Out in Italian

You know how I find out I've got a foreign language edition ensconced happily on some foreign shelf?

Pick one:

a)  My agent sends me a congratulatory e-mail.

b)  My publisher's two copies of the foreign-language edition show up in my mailbox.

c)  Kindly and alert reader Nina M. sends me the news.



In yet another of my small-minded carpings about covers, I will point out that my Annique and Grey have wandered into the High Victorian era (complete with gas lamps,) and that she has Really Big Hands.

I feel great kindliness toward this Italian publisher.  They translated my very first fiction book way back in the dim ages when folks still wrote on clay tablets and baked them in the sun. Italian Romance readers seem to be a great bunch and I hope they've got themselves a good translation.

Un Amore da Spie is Mondadori 921, neatly snuggled between Maggie Osborne's I do, I do, I do (920) and Johanna Lindsey's The Heir (922).  Un Amore da Spie is pleased to be in such august company and rather enjoying having its very own number.


Un Amore da Spie is available from Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, somewhere, somehow.  Those who buy Italian books will doubtless know how to find them.

The Housing Situation

I have been pounding out the JUSTINE manuscript in a conscientious manner for the last couple o' days, which means I haven't been blogging.  I am quite utterly uninhabited except for pictures of Justine's bedroom up in the attic of the brothel and worries about what POV I should be in. This is fine for me.  Not so interesting for anyone else.

So I cannot blog, really,
the mind being dry and empty as a tin can put out for recycling by a conscientious householder.

Instead of writing something of grave import or practical use, I'm going to complain about the bird situation in my yard.

This requires an explanation.
A lengthy preamble.
A prorogation, even.

This next immediate bit is an example of why we don't do prologues.  Because they are all a form of special pleading, aren't they?

I will now insert a fold so people do not have to upload the many pictures that follow if they do not want to.

I will just warn you that there is nothing about writing below the fold.
Just philosophy and birds.

Let Them Eat Brioche

One of the minor disappointments of life is that there are no croissants in the Regency. My characters can enjoy flaky rolls, buns, sliced bread, tarts and all sorts of pastries for breakfast, but croissants didn't arrive in Paris till the late 1830s.  They're as anachronistic on the Regency table as cornflakes.

Regency folks can chow down on brioche though.  We got brioche.

Brioche is a light yeast bread, eggy and somewhat sweet -- though the recipes tell us it was less sweet in 1800 than it is nowadays -- frequently carrying a nice surprise of nuts or raisins.  It was a veritable breakfast cliché in Paris in the Eighteenth Century.  Brioche would have been comfortable and familiar on any wealthy English breakfast table, those being the ones influenced by the French way of cooking.  By 1820, brioche was so common in England it was standard in cookbooks.

Which brings us to the question . . .  

 . . .  and click here for the rest of the posting, over on Word Wenches.

photocredit dessert first

Technial Topic -- Outlines. I mean, like, why?

In the comment trail, excellent commenter Annie said:

But I can't quite imagine how I'd outline a story, since all I have are scenes. The few I've written down I already know would have to be thrown out--the setting isn't right, the characters are a different age than I thought, etc. And then there's a character off stage who's not even in the story, and I find him really annoying. I'm in awe of you and other writers who can live with the unrulyness.


Scenes come up and clamor for attention and we love them all as a hen loves her chicks.
But we must stop thinking -- Is this scene not wonderful?  Is this scene not cool?  And start thinking -- what does this scene do? 

An Outline is simply a list of scenes that tells the story. 

Lots of stuff goes on in our fictive world . . . . battles and betrayals and getting yer hair cut and eating asparagus.
We have to pick just a few morsels of all this activity for the manuscript.

We fall in love with the scenes that come to us.
It is a traditional weakness that we collect up wonderful scenes that take place before the story actually starts and make them Chapters One-through-Three.  This leads to many a carefully crafted Chapter One-through-Three being torn out by the roots. 

All along, we create scenes that serve no story purpose. 
They become outtakes. 

It's like some cruel sacrifice to the Writing Gods.

In the end, in a mood of cold, dire ruthlessness quite alien to our character, we will gather to our bosoms the few, favored scenes that tell the story and toss the others away onto the scrapheap of our subconscious where they will jitter at us in dreams for the next decade which is why we are like this.


How do we take the inchoate mass of possible scenes -- which are not in any order and some of them don't fit at all and we have no idea how they relate -- and make story?

Well . . . we outline.

Basic process, (and I am talking about my process, since I have no idea what anybody else does,) is we work backwards. 
We go from what we need back to what we have imagined. 

Ok.
There are several kinds of scenes we need.

I) -- We need scenes that convey plot. 

Plot consists of a series of Necessary Actions.  You know something is a 'Necessary Action' because if you leave it out or you change it, the story doesn't happen.  All else being equal, we try to show these Necessary Action on stage because they tend to be interesting.

II) -- We need scenes that change the protagonist. 

In a coming-of-age story, the change might be his developing maturity.  In a spy thriller, this might be the villain deciding to blow something up, or the hero deciding to leave his comfortable retirement and go hunt villains.

In Romance genre,
(I love Romance genre because it is straightforward,)
this character change is growth of the love relationship.

In a Romance genre story, we show the Character Change as a series of Romance Stages.  There is an analog to the Action Plotting in that there are Necessary Romance Stages.
You know something is a Necessary Romance Stage because if you leave it out, the love relationship doesn't hold together.  It seems unrealistic. 

(Erotica is not Romance genre because there is no development of a love relationship through a series of stages.)  

See how when I talk about the kind of scenes we need I am not saying, scenes that 'explain why,' or scenes that 'set up the story,' or scenes that 'reveal character'? 
We do not write scenes to convey information. 
Really.  We don't.  There are reasons for this.

III) -- And we need scenes that are just so wonderful we can't leave them out.
"No, we don't."
"Yes, we do."
"No."
"Yes".
"Oh, go ahead and add them.  I can't stop you.  But the editor is going to jerk them out anyway."
(jo's subconscious pouts.)

Just about every scene in the final manuscript will be built around either Necessary Plot Action or Character Change. That's what we outline.

See how this helps corral the little darlings?

Even before we begin to outline we can shoo away many of those clucking, fluttering, beloved scenes
because they do not contain the protagonists learning and changing,
do not contain action that is essential to the plot,
and a good many of them do not even occur within the brief span of the story here-and-now.

This gets rid of much of the chirping throng.


SPOILERS lie below the cut.
BIG SPOILERS.
Just don't go there if you haven't read Forbidden Rose.

Interview 'avec moi', a Forbidden Rose giveaway

It is with some chagrin I note yet another website is eager to give away their copy of Forbidden Rose.

And yet, there it is.  The excellent writers at 'All The World's Our Page' will give you a chance at a spanking new copy of Forbidden Rose if you drop by and comment at 20 Questions.

While there, you will have the opportunity to

1) read the 20 Question interview with me where I natter on about life, writing philosophy, coffee shops, 'story as the elephant in the writing playpen', and other matters of breathless interest;

2) discover a brief excerpt from Forbidden Rose which might be entitled 'Jean-Paul and His Knife' or 'What Maggie and Doyle Were Doing Before They Had Wild Monkey Sex';

3) read the similar but more interesting and polished 20 Questions with Deanna Raybourn which will absolutely require you to go out and buy her books if for some inexplicable reason you have not already done so.