreciates your writing. This is not easy and like the lottery, other than keeping up the submission process, it is largely out of your control. Your depression most likely stems from this "out of control" issue.
However, you do have one thing under your control. Your writing habits. So you go back to what you can control and you write. Every blessed day. I, personally, try to set aside the hours of 8-10PM to write. This is after my paying job hours, it's after dinner, so it doesn't conflict with the things I feel I gotta do. When things really get bad, I even write in other rooms on other things, like an AlphaSmart or a pen-and-paper--anything, really, that let's me write. It takes a while to work out of a depression, and believe me, I *know* depression, but it's amazing what focusing on your writing will do for your spirits. Not to mention, you will definitely improve your writing.
Oh, and there is one more thing you can do. I keep one shelf entirely full of really, really bad, and I do mean bad novels. Ones written in such a sophomoric style that it is hard to keep from laughing when you read them. When I get really depressed, I read them so I can sneer at someone else and think: You know, if this schlock can get published, it's only a matter of time before I get published.
You'll see. It'll make you feel much, MUCH better! There's nothing like a lip-curling sneer to lift your spirits.
Okay, I've shown you mine, what are YOUR methods to keep writing despite rejections, depression, and the economy?
http://www.jakonrath.com
It's JA Konrath's site and he has excellent advice for all writers, but especially newbies.
Whew. I just put another issue of the Wilmington Cape Fear Rose Society newsletter to bed so instead of writing the mildly coherant blog I've been thinking about, which would have been on writing s-e-
You know, I need to quit my paying job so I have time to actually garden and write about gardening. And write about writing. And then actually write. There is not enough TIME. I can't even remember the last time I went out birding, although I'm seriously glad I've learned a few bird calls, since most of my birding these days consists of whizzing around in a car on errands and hearing some bird call through my open window and screaming, "Oh! There's a Red-Tailed Hawk...somewhere around here!" I don't actually have time to see them anymore, I just hear them. But, I'm told that counts, too.
I did manage to write a few new pages, though, this last weekend thanks to the rain which kept me from doing the serious trimming that needs to be done in the garden.
All of this babbling is really leading up to something that is actually critically important to writers (although it sort of applies to gardeners and even birders). No matter how hectic your schedule becomes, or how depressed about your writing you are, you need to sit down at least once a day, every day, and just write. But not that journal stuff. That journal (or blog) stuff can wait until after you've written your real writing stuff, your fiction (or non-fiction, if you're writing non-fiction). Doing a journal, or blog, is on the nice-to-do list. It's not on the must-do list. The things on your must-do list are items like: shower (yes, you really must), eat, write, and sadly, one day, die.
If you don't write, you're never going to be a writer and certainly never a published writer.
Here's a secret. If you're really, really depressed and you've just gotten a handful of rejections back that say things like: "You're the worst writer I've ever had the misfortune to encounter" or "Never submit anything else to me again, you pathetic hack..." then what you need to do after you go out and scream with rage for about twenty minutes, is come back inside, sit down at your favorite writing medium (e.g. a computer, typewriter, or pen-and-paper) and write. Just write. The more depressed you are, the more you think you'll never publish, the more you need to sit down and force yourself to write.
It doesn't matter if you only manage to write one sentence. Just the act of writing will begin to lift your depression. Why? Because you are doing something about it. Let's face it, you're depressed because you've worked long and hard and submitted your best work and gotten your face smashed into the wall. The process is essentially like the lottery. What you're trying to do is find that one editor who understands your message and appreciates your writing. This is not easy and like the lottery, other than keeping up the submission process, it is largely out of your control. Your depression most likely stems from this "out of control" issue.
However, you do have one thing under your control. Your writing habits. So you go back to what you can control and you write. Every blessed day. I, personally, try to set aside the hours of 8-10PM to write. This is after my paying job hours, it's after dinner, so it doesn't conflict with the things I feel I gotta do. When things really get bad, I even write in other rooms on other things, like an AlphaSmart or a pen-and-paper--anything, really, that let's me write. It takes a while to work out of a depression, and believe me, I *know* depression, but it's amazing what focusing on your writing will do for your spirits. Not to mention, you will definitely improve your writing.
Oh, and there is one more thing you can do. I keep one shelf entirely full of really, really bad, and I do mean bad novels. Ones written in such a sophomoric style that it is hard to keep from laughing when you read them. When I get really depressed, I read them so I can sneer at someone else and think: You know, if this schlock can get published, it's only a matter of time before I get published.
You'll see. It'll make you feel much, MUCH better! There's nothing like a lip-curling sneer to lift your spirits.
Okay, I've shown you mine, what are YOUR methods to keep writing despite rejections, depression, and the economy?
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
CRAFT: JIT for Writers
Before I start, I want to mention a blog. Tess Gerritsen. What a classy web site and blog. I encourage folks to visit her site. Even if for some mysterious reason you haven't read any of her books, she has a beautiful web site and an exceptionally interesting and entertaining blog. If you are at all interested in writing, you really should read it.
Her web site is: http://www.tessgerritsen.com
Her blog is: http://www.tessgerritsen.com/blogs.cfm
And yes, I have to admit that one of the very best things I like about her blog are the creepy facts. Maybe it's because when I was young, I studied to be a biologist, although when I grew up I married one instead. Or maybe I'm just weird, but I *love* her site.
Okay, now that that is out of the way (for now - I can't promise not to revisit the topic of Tess' blog in the future) let's move on to JIT.
JIT. What is it and what does it have to do with writing?
JIT is Just in Time. I learned all about JIT when I was working for Federal Prison Industries (from the outside, not from within the Federal Prisons, although...no, let's not go there). It's an idea from the manufacturing arena where you only get the materials you need to make your finished product at or right before the point where you need the supplies, because storing materials is expensive (warehouse space, security, investment of capital before you get reimbursed by selling what you're making--you figure it out).
JIT for writers is not wasting your time with meaningless research. Think of your research as the material you need to manufacture your finished product: your manuscript. Sure, you need enough to get you started, and maybe enough to germinate some ideas, but there is no point in spending days, weeks, months researching every nuance of something you may only include in one character's off-handed comment on page 212.
Personally, I have an overload sensor. I've used it for years when developing plans to install/upgrade/develop computer systems. I'll do a certain amount of research and then my overload sensor goes off. It says: ENOUGH! It is time to start doing something with all this information. Then I begin work. Inevitably, I find there was something I forgot, or something I still needed to look up, but I could get answers to those questions relatively quickly because I had already established a foundation. Once you establish that foundation, stop.
You have to work with information for it to be useful, so at a certain point, more information is just more garbage you're trying to stuff into the dustbin of your brain. Stop.
This is particularly relevant to writers of historical fiction who get lost in history, or writers of mystery/suspense that include a lot of law enforcement/forensics or other technical information. You can get so caught up in the research that you never write.
So how do you avoid that? I'm hoping that you all have an overload sensor and that if you're having this issue of non-stop research, it's because you've tampered with, shut off, or otherwise disabled your overload sensor. If you have, you simply need to listen to yourself. At some point, some wee voice in your head will say: Enough, already. I can't take this anymore, do or die. Write the darn book. Let me work with what I have now.
If you don't have an overload sensor, it is much harder. I would recommend then, that you simply set a time limit on your research. Certainly no more than a month unless part of what you're researching requires interaction with other humans and you have to stretch out your schedule to meet their schedule.
The point is, all you are trying to do is get your foundation poured. Once the foundation is there, you can just start writing. As you write, you'll find that you're missing some critical pieces or have questions, e.g. What did the cells in Newgate look like in 1820 again?
When you come up against a question, do this.
1) Look it up in Google. If you can find an immediate answer within 1 hour (that's GENEROUS so stop whining) then get your answer and move on.
2) If there's no immediate answer in Google, start a hot sheet. That's a pink (color is your choice) piece of paper on which you write questions you are going to have to research when you FINISH your rough draft.
Her web site is: http://www.tessgerritsen.com
Her blog is: http://www.tessgerritsen.com/blogs.cfm
And yes, I have to admit that one of the very best things I like about her blog are the creepy facts. Maybe it's because when I was young, I studied to be a biologist, although when I grew up I married one instead. Or maybe I'm just weird, but I *love* her site.
Okay, now that that is out of the way (for now - I can't promise not to revisit the topic of Tess' blog in the future) let's move on to JIT.
JIT. What is it and what does it have to do with writing?
JIT is Just in Time. I learned all about JIT when I was working for Federal Prison Industries (from the outside, not from within the Federal Prisons, although...no, let's not go there). It's an idea from the manufacturing arena where you only get the materials you need to make your finished product at or right before the point where you need the supplies, because storing materials is expensive (warehouse space, security, investment of capital before you get reimbursed by selling what you're making--you figure it out).
JIT for writers is not wasting your time with meaningless research. Think of your research as the material you need to manufacture your finished product: your manuscript. Sure, you need enough to get you started, and maybe enough to germinate some ideas, but there is no point in spending days, weeks, months researching every nuance of something you may only include in one character's off-handed comment on page 212.
Personally, I have an overload sensor. I've used it for years when developing plans to install/upgrade/develop computer systems. I'll do a certain amount of research and then my overload sensor goes off. It says: ENOUGH! It is time to start doing something with all this information. Then I begin work. Inevitably, I find there was something I forgot, or something I still needed to look up, but I could get answers to those questions relatively quickly because I had already established a foundation. Once you establish that foundation, stop.
You have to work with information for it to be useful, so at a certain point, more information is just more garbage you're trying to stuff into the dustbin of your brain. Stop.
This is particularly relevant to writers of historical fiction who get lost in history, or writers of mystery/suspense that include a lot of law enforcement/forensics or other technical information. You can get so caught up in the research that you never write.
So how do you avoid that? I'm hoping that you all have an overload sensor and that if you're having this issue of non-stop research, it's because you've tampered with, shut off, or otherwise disabled your overload sensor. If you have, you simply need to listen to yourself. At some point, some wee voice in your head will say: Enough, already. I can't take this anymore, do or die. Write the darn book. Let me work with what I have now.
If you don't have an overload sensor, it is much harder. I would recommend then, that you simply set a time limit on your research. Certainly no more than a month unless part of what you're researching requires interaction with other humans and you have to stretch out your schedule to meet their schedule.
The point is, all you are trying to do is get your foundation poured. Once the foundation is there, you can just start writing. As you write, you'll find that you're missing some critical pieces or have questions, e.g. What did the cells in Newgate look like in 1820 again?
When you come up against a question, do this.
1) Look it up in Google. If you can find an immediate answer within 1 hour (that's GENEROUS so stop whining) then get your answer and move on.
2) If there's no immediate answer in Google, start a hot sheet. That's a pink (color is your choice) piece of paper on which you write questions you are going to have to research when you FINISH your rough draft.
- Number your questions on your hot sheet.
- Put a symbol (I like the * myself) and the corresponding question number IN YOUR MANUSCRIPT so that later, you can do a search for the symbol (i.e. *) and you can find all these places that will need to be fixed/answered when you edit.
- When you FINISH your rough draft, THEN you can research your questions, get your answers and go back through your document (using the search function for the *1 and *2 and so on, and insert the pertinent facts).
- If you require the fact to know which direction your story should take, well, gosh. I'm sorry. Write it anyway. Be flexible. Because you know what? After you write it anyway, you can usually find some way to bend your fiction to fit whatever facts you discover, after the fact. For example, if you say it takes 3 days to get lab results back and then find out it's more like 3 months, all you have to do is find an alternative, like, well, they could send it to a private lab because this is so urgent that they need it NOW. Or there is some experimental procedure they decided to use, to get the results faster. And you don't have to go on, and on, and ON about it in your manuscript, trying to excuse it. One sentence is usually enough to dismiss the discrepency and move on (Oh, Ms. Garner, we got the results back faster because we used my brother-in-law's lab...) That's all. You can usually find a way to work it in without too dramatic a change in your storyline, and besides, that's what edits are for.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I use the '*' because an '*' has no business being in a normal manuscript, so it's something I can search for without fear of finding things that aren't questions (0r questionable).
You should seriously consider using JIT in your writing if you have problems controlling the amount of time you spend doing research. Manufacturers use it to control costs. Writers should consider using it for the same reason. Every hour you spend researching and slithering down rabbit holes is an hour you are NOT writing. You're goal is to write, finish, and publish your book, not do endless research.
Your brain will also thank you for your newfound restraint in trying to stuff it full of things it doesn't really want or need in order to be creative. There really is a limit to how much information you need before you begin to work with it. And despite what you think, no matter how much research you do ahead of time, you'll have just as many questions as you write as you would have had, if you had stopped wasting time researching eons ago. Think about it. Or rather, stop thinking about it and start writing.
Show-and-tell time: if you've developed other strategies to avoid the dreaded over-research phenomena, let us know. JIT isn't the only technique but it's certainly a useful one.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Encouragement to All You Writer Wannabes
Sometimes, you just want to quit. Sometimes, you look around and see that the genre you love has changed and is no longer what you love and you are feeling lost and lonely out there, trying to write, and darn it, trying to be published, even though you know that what you're doing is no longer what anyone seems to want.
Or maybe it's really something different that no one wants.
Sound like you?
Sure sounds like me.
I've pretty much always wanted to write, heck, I wrote a charming little story about a germ in first grade, complete with illustrations (in LIVING COLOR) and even went so far as to bind the darn thing, myself. I joined Romance Writers of America when they first formed and maintained that membership because they are one of the few writers groups that permitted non-published members to join. Right now, I've got over ten completed manuscripts, and I have great hopes for the last five. I got an agent on the 6th manuscript, so there are four more even newer (better?) ones after that.
So why, you ask, are you depressed?
Well, I'm not published. Sure, I have an agent, but oddly enough, in my fearsome mind, that means I now disappoint TWO people when I get a rejection, instead of just little old me.
However, that's really not the REAL reason. The real reason is that the romance market has changed. The books I love have morphed into something I no longer relish quite so much. All the forums seem to talk about is how to make your books hot, hotter, HOTTEST! when all I want is a good story. I don't want explicit body parts/exchanging of fluids -- the mechanics stopped being interesting to me after I found out how it all worked for myself (oh, sure, you crazy thing - I *meant* me and my boyfriend--duh!). So what interests me now is the story. I don't mind a little nooky. I don't mind a brief interlude of closeness if someone realizes something or shows something relevant to the story, but going on, and on, and on about throbbing members and the hot, wet lips of heaven (chose your metaphor) is just too much.
To my sadness, I've even stopped buying a lot of genres I used to enjoy, e.g. historicals and romantic suspense, because I no longer trust authors not to make me wince with pages of entirely gratuitous engorged cucumbers-and-ripe-tomatoes in some Duke's pants.
When I read them, I wince for the same reason I wince when an actor entering on stage accidentally trips--because I'm embarrased for them, not because I'm shy (just ask my husband, or read my earlier blog, to whit it would be hard to call someone shy who is willing--for whatever reason--to stand outside in January in the pouring ran, naked, and to calmly lather up, rinse, and repeat). Those agonizingly long scenes seem like the author has made some huge mistake and their editor was too embarrassed to point it out to them.
Oh, sure I guess readers do like this cucumber-and-tomato stuff, but for those of us who'd rather gloss over it and concentrate on the emotional life of the characters and the story, it's a bit of a bore.
So, anyway, the reason I mention this is because as a writer, I feel increasing pressure to put those sorts of salads in my manuscripts. To make them more sensual (that's what they're calling this purple prose stuff).
I don't do purple prose and I don't do rules. But I do get depressed when I'm told what I write--romantic, historical mysteries--maybe won't sell unless I add more sensuality (i.e. purple prose). It isn't my style and sadly, even though, sure, I could toss in a few salacious salads, if I did that and for some reason one of my manuscripts sold, I wouldn't want to read the darn thing post-publication.
Here's the thing. I like mysteries and science fiction because even the boys like Heinlein tend not to go in for the throbbing cucumbers when they write the salacious bits. Strangely, I like Chick Lit for the same reason. Sure, they have sex scenes, but the prose is considerably less purple and they don't go on about it for days. And usually the scene makes some point so it serves a purpose other than titilation. I used to like romances until they took a 90 degree turn and headed off down past the belt line.
And sure, I can add sex scenes. In fact, I've done it (where appropriate and the characters both agree) in a *few* of my manuscripts. I just don't do it in *all* my manuscripts because in some, it isn't important to the story and the characters violently object. And after all, as a writer, you're relying on the cooperation of your characters to strip and coordinate the action. If they won't do it, then to force the matter just makes them...boring. And wooden.
So. Do I quit Romance Writers, because the only thing anyone talks about anymore is making "it hotter"?
Do I just quit, period, because clearly I'm not in step with the times?
Will times change - frankly, on this last question, I think folks misunderstand "change" and cycles. Yes, things cycle in and out, but each cycle morphs so it never cycles back to precisely where it was before - it's similar, but different. So I don't expect it to ever really cycle back to the good old reassuring days when the hero and heroine kissed at the end. The best you can hope for on the cycle back--if it occurs--is a shorter sex scene without a lot of explicit descriptions. But, I'm good with that.
For writers who also feel lost, abandoned, out of step with today's markets, and generally depressed, I will point to another blog. Miss Snark is reportedly an agent. She's got a fascinating blog and she continually makes one point. No matter how out of touch you are, how bad you think your writing might be, whatever the case, Don't Give Up!
Don't stop writing just because you're feeling a little out of touch.
Here is a link to her blog. Use it.
http://misssnark.blogspot.com/
Finally, don't feel alone out there. There are a lot of reasons to feel things aren't going your way as a writer. I'd love to hear from you about why you think your work isn't selling or won't sell. Misery loves company.
Or maybe it's really something different that no one wants.
Sound like you?
Sure sounds like me.
I've pretty much always wanted to write, heck, I wrote a charming little story about a germ in first grade, complete with illustrations (in LIVING COLOR) and even went so far as to bind the darn thing, myself. I joined Romance Writers of America when they first formed and maintained that membership because they are one of the few writers groups that permitted non-published members to join. Right now, I've got over ten completed manuscripts, and I have great hopes for the last five. I got an agent on the 6th manuscript, so there are four more even newer (better?) ones after that.
So why, you ask, are you depressed?
Well, I'm not published. Sure, I have an agent, but oddly enough, in my fearsome mind, that means I now disappoint TWO people when I get a rejection, instead of just little old me.
However, that's really not the REAL reason. The real reason is that the romance market has changed. The books I love have morphed into something I no longer relish quite so much. All the forums seem to talk about is how to make your books hot, hotter, HOTTEST! when all I want is a good story. I don't want explicit body parts/exchanging of fluids -- the mechanics stopped being interesting to me after I found out how it all worked for myself (oh, sure, you crazy thing - I *meant* me and my boyfriend--duh!). So what interests me now is the story. I don't mind a little nooky. I don't mind a brief interlude of closeness if someone realizes something or shows something relevant to the story, but going on, and on, and on about throbbing members and the hot, wet lips of heaven (chose your metaphor) is just too much.
To my sadness, I've even stopped buying a lot of genres I used to enjoy, e.g. historicals and romantic suspense, because I no longer trust authors not to make me wince with pages of entirely gratuitous engorged cucumbers-and-ripe-tomatoes in some Duke's pants.
When I read them, I wince for the same reason I wince when an actor entering on stage accidentally trips--because I'm embarrased for them, not because I'm shy (just ask my husband, or read my earlier blog, to whit it would be hard to call someone shy who is willing--for whatever reason--to stand outside in January in the pouring ran, naked, and to calmly lather up, rinse, and repeat). Those agonizingly long scenes seem like the author has made some huge mistake and their editor was too embarrassed to point it out to them.
Oh, sure I guess readers do like this cucumber-and-tomato stuff, but for those of us who'd rather gloss over it and concentrate on the emotional life of the characters and the story, it's a bit of a bore.
So, anyway, the reason I mention this is because as a writer, I feel increasing pressure to put those sorts of salads in my manuscripts. To make them more sensual (that's what they're calling this purple prose stuff).
I don't do purple prose and I don't do rules. But I do get depressed when I'm told what I write--romantic, historical mysteries--maybe won't sell unless I add more sensuality (i.e. purple prose). It isn't my style and sadly, even though, sure, I could toss in a few salacious salads, if I did that and for some reason one of my manuscripts sold, I wouldn't want to read the darn thing post-publication.
Here's the thing. I like mysteries and science fiction because even the boys like Heinlein tend not to go in for the throbbing cucumbers when they write the salacious bits. Strangely, I like Chick Lit for the same reason. Sure, they have sex scenes, but the prose is considerably less purple and they don't go on about it for days. And usually the scene makes some point so it serves a purpose other than titilation. I used to like romances until they took a 90 degree turn and headed off down past the belt line.
And sure, I can add sex scenes. In fact, I've done it (where appropriate and the characters both agree) in a *few* of my manuscripts. I just don't do it in *all* my manuscripts because in some, it isn't important to the story and the characters violently object. And after all, as a writer, you're relying on the cooperation of your characters to strip and coordinate the action. If they won't do it, then to force the matter just makes them...boring. And wooden.
So. Do I quit Romance Writers, because the only thing anyone talks about anymore is making "it hotter"?
Do I just quit, period, because clearly I'm not in step with the times?
Will times change - frankly, on this last question, I think folks misunderstand "change" and cycles. Yes, things cycle in and out, but each cycle morphs so it never cycles back to precisely where it was before - it's similar, but different. So I don't expect it to ever really cycle back to the good old reassuring days when the hero and heroine kissed at the end. The best you can hope for on the cycle back--if it occurs--is a shorter sex scene without a lot of explicit descriptions. But, I'm good with that.
For writers who also feel lost, abandoned, out of step with today's markets, and generally depressed, I will point to another blog. Miss Snark is reportedly an agent. She's got a fascinating blog and she continually makes one point. No matter how out of touch you are, how bad you think your writing might be, whatever the case, Don't Give Up!
Don't stop writing just because you're feeling a little out of touch.
Here is a link to her blog. Use it.
http://misssnark.blogspot.com/
Finally, don't feel alone out there. There are a lot of reasons to feel things aren't going your way as a writer. I'd love to hear from you about why you think your work isn't selling or won't sell. Misery loves company.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Getting What You Want
This is not going to be a post on how to get what you want. Let me make that absolutely clear, right up front. I don't get what I want, so I don't see why you would think I could advise you in this area.
It's just that I find it curious that I seem to get what I want, when I no longer want it, or when I didn't know I wanted it. But I never get what I want, when I want it. I find that interesting. It makes me wonder precisely what mechanism is at work there, because I've gone through all kinds of positive thinking seminars (forced on me under the guise of work-related training by my supervisors...hmm...does that mean they think I'm a pessimist?) and all the positive thinking seminars tell you to, well, think positive. Envision your goal. Envision yourself successfully attaining your goal. Envision hurling yourself off the balcony of your apartment building because you can't stand even ONE MORE person telling you in a chirpy voice that if you would just visualize it, you could attain your goals.
On what planet does that work? The blonde, peppy cheerleader planet?
Sporadically, I DO envision myself attaining my goals. And I do that, not just for a day, or a week, but years at a time. My limit seems to be five bloody, long years of envisioning a goal before I give in to my natural pessimism and realize it just ain't gonna happen, babe. And I give up.
So, still wanting to be a successful writer, I started envisioning that. Oh, not the walking through the airport and having people thrust books for you to sign into your hands, but the nice, you're gardening and get a new idea for a book you just know your editor (you have an editor!) will love sort of envisioning. I did that envisioning in college, but quit when I realized I needed to earn money if I was going to live long enough to continue envisioning anything. Then, ten years ago, I started envisioning again. This is the longest envisioning I've done. I think ten years is quite long. I wonder what those chirpy-voiced seminar instructors would say. I mean, were they able to keep envisioning something positively for ten freakin' years without any success?
What worries me and yet give me a strange feeling of hope is that I'm starting to feel tired with all this envisioning.
This gives me hope because it seems whenever I give up, I get what I want. Not through envisioning--no, but through simple despair.
When I first started working for a living, it didn't take me long to realize that I liked computers, and specifically operating systems. I wanted to be a systems administrator. So, I worked for 25 years in the computer field with some intersections with systems administration, but not as the enterprise systems administrator. Okay, so I finally get...tired...and realize I'm about 8 years away from retirement and I don't want this anymore because it's a lot of responsibility and for the first time in my career, I'm thinking it would be nice to slow down a little and not be the one responsible for digesting all the constant changes, planning out the deployments and then being up late at night and on weekends getting new operating systems installed and working, or answering HELP! calls from lower level systems administrator.
So, what happens? Right when I'm ready to throw in the towel and enjoy my last few years of work at a slightly less frantic/overworked rate, I get a job as an Enterprise Administrator. And here I am, planning a large project where I'll be working 18-20 hour days over the weekend and up-coming holiday, to get the first phase of a project completed. This is the job I always wanted. I have a dream boss. I'm a member of a great team. But, this isn't what I really want anymore, because I'd like more time to devote to other things such as gardening and writing.
Hmmm.
Then, I remember back in the early 90's, I realized, very belatedly, that I actually would like to get married at least once in my life. I frantically dated for a few years, got completely burned out, and just quit. I just couldn't take the dating anymore, trying to be freakin' nice and not quite so intelligent, and all the rest. I decided this was it, I was going to be alone until I died. Then I met my husband and got married. What is with that?
So now here I am, reaching the end of my writing tether. I'm tired of working long hours on my paying job, then logging back onto my computer to work several more hours writing. I'm tired of trying to make my heros and heroines "sympathetic". I'm exhausted trying to "tone down" my voice so that it's not quite so obnoxious and smart-ass, and I'm trying to include enough descriptions and internal dialog so that readers actually know what is going on. (I, personally, believe that the readers get enough from the dialog and actions to know what is going on, if they chose to think about it, but apparently most chose not to think--see--I'm trying not to be a complete intellectual snob, but there it is. I am. But, not the type of intellectual snob who thinks flinging paint at a canvas makes ART and if you can't see that, then you're simply not understanding what the artist is trying to convey. In that instance, I believe what the artist is trying to convey is that they want to get a lot of money for minimal or no effort, and convince everyone they are a genius when in reality, they have a hard time remembering how to flush the toilet. So, at least I'm not that kind of an intellectual snob.)
Interestingly enough, I also now have an agent. Sigh. Does this mean that the week I chuck it all in and go out and play instead of spending an extra 3 hours each night writing at the computer, I'll get a call from my agent telling me that she's gotten an offer?
If I chuck it all in now, will I get that call faster?
Ahhh, the power of pessimistic thinking...
Maybe I should teach a seminar on chucking it all in. Maybe I could become rich and famous.
Want to be Successful? Forget it! The Pessimist's Guide to Success!
Tired of working long hours with no rewards or recognition? Tired of rejection? Just plain tired? Then you need this course! All you have to do is QUIT TRYING! Park your lazy butt on the sofa and watch a few hours of television! Take a nap! Forget trying to excel! Believe in the zen of despair! Give it up NOW! Why wait a minute longer? The faster you give up, the faster you'll get what you no longer want! It's a miracle!
For just $19.95, I'll send you the complete kit: The Pessimist's Guide to Success! including the poster of your choice from www.despair.com, a mug (to hold all that coffee you no longer need to drink), and a book with a complete life plan on meeting your goals by giving up on them. But hurry - this is a limited time offer. By the time you read this, I'll have already given up on this plan and resigned myself to an old age riddled with despair and cans of cat food (or maybe dog food, because I think you get more for less with dog food...)
It's just that I find it curious that I seem to get what I want, when I no longer want it, or when I didn't know I wanted it. But I never get what I want, when I want it. I find that interesting. It makes me wonder precisely what mechanism is at work there, because I've gone through all kinds of positive thinking seminars (forced on me under the guise of work-related training by my supervisors...hmm...does that mean they think I'm a pessimist?) and all the positive thinking seminars tell you to, well, think positive. Envision your goal. Envision yourself successfully attaining your goal. Envision hurling yourself off the balcony of your apartment building because you can't stand even ONE MORE person telling you in a chirpy voice that if you would just visualize it, you could attain your goals.
On what planet does that work? The blonde, peppy cheerleader planet?
Sporadically, I DO envision myself attaining my goals. And I do that, not just for a day, or a week, but years at a time. My limit seems to be five bloody, long years of envisioning a goal before I give in to my natural pessimism and realize it just ain't gonna happen, babe. And I give up.
So, still wanting to be a successful writer, I started envisioning that. Oh, not the walking through the airport and having people thrust books for you to sign into your hands, but the nice, you're gardening and get a new idea for a book you just know your editor (you have an editor!) will love sort of envisioning. I did that envisioning in college, but quit when I realized I needed to earn money if I was going to live long enough to continue envisioning anything. Then, ten years ago, I started envisioning again. This is the longest envisioning I've done. I think ten years is quite long. I wonder what those chirpy-voiced seminar instructors would say. I mean, were they able to keep envisioning something positively for ten freakin' years without any success?
What worries me and yet give me a strange feeling of hope is that I'm starting to feel tired with all this envisioning.
This gives me hope because it seems whenever I give up, I get what I want. Not through envisioning--no, but through simple despair.
When I first started working for a living, it didn't take me long to realize that I liked computers, and specifically operating systems. I wanted to be a systems administrator. So, I worked for 25 years in the computer field with some intersections with systems administration, but not as the enterprise systems administrator. Okay, so I finally get...tired...and realize I'm about 8 years away from retirement and I don't want this anymore because it's a lot of responsibility and for the first time in my career, I'm thinking it would be nice to slow down a little and not be the one responsible for digesting all the constant changes, planning out the deployments and then being up late at night and on weekends getting new operating systems installed and working, or answering HELP! calls from lower level systems administrator.
So, what happens? Right when I'm ready to throw in the towel and enjoy my last few years of work at a slightly less frantic/overworked rate, I get a job as an Enterprise Administrator. And here I am, planning a large project where I'll be working 18-20 hour days over the weekend and up-coming holiday, to get the first phase of a project completed. This is the job I always wanted. I have a dream boss. I'm a member of a great team. But, this isn't what I really want anymore, because I'd like more time to devote to other things such as gardening and writing.
Hmmm.
Then, I remember back in the early 90's, I realized, very belatedly, that I actually would like to get married at least once in my life. I frantically dated for a few years, got completely burned out, and just quit. I just couldn't take the dating anymore, trying to be freakin' nice and not quite so intelligent, and all the rest. I decided this was it, I was going to be alone until I died. Then I met my husband and got married. What is with that?
So now here I am, reaching the end of my writing tether. I'm tired of working long hours on my paying job, then logging back onto my computer to work several more hours writing. I'm tired of trying to make my heros and heroines "sympathetic". I'm exhausted trying to "tone down" my voice so that it's not quite so obnoxious and smart-ass, and I'm trying to include enough descriptions and internal dialog so that readers actually know what is going on. (I, personally, believe that the readers get enough from the dialog and actions to know what is going on, if they chose to think about it, but apparently most chose not to think--see--I'm trying not to be a complete intellectual snob, but there it is. I am. But, not the type of intellectual snob who thinks flinging paint at a canvas makes ART and if you can't see that, then you're simply not understanding what the artist is trying to convey. In that instance, I believe what the artist is trying to convey is that they want to get a lot of money for minimal or no effort, and convince everyone they are a genius when in reality, they have a hard time remembering how to flush the toilet. So, at least I'm not that kind of an intellectual snob.)
Interestingly enough, I also now have an agent. Sigh. Does this mean that the week I chuck it all in and go out and play instead of spending an extra 3 hours each night writing at the computer, I'll get a call from my agent telling me that she's gotten an offer?
If I chuck it all in now, will I get that call faster?
Ahhh, the power of pessimistic thinking...
Maybe I should teach a seminar on chucking it all in. Maybe I could become rich and famous.
Want to be Successful? Forget it! The Pessimist's Guide to Success!
Tired of working long hours with no rewards or recognition? Tired of rejection? Just plain tired? Then you need this course! All you have to do is QUIT TRYING! Park your lazy butt on the sofa and watch a few hours of television! Take a nap! Forget trying to excel! Believe in the zen of despair! Give it up NOW! Why wait a minute longer? The faster you give up, the faster you'll get what you no longer want! It's a miracle!
For just $19.95, I'll send you the complete kit: The Pessimist's Guide to Success! including the poster of your choice from www.despair.com, a mug (to hold all that coffee you no longer need to drink), and a book with a complete life plan on meeting your goals by giving up on them. But hurry - this is a limited time offer. By the time you read this, I'll have already given up on this plan and resigned myself to an old age riddled with despair and cans of cat food (or maybe dog food, because I think you get more for less with dog food...)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)