I have been greatly honored by All About Romance. Oh wow.
AAR has chosen Spymaster's Lady as winner of the 2008 Reviewer's Choice for Historical Romance.
Their kind comments here.
Oh wow. Oh wow. AAR. Wow.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
An American Library Association recognition
I have some just unbelievable recognition here.
I have been named by the American Library Association's Reference and User Services as a Reading List winner.
The Reading List is one book chosen in each of eight genres (sci fi, thriller, mystery, woman's lit, horror, fantasy, romance, historical fiction,) as both good and of interest to the general adult reader.
I got the one for Romance.
here.
The shortlist for Romance here. was
"The Spymaster's Lady" by Joanna Bourne;
"My Lord and Spymaster" by Joanna Bourne;
"Private Arrangements" by Sherry Thomas;
"The Seduction of the Crimson Rose" by Lauren Willig; and
"Your Scandalous Ways" by Loretta Chase,
which is a hell of a short list, isn't it?
Last year, Natural Born Charmer won.
SEP, of course.
Oh my bobalinks and bananas, what am I doing anywhere near that company?
I have been named by the American Library Association's Reference and User Services as a Reading List winner.
The Reading List is one book chosen in each of eight genres (sci fi, thriller, mystery, woman's lit, horror, fantasy, romance, historical fiction,) as both good and of interest to the general adult reader.
I got the one for Romance.
here.
The shortlist for Romance here. was
"The Spymaster's Lady" by Joanna Bourne;
"My Lord and Spymaster" by Joanna Bourne;
"Private Arrangements" by Sherry Thomas;
"The Seduction of the Crimson Rose" by Lauren Willig; and
"Your Scandalous Ways" by Loretta Chase,
which is a hell of a short list, isn't it?
Last year, Natural Born Charmer won.
SEP, of course.
Oh my bobalinks and bananas, what am I doing anywhere near that company?
Friday, January 16, 2009
Spymaster's Lady at Bookshare
Spymaster's Lady and My Lord and Spymaster are available at Bookshare -- the site that makes digital books available to those with visual impairments or dyslexia.
Here.
I am so happy to see them there.
Here.
I am so happy to see them there.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
An out-take from MLAS
Here's an outtake from My Lord and Spymaster.
I refer to it in a later post. Here it is, in full, for anyone who wants to see it.
In a much modified form, this scene made it into the book.
***************
Adrian was propped against the wall in the stuffy closet they used as a listening post, reading from a black, bound notebook. He crooked a finger in invitation and kept reading. "Close the door."
There wasn't room for three in the cubbyhole. He slid in behind the table, the rack of pistols on the wall poking into his back. Trevor, the spy in training, sat at the table, his ear pressed to a brass ear trumpet that emerged from the wall and wrote, scribbling fast. The only light in the room came from the dark lantern at his elbow. Three sides of that were closed, the fourth open. In the bright oblong it cast, his pencil made a manic, dancing shadow across the page. Three books, like the one Adrian held, lay to his left. Another dozen were stacked and ready.
This was where the British Service watched and listened to what went on in the library. Jess was right -- the walls were full of rats.
He waited till Adrian looked up. "Don't question her again."
"Ah." Adrian gave him the same meditative consideration he'd been using on the book. "You're feeling protective."
"I can't deal with her when she's so scared she can barely think. You're making it worse."
"Naturally. We are, in our own small way, His Majesty's government.[which caps?] " Adrian shrugged. "We didn't haul out the bastinado, [date, sp] you know. Fletch chatted with her once, politely. Pax coaxed at her as if she were a kitten hiding under the sofa. Galba attempted reason. Reason is always a mistake, I feel."
"You've put this in my hands. Leave her to me. No more badgering."
"Our attempts to badger were, if I may say so, water off a duck's back. Do you want to see her badgered? Let's take a look at that interesting reunion next door." An angry rumble vibrated the walls, coming from the study. It had been going on for some time. "That's Josiah, disapproving of her recent exploits."
"Or he's annoyed she didn't follow his orders well enough."
"I don't think you're a fool. Do try not to disappoint me." Adrian flipped back to the beginning of the book he held. "Here are today's notes. Eight o'clock -- breakfast with Galba, discussing the market for fake antiquities." He thumbed forward. "Macleish, at ten, much incensed over problems in inventory and complaining about Pitney. He is followed by Pitney, at noon, complaining about Macleish. Pitney then enlivens everyone's day by peaching on Jess, who has been a very naughty girl. You must curb her tendency to climb four-storey buildings. [check hyphen]"
"I intend to. Let me see that." He helped himself to the book. To give him credit, Trevor wrote a clear hand and filled in later what he missed the first time through. "Damnation. Pitney knew what she was up to and didn't stop her. She took a bloody ferret with her. Can no one control that woman?"
"Good men have tried." Adrian reached across and turned forward a dozen pages. "This is what you want to see. At three o'clock, matters become interesting. Sergei Orkoff visits. What do you know about Sergei?"
"Attaché with the Russian Embassy. [check legation? Check possible titles] Smooth. Amusing. I see him at Claudia's soirees, hanging on the fringes of the Foreign Office and War Ministry crowd, listening. Very friendly to men who talk more than they should. My guess is he's in your line of work."
"Discerning of you. He is also an old friend of Josiah's.
"Orkoff is everybody's old friend."
"Too true." Adrian watched him read. "You will see they greet one another with glad cries, in French. That is to keep us on our toes. Some discussion of where to get decent pastry in London. The rain. Orkoff reminiscences of bordellos in Heidleburg."
And there was page after page of it. "Why did you let him in?"
"The Russian Embassy asks us to. And I was curious. Next -- you'll come to it -- Josiah discusses bordellos in Munich. In German. Sergei relates a filthy but inventive story involving animals and a Prussian Grand Duke [check title margravane]. Trevor finds this all very interesting. One seeks to educate the young."
"Fascinating." He turned the page. "They've switched to ... what? Russian."
Trevor stopped pretending to take notes. "That's because Orkoff's Russian. Or ... koff. Russian."
Adrian said, "Russian isn't one of your languages, is it? I'll have Trevor do a translation tonight."
The stripling looked mutinous.
"Tonight, Trev." Adrian's voice was gentle.
"He's not going to read it." Trevor [some action]. "The Captain's made up his mind. He's not here about Whitby. All he's doing is bullying Jess into bed with him."
"Then Jess will slice him stem to stern and laugh girlishly while he writhes in his own blood. Nonetheless, you will deliver the full translation to his house tonight." Adrian let that settle in. "A careful translation."
The mutter might have been, "The hell I will." Or it might not. Fortunatly, Trevor was Adrian's problem. [look for echo in earlier scene]
"Just tell me."
"Always the practical man. Let's see." Adrian took the book and turned it into the light. "We continue in the same vein. Customs officials in Athens. Cheeses. An anecdote concerning the Swedish legate [check] in Vienna."
Adrian laid the notebook on the table, held flat under his spread fingers. "And here, in passing, Orkoff mentions the transfer of a tourmaline from Josiah to a certain Levgenny Gregoritch Petroff Romanovski,[check Russian names]. For safekeeping."
He felt a dry prickle across the back of his neck. A warning of danger. "A Romanoff?"
"A minor, but perfectly genuine, Romanoff. He has vast estates overlooking the Black Sea." [check political geography] Adrian waited.
"Whitby doesn't deal in jewels." It took a minute. "The tourmaline is Jess."
"Regrettably, yes."
Trevor's hands, on the table, clenched into fists. "She won't do it. I won't let her."
"How nice for you both. Let us see what Sebastian has to say about this, shall we?" Adrian smoothed his way along Cryllic [caps?] letters with his fingertips [check frequency of fingertips]. "Reading between the lines ... the Russian Embassy [ambassador, legate, legation] offers to intervene on Josiah's behalf with his His [cap?] Majesty's Government. Josiah leaves the country. His holdings in England are forfeit to the [devolve? confiscated] crown [caps?] -- that's the sweetener for the Foreign Office [what office deals with treason?] -- and Jess marries a minor Romanoff. That's the payment to the Russians."
Jess, God help her, would marry a syphilitic dwarf if Josiah told her to. But it wasn't going to happen. Even in the first blank instant of rage, he knew that much. "Damn the Czar anyway."
"Amen."
"Whitby wouldn't live six months."
"He would meet some elegantly Byzantine end. The Russians are so good at that sort of thing."
"Whitby dead. Jess inherits half the shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean. Quite a coup for the Romanoffs."
But Jess wasn't destined for some Russian lordling. That wasn't what Adrian was warning him about. He did a quick mental tour of the labyrinth of Russian Imperial politics and didn't like what he found. "It's not ships the Russians want."
"Not ships. Not the indecent pots of money. Not warehouses. It's the [arabic word or turkish word for 'contacts'] prestige. The influence. Whitby knows everyone. He has a network of spies and commercial agents from the Crimea to Khartoum."
"It's the Whitby name they want."
"I can almost hear the Russians slavering."
That was the East. He'd sailed those waters for a decade. Every trade, every encounter, was an intrigue of boxes nested within boxes, wheels within wheels, layer after layer of subtlety. England played intricate, rough games in the ports and palaces. So did the French and the Austrians and the Russians. "It changes the balance of power. The Foreign Office can't allow it."
"They'd see the company, and both the Whitbys, destroyed first."
"Both Whitby's. They'd have to destroy both of them." Jess did collect enemies, didn't she?
He rubbed his chin, feeling the beard. He'd been up all last night searching the Whitby warehouse and he hadn't shaved. He looked like a pirate and Jess still didn't even have the sense to be scared of him. "No wonder she doesn't trust the government. Did the Foreign Office frame Whitby?"
"I think not. Probably not." Adrian closed the book. "They are not, strictly speaking, that clever. And Whitby's has heretofore presented no problem."
"They'll find out Orkoff was here."
"Certainly. They will eventually figure out why. Some bureaucratic popinjay will then panic." Adrian met his eyes. "He will fix upon one of the two obvious solutions. That is why Jess will return to your house every night, mon ami. Your footmen will stick to her like so many nautical mustard plasters [date] every day, and my own men will lurk in the shadows lending just that soupçon [check]of official support. This is the last time she gives us the slip. She must not fall into the hands of the Foreign Office."
Behind the wall, in the study, the grumble of a man's voice continued, words muffled to unintelligibility. Jess was getting yelled at.
Outside, the real storm was gathering. He could protect her against Cinq. Could he protect her from his own government? "The Foreign Office doesn't want her dead. They want her married to an Englishman."
"To their chosen Englishman. I doubt Jess' consent is considered strictly necessary. Sit down, Trevor." That was directed at the boy. "There is insufficient space for strenuous heroics."
Trevor subsided, muttering.
The boy was right about one thing. "They can't make her do it. Not Jess."
"I will back Jess against triple her fighting weight in Foreign Office lackeys. And Josiah's been diddling the diplomatic service for years. I suggest we listen intelligently to what he has to say to Jess." Adrian set his hand on the small, square panel in the wall behind him.
This wasn't what he'd come for. "I don't –"
"... You don't listen at keyholes. Have I ever told you how much I admire gentlemanly scruples? You read the transcripts. You pass a quiet hour pawing through her bedroom. But you won't eavesdrop. These distinctions escape me. Douse the lights, Trev."
Without a word, the boy closed the door of the lantern and threw them into total dark.
"Sebastian, they know I'm watching. They expect it. Think of it as a sort of game." The sound of tapping fell into the darkness. That would be Adrian's fingers, restless on the table or the edge of the chair. "I specialize in betrayals. I assure you, this hardly qualifies."
"You and Josiah are playing games. Jess isn't."
"Then it's time she did." Adrian was still a moment. "Josiah knows what I am. Eventually, Jess will. Do you know, there are times I do not find being Head of Section at all amusing. Shut up, now. When I open this they can hear us."
***************
If you want to go back to the post where I was talking about this, it's here.
I refer to it in a later post. Here it is, in full, for anyone who wants to see it.
In a much modified form, this scene made it into the book.
***************
Adrian was propped against the wall in the stuffy closet they used as a listening post, reading from a black, bound notebook. He crooked a finger in invitation and kept reading. "Close the door."
There wasn't room for three in the cubbyhole. He slid in behind the table, the rack of pistols on the wall poking into his back. Trevor, the spy in training, sat at the table, his ear pressed to a brass ear trumpet that emerged from the wall and wrote, scribbling fast. The only light in the room came from the dark lantern at his elbow. Three sides of that were closed, the fourth open. In the bright oblong it cast, his pencil made a manic, dancing shadow across the page. Three books, like the one Adrian held, lay to his left. Another dozen were stacked and ready.
This was where the British Service watched and listened to what went on in the library. Jess was right -- the walls were full of rats.
He waited till Adrian looked up. "Don't question her again."
"Ah." Adrian gave him the same meditative consideration he'd been using on the book. "You're feeling protective."
"I can't deal with her when she's so scared she can barely think. You're making it worse."
"Naturally. We are, in our own small way, His Majesty's government.[which caps?] " Adrian shrugged. "We didn't haul out the bastinado, [date, sp] you know. Fletch chatted with her once, politely. Pax coaxed at her as if she were a kitten hiding under the sofa. Galba attempted reason. Reason is always a mistake, I feel."
"You've put this in my hands. Leave her to me. No more badgering."
"Our attempts to badger were, if I may say so, water off a duck's back. Do you want to see her badgered? Let's take a look at that interesting reunion next door." An angry rumble vibrated the walls, coming from the study. It had been going on for some time. "That's Josiah, disapproving of her recent exploits."
"Or he's annoyed she didn't follow his orders well enough."
"I don't think you're a fool. Do try not to disappoint me." Adrian flipped back to the beginning of the book he held. "Here are today's notes. Eight o'clock -- breakfast with Galba, discussing the market for fake antiquities." He thumbed forward. "Macleish, at ten, much incensed over problems in inventory and complaining about Pitney. He is followed by Pitney, at noon, complaining about Macleish. Pitney then enlivens everyone's day by peaching on Jess, who has been a very naughty girl. You must curb her tendency to climb four-storey buildings. [check hyphen]"
"I intend to. Let me see that." He helped himself to the book. To give him credit, Trevor wrote a clear hand and filled in later what he missed the first time through. "Damnation. Pitney knew what she was up to and didn't stop her. She took a bloody ferret with her. Can no one control that woman?"
"Good men have tried." Adrian reached across and turned forward a dozen pages. "This is what you want to see. At three o'clock, matters become interesting. Sergei Orkoff visits. What do you know about Sergei?"
"Attaché with the Russian Embassy. [check legation? Check possible titles] Smooth. Amusing. I see him at Claudia's soirees, hanging on the fringes of the Foreign Office and War Ministry crowd, listening. Very friendly to men who talk more than they should. My guess is he's in your line of work."
"Discerning of you. He is also an old friend of Josiah's.
"Orkoff is everybody's old friend."
"Too true." Adrian watched him read. "You will see they greet one another with glad cries, in French. That is to keep us on our toes. Some discussion of where to get decent pastry in London. The rain. Orkoff reminiscences of bordellos in Heidleburg."
And there was page after page of it. "Why did you let him in?"
"The Russian Embassy asks us to. And I was curious. Next -- you'll come to it -- Josiah discusses bordellos in Munich. In German. Sergei relates a filthy but inventive story involving animals and a Prussian Grand Duke [check title margravane]. Trevor finds this all very interesting. One seeks to educate the young."
"Fascinating." He turned the page. "They've switched to ... what? Russian."
Trevor stopped pretending to take notes. "That's because Orkoff's Russian. Or ... koff. Russian."
Adrian said, "Russian isn't one of your languages, is it? I'll have Trevor do a translation tonight."
The stripling looked mutinous.
"Tonight, Trev." Adrian's voice was gentle.
"He's not going to read it." Trevor [some action]. "The Captain's made up his mind. He's not here about Whitby. All he's doing is bullying Jess into bed with him."
"Then Jess will slice him stem to stern and laugh girlishly while he writhes in his own blood. Nonetheless, you will deliver the full translation to his house tonight." Adrian let that settle in. "A careful translation."
The mutter might have been, "The hell I will." Or it might not. Fortunatly, Trevor was Adrian's problem. [look for echo in earlier scene]
"Just tell me."
"Always the practical man. Let's see." Adrian took the book and turned it into the light. "We continue in the same vein. Customs officials in Athens. Cheeses. An anecdote concerning the Swedish legate [check] in Vienna."
Adrian laid the notebook on the table, held flat under his spread fingers. "And here, in passing, Orkoff mentions the transfer of a tourmaline from Josiah to a certain Levgenny Gregoritch Petroff Romanovski,[check Russian names]. For safekeeping."
He felt a dry prickle across the back of his neck. A warning of danger. "A Romanoff?"
"A minor, but perfectly genuine, Romanoff. He has vast estates overlooking the Black Sea." [check political geography] Adrian waited.
"Whitby doesn't deal in jewels." It took a minute. "The tourmaline is Jess."
"Regrettably, yes."
Trevor's hands, on the table, clenched into fists. "She won't do it. I won't let her."
"How nice for you both. Let us see what Sebastian has to say about this, shall we?" Adrian smoothed his way along Cryllic [caps?] letters with his fingertips [check frequency of fingertips]. "Reading between the lines ... the Russian Embassy [ambassador, legate, legation] offers to intervene on Josiah's behalf with his His [cap?] Majesty's Government. Josiah leaves the country. His holdings in England are forfeit to the [devolve? confiscated] crown [caps?] -- that's the sweetener for the Foreign Office [what office deals with treason?] -- and Jess marries a minor Romanoff. That's the payment to the Russians."
Jess, God help her, would marry a syphilitic dwarf if Josiah told her to. But it wasn't going to happen. Even in the first blank instant of rage, he knew that much. "Damn the Czar anyway."
"Amen."
"Whitby wouldn't live six months."
"He would meet some elegantly Byzantine end. The Russians are so good at that sort of thing."
"Whitby dead. Jess inherits half the shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean. Quite a coup for the Romanoffs."
But Jess wasn't destined for some Russian lordling. That wasn't what Adrian was warning him about. He did a quick mental tour of the labyrinth of Russian Imperial politics and didn't like what he found. "It's not ships the Russians want."
"Not ships. Not the indecent pots of money. Not warehouses. It's the [arabic word or turkish word for 'contacts'] prestige. The influence. Whitby knows everyone. He has a network of spies and commercial agents from the Crimea to Khartoum."
"It's the Whitby name they want."
"I can almost hear the Russians slavering."
That was the East. He'd sailed those waters for a decade. Every trade, every encounter, was an intrigue of boxes nested within boxes, wheels within wheels, layer after layer of subtlety. England played intricate, rough games in the ports and palaces. So did the French and the Austrians and the Russians. "It changes the balance of power. The Foreign Office can't allow it."
"They'd see the company, and both the Whitbys, destroyed first."
"Both Whitby's. They'd have to destroy both of them." Jess did collect enemies, didn't she?
He rubbed his chin, feeling the beard. He'd been up all last night searching the Whitby warehouse and he hadn't shaved. He looked like a pirate and Jess still didn't even have the sense to be scared of him. "No wonder she doesn't trust the government. Did the Foreign Office frame Whitby?"
"I think not. Probably not." Adrian closed the book. "They are not, strictly speaking, that clever. And Whitby's has heretofore presented no problem."
"They'll find out Orkoff was here."
"Certainly. They will eventually figure out why. Some bureaucratic popinjay will then panic." Adrian met his eyes. "He will fix upon one of the two obvious solutions. That is why Jess will return to your house every night, mon ami. Your footmen will stick to her like so many nautical mustard plasters [date] every day, and my own men will lurk in the shadows lending just that soupçon [check]of official support. This is the last time she gives us the slip. She must not fall into the hands of the Foreign Office."
Behind the wall, in the study, the grumble of a man's voice continued, words muffled to unintelligibility. Jess was getting yelled at.
Outside, the real storm was gathering. He could protect her against Cinq. Could he protect her from his own government? "The Foreign Office doesn't want her dead. They want her married to an Englishman."
"To their chosen Englishman. I doubt Jess' consent is considered strictly necessary. Sit down, Trevor." That was directed at the boy. "There is insufficient space for strenuous heroics."
Trevor subsided, muttering.
The boy was right about one thing. "They can't make her do it. Not Jess."
"I will back Jess against triple her fighting weight in Foreign Office lackeys. And Josiah's been diddling the diplomatic service for years. I suggest we listen intelligently to what he has to say to Jess." Adrian set his hand on the small, square panel in the wall behind him.
This wasn't what he'd come for. "I don't –"
"... You don't listen at keyholes. Have I ever told you how much I admire gentlemanly scruples? You read the transcripts. You pass a quiet hour pawing through her bedroom. But you won't eavesdrop. These distinctions escape me. Douse the lights, Trev."
Without a word, the boy closed the door of the lantern and threw them into total dark.
"Sebastian, they know I'm watching. They expect it. Think of it as a sort of game." The sound of tapping fell into the darkness. That would be Adrian's fingers, restless on the table or the edge of the chair. "I specialize in betrayals. I assure you, this hardly qualifies."
"You and Josiah are playing games. Jess isn't."
"Then it's time she did." Adrian was still a moment. "Josiah knows what I am. Eventually, Jess will. Do you know, there are times I do not find being Head of Section at all amusing. Shut up, now. When I open this they can hear us."
***************
If you want to go back to the post where I was talking about this, it's here.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Images of the Sinti, circa 1800
I'm working on a scene in MAGGIE with a brief appearance of French gypsies in it.
I don't know whether the scene will stay in the manuscript.
The Sinti / Manouche / Bohemians / Roma / gypsies
are HARD to research in this period. There's just about no solid history on them.
The good part is I get to make stuff up.
The bad part is I have to make stuff up.
This is late C19, so I can't use it for details of clothing. But it's interesting.
We get -- lookit -- see the dishevelled, curly hair of the girl children. This appears in many pictures.
Here's 1750 London. See the loose red cloak. I find this red cloak over and over again for the whole century. I'm begining to think this may have been a long-term commonality.
The fortune teller is casting coffee grounds. I mean, how weird is that?
This one is from 1764. The print is Amsterdam, but I don't know where the scene is. It shows both male and female gypsy dress. And we got a cloak and head scarf on the woman. Hat with brim on man. Larger picture here.
Here's one from 1855. German, I think. The clothing is really irrelevant, so far from my date, but we got the hair loose. This seems to be a commonality, that long dark loose hair. Close up here.
Here's one from before 1818, probably in the north of England. This is very close to my target date of 1794.
The clothing, aside from the hats and the cloaks, looks pretty much like ordinary English country clothing of the period.
One can get a closer view here.
I took a look at Pyne's Microcosm. (I'll see if I can scan in pictures some time.) That dates from 1806. Microcosm shows English gypsies in the clothing of English country laborers.
In this painting we got a gypsy woman in England in 1839. This is sentimentalized and therefore not reliable as to clothing, but ... see the red cloak and the stripes and the loose hair. These would seem to be the stereotype that says 'gypsy' to sentimental painters.
This one was painted in England fairly close to the period. Red cloak again.
And lookit, lookit, lookit! see the baby strapped to the back under the cloak.
Tents
Here's a bender tent in use. This is loooong after 1794, of course, but the photo shows the form of the tent in detail.
These bender tents are typically shown in C18 and early C19 paintings with the fire built next to the entrance. There's a couple of paintings on this posting that show the tent and the fire next to it with a tripod and a pot.
They could also put the fire inside, which seems counter-intuitive.
Here's a photo from 1910 or so with a 'double bender' tent on either side and the fire in between.
Here's a painting, England, 1797, so it is right on the dot in time. Red cloak. Turban sort of hat on the woman. A donkey.
Vardos
Before the 1830 wooden vardo, they had cloth- (canvas?) topped wagons.
Here's a sentimental, undated painting, place unknown, but it looks European. Might be 1790 to 1830, going by the gentleman's outfit. And we got ourselves a canvas-covered wagon with four wheels. A larger version of this here.
These canvas-covered wagons were not 'living spaces' with windows and doors, stoves and built-in beds, like the vardos. The 1794 wagons and carts would have been enclosed from the rain and would have been used, along with the bender tents, for sleeping.
This is Czeck and far far later than the period, but it's how the cloth-covered wagons would have been used. See a larger, clearer version here.
In this painting from Van Gogh, 1888, we have both the traditional wooden vardo and a canvas-covered wagon.
Here's an illustration from Guy Mannering, showing -- not very clearly -- a line of gypsies and their wagons. Publicaton date of the novel was 1815, but I don't know the date of the illustration.Again, this is sentimentalize, so I distrust the details.
Now, am I justified in giving my French gypsies covered carts in 1794?
I have English gypsies with cloth-topped carts in the period.
I don't know whether the scene will stay in the manuscript.
The Sinti / Manouche / Bohemians / Roma / gypsies
are HARD to research in this period. There's just about no solid history on them.
The good part is I get to make stuff up.
The bad part is I have to make stuff up.
Here's some images.
I don't have a date on this one. The clothing is interesting. Striped skirt, unbound hair, long scarf over head and wrapped around, some sort of quilted shawl over shoulders and pinned in the front. There's something with sleeves under the shawl.
We get -- lookit -- see the dishevelled, curly hair of the girl children. This appears in many pictures.
Here's 1750 London. See the loose red cloak. I find this red cloak over and over again for the whole century. I'm begining to think this may have been a long-term commonality.
Close up view of the picture is here.
And we got some cloaks, including two red ones, and the wide-brimmed, flat-crowned hats that we keep seeing. And we got dogs and a donkey.
The clothing, aside from the hats and the cloaks, looks pretty much like ordinary English country clothing of the period.
One can get a closer view here.
I took a look at Pyne's Microcosm. (I'll see if I can scan in pictures some time.) That dates from 1806. Microcosm shows English gypsies in the clothing of English country laborers.
For upclose here.
This one I can't copy to the blog, but you can track it down. We got with the donkey and the baskets on the donkey and, yes, a red cloak.
Nice set of period donkey baskets on this one.
And this cloak seems to have fringes on it.
Takes all kinds.
Moving along ...
And lookit, lookit, lookit! see the baby strapped to the back under the cloak.
Oh my, yes. Good.
(They do this all over Africa today. It's how I used to carry the kid around when I was in Africa. Now I know the Rom did it. Yes! Lovely detail.)
Closeup view here.
Tents
The 1794 gypsies would have used 'bender tents'. here.
These bender tents are typically shown in C18 and early C19 paintings with the fire built next to the entrance. There's a couple of paintings on this posting that show the tent and the fire next to it with a tripod and a pot.
They could also put the fire inside, which seems counter-intuitive.
(I had a period picture with a flap on top of the tent so the smoke could escape. My blog seems to have lost the image for me. I'll try to find it again.)
Here's a photo from 1910 or so with a 'double bender' tent on either side and the fire in between. View of a two-wheeled cart as well.
Original here.
Vardos
The traditional painted-wood, curved-top, live-in gypsy wagon described so well by Dickens in 1840 evolved roughly between 1810 and 1830.
(It's fairly easy to find exterior shots of late C19 vardos, but I haven't seen any C19 interior photos. It's after my period a good bit so I haven't pursued. One could start here, if fascinated.)
Before the 1830 wooden vardo, they had cloth- (canvas?) topped wagons.
These canvas-covered wagons were in use right up to C20. Canvas-tops and wood vardos were used by the same groups.
Here's a sentimental, undated painting, place unknown, but it looks European. Might be 1790 to 1830, going by the gentleman's outfit. And we got ourselves a canvas-covered wagon with four wheels. A larger version of this here.These canvas-covered wagons were not 'living spaces' with windows and doors, stoves and built-in beds, like the vardos. The 1794 wagons and carts would have been enclosed from the rain and would have been used, along with the bender tents, for sleeping.
And another mid C19 painting that shows a canvas covered wagon. Larger version here.
And here's a modern version of the canvas-covered wagon.
What's interesting about this photo ... the cart is two-wheeled. It's operating in a context of good roads. This implies that a four-wheeled cart is neither necessary nor universally desirable.
Interesting.
Now, am I justified in giving my French gypsies covered carts in 1794?
I have English gypsies with cloth-topped carts in the period.
So some gypsies had these carts.
And I have paintings of C18 French farmers with just exactly this type of two-wheeled covered cart.
And I have paintings of C18 French farmers with just exactly this type of two-wheeled covered cart.
So the technology was there.
But there's a plethora of pictorial gypsies without any carts at all.
Now, these are the Romantic paintings of 'Gypsies in a Woods' or 'Giving Alms to the Gypsies' and they tend to have a picturesque donkey curled to the side and no clutter anywhere and I just don't trust them on the workaday details at all.
(Pyne also doesn't show carts, but I think that's because he's concentrating on human figures at work.)
In the end, I have to make some guesses.
I'm also going to assume prosperous groups or large groups would have a cart or two. Small, poor families might not have carts.
I'm going to go with the assumption that French Rom had pretty much the same technology as English Rom and German Rom, etc.
(Records from the period show that about one-third of Gypsy men
condemned to the French galleys in C18 had been born outside France. So there was obviously much to-ing and forthing across borders.)
But there's a plethora of pictorial gypsies without any carts at all.
Now, these are the Romantic paintings of 'Gypsies in a Woods' or 'Giving Alms to the Gypsies' and they tend to have a picturesque donkey curled to the side and no clutter anywhere and I just don't trust them on the workaday details at all.
(Pyne also doesn't show carts, but I think that's because he's concentrating on human figures at work.)
In the end, I have to make some guesses.
I'm also going to assume prosperous groups or large groups would have a cart or two. Small, poor families might not have carts.
I'm going to go with the assumption that French Rom had pretty much the same technology as English Rom and German Rom, etc.
(Records from the period show that about one-third of Gypsy men
condemned to the French galleys in C18 had been born outside France. So there was obviously much to-ing and forthing across borders.)
So I'm going to give my people carts.
Yeah!
Yeah!
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Technical Topics -- 'First Meeting' scenes
For a while now, I've been pondering on the 'first meeting' scene of MAGGIE in a futile, disorganized, uncomfortable way.
Romance genre contains the story of a love relationship at its heart. The H&H tend to meet early so this central story gets underway.
One doesn't vamp indefinitely beforehand.
When I have nothing better to agonize over, lately, I've been looking and relooking at the first 5000 words of MAGGIE and asking myself when and where and how I should position this 'first meeting' scene.
At the opening of the ms?
A couple thousand words in?
And how do I coordinate this 'meeting' scene with the beginnings of the other six or seven stories I'm telling in the ms?
So last night I was mulling over 'first meeting scenes I have known' and naturally started thinking about Lucia St. Claire Robson's classic, The Tokaido Road.
Tokaido is not genre Romance, of course, since the stage ends up strewn with corpses at the end of Act V, a la Hamlet, and heaps of still-twitching corpses piled from horizon to horizon is a clue you're not in a Romance.
Tokaido is interesting to the great world of Romance, however, because it's the story of a love relationship where the H&H don't actually meet for most of the book. They exchange letters.
Tokaido differs from, for instance, Kinsale's My Sweet Folly, because in Folly the letters, though vital, are presented more or less as backstory and the 'first meeting' is an early and intrinsic part of the on-stage action.
So, anyway, I was uselessly pondering on all this last night.
My mind goes wandering off this way instead of doing serious work and I hold onto the pommel and kick my heels into its flanks,
(note to self -- 'Are those flanks that get kicked or is it some other part of the horse?')
and hope I'll wind up on the trail again, eventually.
Then a movie came on TV -- the Lake House -- where the structure of the on-going action is the H&H exchanging letters.
Hmmm ... says I. Synchronicity.
Now it happened that I picked up Hot, by Julia Harper, out of the TBR pile because I don't generally give movies my whole attention and Hot was on top of Julia Ross, Nights of Sin, rather than under it, so Hot it was.
(Hot is funny and well-done. It's on some 'Best of 2008' lists and deserves to be.)
Now I'm a third of the way through Hot, and the 'first meeting' has still not come down.
The H&H are exchanging cell phone calls, cell phones being the new letters, which will deprive future generations of untold literary correspondence, won't it?
Anyhow, synchronicity squared.
So now I'm wondering if I might use this idea of webbing together 'relationship at a distance' later in the story when Maggie and Doyle are in Paris.
But maybe not. Probably I'll file this under 'cool stuff I can't use', which is a whole drawer in my mental filing cabinet.
Romance genre contains the story of a love relationship at its heart. The H&H tend to meet early so this central story gets underway.
One doesn't vamp indefinitely beforehand.
When I have nothing better to agonize over, lately, I've been looking and relooking at the first 5000 words of MAGGIE and asking myself when and where and how I should position this 'first meeting' scene.
At the opening of the ms?
A couple thousand words in?
And how do I coordinate this 'meeting' scene with the beginnings of the other six or seven stories I'm telling in the ms?
So last night I was mulling over 'first meeting scenes I have known' and naturally started thinking about Lucia St. Claire Robson's classic, The Tokaido Road.
Tokaido is not genre Romance, of course, since the stage ends up strewn with corpses at the end of Act V, a la Hamlet, and heaps of still-twitching corpses piled from horizon to horizon is a clue you're not in a Romance.
Tokaido is interesting to the great world of Romance, however, because it's the story of a love relationship where the H&H don't actually meet for most of the book. They exchange letters.
Tokaido differs from, for instance, Kinsale's My Sweet Folly, because in Folly the letters, though vital, are presented more or less as backstory and the 'first meeting' is an early and intrinsic part of the on-stage action.
So, anyway, I was uselessly pondering on all this last night.
My mind goes wandering off this way instead of doing serious work and I hold onto the pommel and kick my heels into its flanks,
(note to self -- 'Are those flanks that get kicked or is it some other part of the horse?')
and hope I'll wind up on the trail again, eventually.
Then a movie came on TV -- the Lake House -- where the structure of the on-going action is the H&H exchanging letters.
Hmmm ... says I. Synchronicity.
Now it happened that I picked up Hot, by Julia Harper, out of the TBR pile because I don't generally give movies my whole attention and Hot was on top of Julia Ross, Nights of Sin, rather than under it, so Hot it was.
(Hot is funny and well-done. It's on some 'Best of 2008' lists and deserves to be.)
Now I'm a third of the way through Hot, and the 'first meeting' has still not come down.
The H&H are exchanging cell phone calls, cell phones being the new letters, which will deprive future generations of untold literary correspondence, won't it?
Anyhow, synchronicity squared.
So now I'm wondering if I might use this idea of webbing together 'relationship at a distance' later in the story when Maggie and Doyle are in Paris.
But maybe not. Probably I'll file this under 'cool stuff I can't use', which is a whole drawer in my mental filing cabinet.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
The sun, and its place in reality
Do you have a window that faces southwest?
You can keep track of the universe from your window.
Today is the winter solstice. This evening, at sunset, look out your window and see where the sun sets.
Is there a tree or a telephone pole or a house chimney or a notch in the hills or ... I dunnoh ... the flag pole of your favorite Italian restaurant ... just to the north side of the setting sun?
(That's the right side of the sun if you're in the northern hemisphere.)
There's nothing there?
Heck.
Well, go out and drive a big stake in the back yard or something.
Next June, on the 20th, come back and stand at the window at sunset. Mark the spot just to the south of the sun when it sets.
(That's left. You with me so far?)
You have created a net. Now you can play pingpong with the sun.
The sun will set between those two marks, every day, forever. The cradle of its setting travels slowly north. Then slowly south. Then slowly north ...
Your pre-societal ancestors saw the sun doing this and it filled them with dread and wonder. They knew then that the universe was not chaos, but a realm of law and rules, because -- look -- there was the very sun itself, obeying them.
When the sun got to the cold north end of its yearly bounce, everybody would
light bonfires,
(Yeah!!! Longer days coming!!! Warmth!!! Tender young lambs!!)
and get drunk
(Ale!!! Mead!! Wine!!)
and party
(Buxom wenches!! Studly dudes!)
We have responsibilities. Life is uncertain. We have to check the universe every once in a while to make sure it's running right.
If we stop paying attention, it might stop.
Sun ping pong.
You have to play to win.
You can keep track of the universe from your window.
Today is the winter solstice. This evening, at sunset, look out your window and see where the sun sets.
Is there a tree or a telephone pole or a house chimney or a notch in the hills or ... I dunnoh ... the flag pole of your favorite Italian restaurant ... just to the north side of the setting sun?
(That's the right side of the sun if you're in the northern hemisphere.)
There's nothing there?
Heck.
Well, go out and drive a big stake in the back yard or something.
Next June, on the 20th, come back and stand at the window at sunset. Mark the spot just to the south of the sun when it sets.
(That's left. You with me so far?)
You have created a net. Now you can play pingpong with the sun.
The sun will set between those two marks, every day, forever. The cradle of its setting travels slowly north. Then slowly south. Then slowly north ...
Your pre-societal ancestors saw the sun doing this and it filled them with dread and wonder. They knew then that the universe was not chaos, but a realm of law and rules, because -- look -- there was the very sun itself, obeying them.
When the sun got to the cold north end of its yearly bounce, everybody would
light bonfires,
(Yeah!!! Longer days coming!!! Warmth!!! Tender young lambs!!)
and get drunk
(Ale!!! Mead!! Wine!!)
and party
(Buxom wenches!! Studly dudes!)
We have responsibilities. Life is uncertain. We have to check the universe every once in a while to make sure it's running right.
If we stop paying attention, it might stop.
Sun ping pong.
You have to play to win.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Fresh Fiction and Romance Novel TV bragging
Me: But nobody will KNOW if I don't tell them.
Myself: It's bragging.
Me: If I ignore it, it's almost insulting. Like nobody told me. Like nobody noticed.
Myself: It's bragging. One does not flaunt oneself.
Me: It's an item of interest. It's informational.
Myself: It's bra--
I: Will you two stop it already and just SAY it.
Me (taking deep breath):
Fresh Fiction published
The Best Gift Books for 2008 according to Fresh Fiction Staff Members.
And the books are ...
Woman's Fiction -- Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA by Kris Radish
Paranormal Romance -- Nightkeepers by Jessica Andersen
Contemporary Romance -- Natural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Chick Lit -- This is How It Happened by Jo Barrett
Historical Romance -- Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne
(See. See. See. That's me!! Lookit!)
Erotic Romance -- Art of Desire by Cherie Feather
Romantic Suspense -- Take Me If You Can by Karen Kendall
Myself: You had to go and do it, didn't you?
Me: It's my blog. I get to put stuff like that on my own blog. I'm just saying it.
Myself: You are so bragging.
Me: I put in all seven names. All Seven. That makes it informational. And I'm in the middle so it's modest.
Myself: You put yourself in bold type. Why not just hire a flossing billboard?
I: Will you two just shut up? Jeesh. I can't take you anywhere.
Edited to reiterate:
I have been deeply honored by Michelle Buonfiglio at mylifetime here. She listed Spymaster's Lady as best book of the year.
I truly do not know what to say.
So I perform a modest and restrained ...
*Snoopy Dance*
Edited again to add:
The Wonderful people at Romance Novel TV here have nominated Spymaster's Lady among the Best of 2008. They've said such cool things.
And edited yet again:
RNTV didn't pick me for any titles. *pooh*
But I'm still pleased to have been nominated.
I got a nod from Romantic Times too.
*Yeah*
Myself: It's bragging.
Me: If I ignore it, it's almost insulting. Like nobody told me. Like nobody noticed.
Myself: It's bragging. One does not flaunt oneself.
Me: It's an item of interest. It's informational.
Myself: It's bra--
I: Will you two stop it already and just SAY it.
Me (taking deep breath):
Fresh Fiction published
The Best Gift Books for 2008 according to Fresh Fiction Staff Members.
And the books are ...
Woman's Fiction -- Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA by Kris Radish
Paranormal Romance -- Nightkeepers by Jessica Andersen
Contemporary Romance -- Natural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Chick Lit -- This is How It Happened by Jo Barrett
Historical Romance -- Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne
(See. See. See. That's me!! Lookit!)
Erotic Romance -- Art of Desire by Cherie Feather
Romantic Suspense -- Take Me If You Can by Karen Kendall
Myself: You had to go and do it, didn't you?
Me: It's my blog. I get to put stuff like that on my own blog. I'm just saying it.
Myself: You are so bragging.
Me: I put in all seven names. All Seven. That makes it informational. And I'm in the middle so it's modest.
Myself: You put yourself in bold type. Why not just hire a flossing billboard?
I: Will you two just shut up? Jeesh. I can't take you anywhere.
Edited to reiterate:
I have been deeply honored by Michelle Buonfiglio at mylifetime here. She listed Spymaster's Lady as best book of the year.
I truly do not know what to say.
So I perform a modest and restrained ...
*Snoopy Dance*
Edited again to add:
The Wonderful people at Romance Novel TV here have nominated Spymaster's Lady among the Best of 2008. They've said such cool things.
And edited yet again:
RNTV didn't pick me for any titles. *pooh*
But I'm still pleased to have been nominated.
I got a nod from Romantic Times too.
*Yeah*
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Kindly praise
I have been deeply honored by Michelle Buonfiglio at mylifetime here.
Oh my. What does one say? What does one say?
Oh my. What does one say? What does one say?
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Technical Topics -- Talking Heads II
In My Lord and Spymaster, I had a dozen nuggets of backstory to pass along to the reader. So I wrote a Talking Heads scene. Adrian and Sebastian search Jess' bedroom.
How do you make a Talking Heads scene slightly less horrible than it might otherwise be?
-- Best choice is you turn the action of the scene into plot action. (i.e. You make it 'not' a Talking Heads scene. )
So, instead of folks sitting around the kitchen table, talking,
which does not change the outcome of the story and is not story action or even plot action,
you change it into folks sitting around the kitchen table building a bomb or performing an emergency lobotomy or cutting letters out of the newspaper for the ransom note
all of which are at least plot action.
-- Failing important plot action, you do the next best thing.
You liven things up with 'stage business'.
Stage business doesn't advance the plot, but it's interesting. Folks bend spoons with their psyches or learn to play the fiddle or get hiccups.
What else do we do to take the edge off a Talking Heads scene?
-- You layer on sensation, of course, as you would in any scene. Give visuals. Blow whistles. Waft forth the smell of brownies in the oven.
-- You make sure there's real info to share. That is, they don't already both know what's being said. ("As you know, Bob ...")
-- Your characters interact with each other. You enrich, expose and develop the characters. You might even sneak some story in this way.
-- And, most especially, your characters react to the information that's being conveyed. They wouldn't be talking about it if it weren't important to them.
OK. Coming to one of my specific instances of Talking Heads.
In the search-Jess's-bedroom scene I want to convey the backstory factoid that Jess had an old boyfriend.
Sebastian and Adrian do not sit at a table and swap info.
You got yer stage business
and yer visuals
and yer interaction between Sebastian and Adrian
and you got yer character reaction to what's being said.
Here's the scenelette:
Adrian tapped the letters together and looped the blue ribbon around them and made a jaunty bow. "Gods. I was never that young. I'm glad Jess was, for a while."
"It wasn't tied like that."
"I'm showing her somebody's been in here." He set the letters carefully back in the box and closed the lid. "Not a sparkling correspondent, young Ned, but I don't suppose she noticed."
That was the name written in the front of the Odyssey. "Who's Ned?"
Adrian was up, wandering the room, leaning to peer in at the fireplace. He waited just long enough to be annoying. "The Honorable Edward Harrington. She was fifteen. He was bright, likable, ambitious and quite sickeningly in love with her."
"A paragon."
"It has given me considerable satisfaction, over the years, to think of Jess, out in the straw in a horse barn, bestowing her virginity on that boy." He ran his thumb along the carving of the fireplace. The mantel was black marble and the design was scrolled leaves. "He had the face of a young Apollo."
Jess's lover. The one who'd put knowledge in her eyes. "What happened?"
Adrian shifted the firescreen aside. "Genuinely bad luck. Josiah shipped him out as supercargo, to see what he was made of. Edward Harrington died heroically off the Barbary Coast, saving the lives of two of his shipmates. He was seventeen." Adrian rolled up his shirtsleeves and knelt on the bricks of the hearth. "Jess spent the next year constructing Europe's best accounting system. I don't think she slept at all for a couple months."
"I see." He wasn't sure what he saw, except that he was jealous of a boy, half his age and dead.
"He was a better man than either of us." Adrian twitched a knife from its sheath on his left forearm. "And look here. Jess has been sloppy."************
What do I do to make the Talking Heads marginally palatable?
*****************
Adrian tapped the letters together and looped the blue ribbon around them and made a jaunty bow. That's stage business and visuals. "Gods. I was never that young. I'm glad Jess was, for a while."
"It wasn't tied like that."
There's human interaction. Sebastian is annoyed at Adrian. That's what interests the reader right now, not so much what was in the letters ... though that's supposed to be intriguing too.
"I'm showing her somebody's been in here."
Which is Adrian's reaction right back.
The Talking Heads don't just talk. They snipe.
Information comes to the reader under cover of these two guys being annoyed at each other. The reader doesn't have to care about the info. She can care about the two characters on stage.
He set the letters carefully back in the box and closed the lid. Stage action. "Not a sparkling correspondent, young Ned, but I don't suppose she noticed."
See the character interaction?
Adrian lures Sebastian to ask questions. Adrian , for reasons of his own, obviously wants to convey information.
The way the info is released becomes important. The characters have a reason to talk about the info. They have an attitude toward the info.
One of the dangers with Talking Heads is we can set them to chattering about stuff they don't really need to discuss.
So in a Talking Heads scene you always ask yourself -- why this info? Why between these two people? Why now?
... Here, it's because Adrian has something he wants to say.
That was the name written in the front of the Odyssey. "Who's Ned?"
Adrian was up, wandering the room, leaning to peer in at the fireplace. He waited just long enough to be annoying.
Adrian doesn't just lay the information out for Sebastian like he was dealing cards. There's an ebb and flow to it. Adrian teases Sebastian with what he knows. Sebastian pulls info out of Adrian.
"The Honorable Edward Harrington. Ned. She was fifteen. He was bright, likable, ambitious and quite sickeningly in love with her."
"A paragon."
"It has given me considerable satisfaction, over the years, to think of Jess, out in the straw in a horse barn, bestowing her virginity on that boy."
This is Adrian's emotional truth. The factoids are just slathered all over with meaning.
The way Adrian says this shows Adrian's awareness of who he's speaking to. Adrian wouldn't say this, this way, to anyone else.
Info filters to us through its source. If story facts are not modified in the guts of the man who holds them, we don't have real characters. Likewise, info is shaped towards its recipient.
We don't just 'tell a fact'. We tell the fact we see and understand. We tell it to our audience.
Our characters have to do this too.
OK. OK. This is true in any dialog.But it's especially important to keep the basic dialog rules in mind when we do Talking Heads. T.H. tempt us to forget everything we've ever learned about dialog.
He ran his thumb along the carving of the fireplace. The mantel was black marble and the design was scrolled leaves. Visuals. Stage business, too, I guess. "He had the face of a young Apollo."
Adrian's emotional reaction to the factoids.
We transfer the emotional punch of these old factoids into the present. The T.H. do not merely tell the old story; they experience that story now.
This is not an exchange of info. It's a replaying of old events and old truths with the character's current reactions.
Current reactions hold the reader's interest. Sometimes, they're story.
Jess's lover. The one who'd put knowledge in her eyes. That's the internal from Sebastian. "What happened?"
Adrian shifted the firescreen aside. "Genuinely bad luck. Josiah shipped him out as supercargo, to see what he was made of. Edward Harrington died heroically off the Barbary Coast, saving the lives of two of his shipmates. He was seventeen." Adrian rolled up his shirtsleeves and knelt on the bricks of the hearth. "Jess spent the next year constructing Europe's best accounting system. I don't think she slept at all for a couple months."
That stuff above ... here's a minor technical.I'm doing the big long run of straight backstory here. I get it out of the way, all in one lump. What I've done ... I've laid big dollops of emotion before and after, and I'm hoping like mad that the reader doesn't get bored while I real quick-like slip all these little facts past her.
"I see." He wasn't sure what he saw, except that he was jealous of a boy, half his age and dead.
And we got us some internals.
Internals go with Talking Heads like Burns with Allen.
Sebastian thinks about what he's just been told. He reacts. He feels.
This is the necessary ingredient. This is what mitigates Talking Heads and all this factoid dropping. The human reaction pulls the reader through the scene.
"He was a better man than either of us." Adrian twitched a knife from its sheath on his left forearm. "And look here. Jess has been sloppy."
At this point, Adrian grabs us and jumps onto the next bit of stage business. We leap from past to present, from interior to exterior.
We go on to do an interval of solid, visual stage business. That's our respite before the final set of factoids lands like wet dough onto the floury board of the scene.
How do you make a Talking Heads scene slightly less horrible than it might otherwise be?
-- Best choice is you turn the action of the scene into plot action. (i.e. You make it 'not' a Talking Heads scene. )
So, instead of folks sitting around the kitchen table, talking,
which does not change the outcome of the story and is not story action or even plot action,
you change it into folks sitting around the kitchen table building a bomb or performing an emergency lobotomy or cutting letters out of the newspaper for the ransom note
all of which are at least plot action.
-- Failing important plot action, you do the next best thing.
You liven things up with 'stage business'.
Stage business doesn't advance the plot, but it's interesting. Folks bend spoons with their psyches or learn to play the fiddle or get hiccups.
What else do we do to take the edge off a Talking Heads scene?
-- You layer on sensation, of course, as you would in any scene. Give visuals. Blow whistles. Waft forth the smell of brownies in the oven.
-- You make sure there's real info to share. That is, they don't already both know what's being said. ("As you know, Bob ...")
-- Your characters interact with each other. You enrich, expose and develop the characters. You might even sneak some story in this way.
-- And, most especially, your characters react to the information that's being conveyed. They wouldn't be talking about it if it weren't important to them.
OK. Coming to one of my specific instances of Talking Heads.
In the search-Jess's-bedroom scene I want to convey the backstory factoid that Jess had an old boyfriend.
Sebastian and Adrian do not sit at a table and swap info.
You got yer stage business
and yer visuals
and yer interaction between Sebastian and Adrian
and you got yer character reaction to what's being said.
Here's the scenelette:
Adrian tapped the letters together and looped the blue ribbon around them and made a jaunty bow. "Gods. I was never that young. I'm glad Jess was, for a while."
"It wasn't tied like that."
"I'm showing her somebody's been in here." He set the letters carefully back in the box and closed the lid. "Not a sparkling correspondent, young Ned, but I don't suppose she noticed."
That was the name written in the front of the Odyssey. "Who's Ned?"
Adrian was up, wandering the room, leaning to peer in at the fireplace. He waited just long enough to be annoying. "The Honorable Edward Harrington. She was fifteen. He was bright, likable, ambitious and quite sickeningly in love with her."
"A paragon."
"It has given me considerable satisfaction, over the years, to think of Jess, out in the straw in a horse barn, bestowing her virginity on that boy." He ran his thumb along the carving of the fireplace. The mantel was black marble and the design was scrolled leaves. "He had the face of a young Apollo."
Jess's lover. The one who'd put knowledge in her eyes. "What happened?"
Adrian shifted the firescreen aside. "Genuinely bad luck. Josiah shipped him out as supercargo, to see what he was made of. Edward Harrington died heroically off the Barbary Coast, saving the lives of two of his shipmates. He was seventeen." Adrian rolled up his shirtsleeves and knelt on the bricks of the hearth. "Jess spent the next year constructing Europe's best accounting system. I don't think she slept at all for a couple months."
"I see." He wasn't sure what he saw, except that he was jealous of a boy, half his age and dead.
"He was a better man than either of us." Adrian twitched a knife from its sheath on his left forearm. "And look here. Jess has been sloppy."************
What do I do to make the Talking Heads marginally palatable?
*****************
Adrian tapped the letters together and looped the blue ribbon around them and made a jaunty bow. That's stage business and visuals. "Gods. I was never that young. I'm glad Jess was, for a while."
"It wasn't tied like that."
There's human interaction. Sebastian is annoyed at Adrian. That's what interests the reader right now, not so much what was in the letters ... though that's supposed to be intriguing too.
"I'm showing her somebody's been in here."
Which is Adrian's reaction right back.
The Talking Heads don't just talk. They snipe.
Information comes to the reader under cover of these two guys being annoyed at each other. The reader doesn't have to care about the info. She can care about the two characters on stage.
He set the letters carefully back in the box and closed the lid. Stage action. "Not a sparkling correspondent, young Ned, but I don't suppose she noticed."
See the character interaction?
Adrian lures Sebastian to ask questions. Adrian , for reasons of his own, obviously wants to convey information.
The way the info is released becomes important. The characters have a reason to talk about the info. They have an attitude toward the info.
One of the dangers with Talking Heads is we can set them to chattering about stuff they don't really need to discuss.
So in a Talking Heads scene you always ask yourself -- why this info? Why between these two people? Why now?
... Here, it's because Adrian has something he wants to say.
That was the name written in the front of the Odyssey. "Who's Ned?"
Adrian was up, wandering the room, leaning to peer in at the fireplace. He waited just long enough to be annoying.
Adrian doesn't just lay the information out for Sebastian like he was dealing cards. There's an ebb and flow to it. Adrian teases Sebastian with what he knows. Sebastian pulls info out of Adrian.
"The Honorable Edward Harrington. Ned. She was fifteen. He was bright, likable, ambitious and quite sickeningly in love with her."
"A paragon."
"It has given me considerable satisfaction, over the years, to think of Jess, out in the straw in a horse barn, bestowing her virginity on that boy."
This is Adrian's emotional truth. The factoids are just slathered all over with meaning.
The way Adrian says this shows Adrian's awareness of who he's speaking to. Adrian wouldn't say this, this way, to anyone else.
Info filters to us through its source. If story facts are not modified in the guts of the man who holds them, we don't have real characters. Likewise, info is shaped towards its recipient.
We don't just 'tell a fact'. We tell the fact we see and understand. We tell it to our audience.
Our characters have to do this too.
OK. OK. This is true in any dialog.But it's especially important to keep the basic dialog rules in mind when we do Talking Heads. T.H. tempt us to forget everything we've ever learned about dialog.
He ran his thumb along the carving of the fireplace. The mantel was black marble and the design was scrolled leaves. Visuals. Stage business, too, I guess. "He had the face of a young Apollo."
Adrian's emotional reaction to the factoids.
We transfer the emotional punch of these old factoids into the present. The T.H. do not merely tell the old story; they experience that story now.
This is not an exchange of info. It's a replaying of old events and old truths with the character's current reactions.
Current reactions hold the reader's interest. Sometimes, they're story.
Jess's lover. The one who'd put knowledge in her eyes. That's the internal from Sebastian. "What happened?"
Adrian shifted the firescreen aside. "Genuinely bad luck. Josiah shipped him out as supercargo, to see what he was made of. Edward Harrington died heroically off the Barbary Coast, saving the lives of two of his shipmates. He was seventeen." Adrian rolled up his shirtsleeves and knelt on the bricks of the hearth. "Jess spent the next year constructing Europe's best accounting system. I don't think she slept at all for a couple months."
That stuff above ... here's a minor technical.I'm doing the big long run of straight backstory here. I get it out of the way, all in one lump. What I've done ... I've laid big dollops of emotion before and after, and I'm hoping like mad that the reader doesn't get bored while I real quick-like slip all these little facts past her.
"I see." He wasn't sure what he saw, except that he was jealous of a boy, half his age and dead.
And we got us some internals.
Internals go with Talking Heads like Burns with Allen.
Sebastian thinks about what he's just been told. He reacts. He feels.
This is the necessary ingredient. This is what mitigates Talking Heads and all this factoid dropping. The human reaction pulls the reader through the scene.
"He was a better man than either of us." Adrian twitched a knife from its sheath on his left forearm. "And look here. Jess has been sloppy."
At this point, Adrian grabs us and jumps onto the next bit of stage business. We leap from past to present, from interior to exterior.
We go on to do an interval of solid, visual stage business. That's our respite before the final set of factoids lands like wet dough onto the floury board of the scene.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Technical Topics -- Talking Heads I
When to use 'Talking Heads'?
I brought up a message and response down in the comments trail that deals with one specific use of Talking Heads.
I stopped by to comment on MLAS (aka Jessamyn). I just started reading it . . . and was wondering if you kept the scene about Sebastien rooting through Jess's bedroom (I recall it from a previous post . . . and although it's a little different, it's still there!)
Yah! Why did you think an editor would cut it?
A raft of Really Cool Scenes got cut out of the manuscript. I had to write other stuff to replace them.
The searching-Jess's-room scene managed to escape the slaughter.
This pleased me.
Putting the matter in a philosophical teacup --
All scenes have to justify their existence.
Scenes that do not contain the H&H interacting really have to justify their existence.
At heart, the structure of the search-Jess's-bedroom scene is Talking Heads Exchange Information. Sebastian and Adrian are -- I hope -- interesting Talking Heads, exchanging vital information and doing nifty stage business while they're at it.
But they're still Talking Heads.
This is a weak structure for a scene. An easy, self-indulgent structure.
You have to ration yourself to maybe one or two Talking Head scenes per manuscript.
This kinda scene is the first to get chopped if your pacing is slow or you need to lose words. Rightly so.
So ... why is this scene in the final book?
I think the search-bedroom scene survived the cuts because it was truly about character revelation. (i.e. it was not using 'character revelation' as an excuse for taking up space.)
The scene 'told' stuff about these three characters that would have been difficult to 'show' in any reasonable length of time . . . which is one of the justifications for Talking Heads.
The scene is short.
It found a spot where I could afford to slow the pacing.
And it made an efficient framework to reveal character.
I let Sebastian look at Jess's possessions and straightforwardly tell the reader what they 'said'.
You'll say this sort of scene isn't so much 'efficient' as 'bloody obvious' and 'heavy handed'.
Hmmm ... yes ....
I brought up a message and response down in the comments trail that deals with one specific use of Talking Heads.
I stopped by to comment on MLAS (aka Jessamyn). I just started reading it . . . and was wondering if you kept the scene about Sebastien rooting through Jess's bedroom (I recall it from a previous post . . . and although it's a little different, it's still there!)
Yah! Why did you think an editor would cut it?
A raft of Really Cool Scenes got cut out of the manuscript. I had to write other stuff to replace them.
The searching-Jess's-room scene managed to escape the slaughter.
This pleased me.
Putting the matter in a philosophical teacup --
All scenes have to justify their existence.
Scenes that do not contain the H&H interacting really have to justify their existence.
At heart, the structure of the search-Jess's-bedroom scene is Talking Heads Exchange Information. Sebastian and Adrian are -- I hope -- interesting Talking Heads, exchanging vital information and doing nifty stage business while they're at it.
But they're still Talking Heads.
This is a weak structure for a scene. An easy, self-indulgent structure.
You have to ration yourself to maybe one or two Talking Head scenes per manuscript.
This kinda scene is the first to get chopped if your pacing is slow or you need to lose words. Rightly so.
So ... why is this scene in the final book?
I think the search-bedroom scene survived the cuts because it was truly about character revelation. (i.e. it was not using 'character revelation' as an excuse for taking up space.)
The scene 'told' stuff about these three characters that would have been difficult to 'show' in any reasonable length of time . . . which is one of the justifications for Talking Heads.
The scene is short.
It found a spot where I could afford to slow the pacing.
And it made an efficient framework to reveal character.
I let Sebastian look at Jess's possessions and straightforwardly tell the reader what they 'said'.
You'll say this sort of scene isn't so much 'efficient' as 'bloody obvious' and 'heavy handed'.
Hmmm ... yes ....
Sunday, November 30, 2008
This is a survey
Does anyone see a light blue column covering half the message on the left hand side of the blog?
Does anyone not see one?
This is one of those weirdnesses.
My screen looks like this ....
Well .... not the moire patterns part. That seems to be part of taking photos of your computer screen.
UPDATE
Ah. This is my very OWN Internet Explorer problem.
How exciting.
Stupid computer.
Thank you all for helping me to track down the culprit.
Does anyone not see one?
This is one of those weirdnesses.
My screen looks like this ....
Well .... not the moire patterns part. That seems to be part of taking photos of your computer screen.
UPDATE
Ah. This is my very OWN Internet Explorer problem.
How exciting.
Stupid computer.
Thank you all for helping me to track down the culprit.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
My Lord and Spymaster in Russian
A fine bit of news. My Lord and Spymaster will be translated into Russian. The publication date is estimated at eighteen months from now.
I do not look a gift horse in the mouth. I am grateful to the Berkley subsidiary rights folks. Yeah, subsidiary rights!!
But why Russian?
I had never thought about this one way or the other, you understand, but is Russia full of Romance readers?
... oh
Since I've got the message open,
the status report on Maggie is:
18400 / 120000 words. 15% done on the second rough draft!
I think Maggie is going to end up at 120,000 words. I've figured out how to simplify a plot point or two late in the story. And I de-created a minor character.
Poof.
I stopped today halfway through Chapter Eight. Tomorrow I should finish refining that, and then Maggie and Doyle (and Hawker,) take to the road.
The rabbit scene still lingers within the manuscript, glaring defiance, daring me to extract it.
I have not.
This is weak of me.
I do not look a gift horse in the mouth. I am grateful to the Berkley subsidiary rights folks. Yeah, subsidiary rights!!
But why Russian?
I had never thought about this one way or the other, you understand, but is Russia full of Romance readers?
... oh
Since I've got the message open,
the status report on Maggie is:
18400 / 120000 words. 15% done on the second rough draft!
I think Maggie is going to end up at 120,000 words. I've figured out how to simplify a plot point or two late in the story. And I de-created a minor character.
Poof.
I stopped today halfway through Chapter Eight. Tomorrow I should finish refining that, and then Maggie and Doyle (and Hawker,) take to the road.
The rabbit scene still lingers within the manuscript, glaring defiance, daring me to extract it.
I have not.
This is weak of me.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Romance Divas
So there's this workshop, see. Romance Divas. Wednesday to Friday. Go to Romance Divas and enter the Forums.
Not so much to listen to me nattering on. But I'm in illustrious company.
Why do I suddenly have a blue line running through my blog?
What can I do to make it stop?
He who increaseth blog increaseth trouble.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
The Great Archive of The Spymaster Fictive Universe
I got an e-mail asking about the notes I keep on what's happening year by year in the fictive world.
These are the notes. I went back and pulled out stuff that would be spoilers. I think I got everything.
Anyhow, it's in the form of a bunch of pages, one by one. I couldn't find a better way to do this.
These are the notes. I went back and pulled out stuff that would be spoilers. I think I got everything.
Anyhow, it's in the form of a bunch of pages, one by one. I couldn't find a better way to do this.
Women's Costume 1794 France, hairstyles, purses and cloaks
More clothing during the French Revolution.
Again, I'm looking at middle- and lower- class clothing of 1794. I'm after woman-on-the-street wear, rather than high fashion.
This section contains hairstyles, purses, and cloaks, which is a strange combination, but sometimes I'm strange.
Outerwear -- the Cloak
We have a 1795 short black cloak being worn over a jupe and caraco.
And look at the stripes. Young, old, city, country, with and without dogs, the French were mad for stripes.
When in doubt, French printmakers threw in a dog. Or maybe every woman in Paris had a little dog tagging along after her. Contemporary images seems to say this.
Here is the closeup.
This old gal probably taught third grade and scared her class to death. She scares the bejesus out of me, anyway.
Here's a red hood from a few years before 1790. It's French. I suspect the print has faded from a brighter original shade.
They had deep-red, wool, hooded cloaks all over England, too, in the countryside.
These red cloaks were the ordinary outer wear of ordinary women, robust, traditional country wear. They seems to have lasted at least fifty years on either side of 1800.
Another red cloak from the period, here. This one is made in England.
Why red? I dunnoh.
A printed-cotton, hooded cape from our period. You can find it Here, if you scroll patiently down the page.
This has a contrasting print lining we don't see. It's c.1780-90 from vintagetextiles which lives here.
Hair Cuts
We got hair.
Really, really short hair, a la mode de Titus, here
This is listed as circa 1794. But is it the first half of 1794, or the last half, after the fall of Robespierre?
Is this a la victime . . . ?
When did that start.
I just don't know.
Or we got very slightly longer hair. This is neck-length frizzy hair under a cap from a Lebrun self-portrait of 1790.The frizzing is done on purpose, with curling irons.
Here's another example of the very short hair. Goes just to the nape of the neck. Careful frizzing that's made to seem 'natural'. This one's from 1797. Is hair this very very short the victime style?
Hard to say.
Anyway, find it at home here.
See the high waist on the dress. This is one of the signs that this is a leetle bit later than 1794. The waist has moved all the way up. In 1794 it was still about halfway between natural waist and under the boobs.
Both waist and neck are gathered with a simple band.
And here's the long hair version that's common throughout the period. This example is not as frizzy as some ... more elaborate curls. You can see the characteristic shape with the hair loose down the back.
Oh. As long as we're here ...
This has one of those fichus that cross in the front and go all the way around the back to tie.
You can see almost this exact hairstyle here, dated to 1793, and here, dated to 1791- 1792. Click for closeup of those.
This one to the left shows the central part nicely. It dates from 1796
The long hair worn loose under a cap goes right down the social scale -- minus the elaborate frizzing. That lack of time-consuming frizz looks like a social indicator.
Here's tricoteuses with that length.
This is an out-of-era picture, and therefore more untrustworthy than usual. I think the total lack of frizzing of the hair is correct for this just-poor-as-all-get-out-class, but wouldn't trust the clothing details.
Here, in 1790, we see the longish and curled hair. On one woman, there in the back, it's ever so carefully frizzed and curled. On the other, seated figure the cut is similar, but more natural, less carefully controlled.
Pocketbooks and Purses
There are extant examples of fancy embroidered clutch pocketbooks. I guess one just walked around ... clutching them. I'd like to find a picture of one of these being carried. Haven't, so far. They may have been primarily to hold calling cards.
here's one. French 1780s. Click for closeup.
This is from Meg Andrews Antique Costumes and Textiles, at the website here.
Here we have another purse, 1780–1790 French silk; Length: 4 1/2 in. (11.4 cm)
How does this work? What are the ribbons for?
It's from the Met, Closeup here.
This one is c. 1790, French silk. Length: 7 5/16 in. (18.6 cm).
here's the close take on this purse. Also from the Met.
Now think about the size of this pack. It's seven inches. That's a little bitty thing. Maybe this was a card case . . .?
All Met refs are through http: //www.metmuseum. org
Again, I'm looking at middle- and lower- class clothing of 1794. I'm after woman-on-the-street wear, rather than high fashion.
This section contains hairstyles, purses, and cloaks, which is a strange combination, but sometimes I'm strange.
Outerwear -- the CloakWe have a 1795 short black cloak being worn over a jupe and caraco.
And look at the stripes. Young, old, city, country, with and without dogs, the French were mad for stripes.
When in doubt, French printmakers threw in a dog. Or maybe every woman in Paris had a little dog tagging along after her. Contemporary images seems to say this.
Here is the closeup.
This old gal probably taught third grade and scared her class to death. She scares the bejesus out of me, anyway.
Here's a red hood from a few years before 1790. It's French. I suspect the print has faded from a brighter original shade.
They had deep-red, wool, hooded cloaks all over England, too, in the countryside.
These red cloaks were the ordinary outer wear of ordinary women, robust, traditional country wear. They seems to have lasted at least fifty years on either side of 1800.
Another red cloak from the period, here. This one is made in England.
Why red? I dunnoh.
A printed-cotton, hooded cape from our period. You can find it Here, if you scroll patiently down the page.
This has a contrasting print lining we don't see. It's c.1780-90 from vintagetextiles which lives here.
Hair Cuts
We got hair.
Really, really short hair, a la mode de Titus, here
This is listed as circa 1794. But is it the first half of 1794, or the last half, after the fall of Robespierre?
Is this a la victime . . . ?
When did that start.
I just don't know.
Or we got very slightly longer hair. This is neck-length frizzy hair under a cap from a Lebrun self-portrait of 1790.
Here's another example of the very short hair. Goes just to the nape of the neck. Careful frizzing that's made to seem 'natural'. This one's from 1797. Is hair this very very short the victime style? Hard to say.
Anyway, find it at home here.
See the high waist on the dress. This is one of the signs that this is a leetle bit later than 1794. The waist has moved all the way up. In 1794 it was still about halfway between natural waist and under the boobs.
Both waist and neck are gathered with a simple band.
And here's the long hair version that's common throughout the period. This example is not as frizzy as some ... more elaborate curls. You can see the characteristic shape with the hair loose down the back.
Oh. As long as we're here ...
This has one of those fichus that cross in the front and go all the way around the back to tie.
You can see almost this exact hairstyle here, dated to 1793, and here, dated to 1791- 1792. Click for closeup of those.This one to the left shows the central part nicely. It dates from 1796
The long hair worn loose under a cap goes right down the social scale -- minus the elaborate frizzing. That lack of time-consuming frizz looks like a social indicator.
Here's tricoteuses with that length.
This is an out-of-era picture, and therefore more untrustworthy than usual. I think the total lack of frizzing of the hair is correct for this just-poor-as-all-get-out-class, but wouldn't trust the clothing details.
Pocketbooks and Purses
There are extant examples of fancy embroidered clutch pocketbooks. I guess one just walked around ... clutching them. I'd like to find a picture of one of these being carried. Haven't, so far. They may have been primarily to hold calling cards.
here's one. French 1780s. Click for closeup.
This is from Meg Andrews Antique Costumes and Textiles, at the website here.
Here we have another purse, 1780–1790 French silk; Length: 4 1/2 in. (11.4 cm)
How does this work? What are the ribbons for?
It's from the Met, Closeup here.
This one is c. 1790, French silk. Length: 7 5/16 in. (18.6 cm).
here's the close take on this purse. Also from the Met.
Now think about the size of this pack. It's seven inches. That's a little bitty thing. Maybe this was a card case . . .?
All Met refs are through http: //www.metmuseum. org
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Tech Tops -- Best of the Worst #4
And a few more Best of the Worst in writing ...
POV -- Self-reference in POV
You want to flip the reader right out of deep POV? Let the POV character notice his own eyes brightening or himself smirking in triumph or that oddly pensive look crossing his face.
Unless the POV character deliberately smiles -- to make a point, to reassure someone, to communicate -- he doesn't notice that he's using his face muscles to smile. Thus it doesn't show up in his consciousness.
The POV character doesn't have to wriggle his face to convey emotion. He can just think about what he feels.
Not -- He wrinkled his forehead
But -- He felt mellow and hollow, but crisp
In POV, you can describe your guy's emotion down to the fifth digit to the right of the point.
There is no mystery.
Save the facial expressions for folks you're not sitting inside.
Test a phrase in First Person before you put it in your POV character's line of thought.
I pursed my lips and blew out.
I wrinkled my forehead.
I raised the corner of my mouth.
I arched a satiric eyebrow.
I wrinkled my forehead inquisitively.
If it doesn't sound natural in First Person, it doesn't belong in the POV character's thoughts.
Description -- Bespoke Metaphors
Metaphors are not one-size-fits-all.
It doesn't matter how cool the metaphor is, it has to fit the character who uses it.
Each POV character will have, as part of his 'voice', his own particular style of metaphor and simile.
A character will also have a readiness or a reluctance to use figurative language.
Caliban speaks in poetry.
Go figure.
So let's say we have a choleric little colonel, strutting about, and I want my characters to describe him.
In the POV of a fanciful character, the red-faced colonel is 'angry as a bantam rooster'.
A vulgar, downright character sees him, 'about to bust a gut'.
A fastidious, intellectual character would think about a 'red-faced, ranting Punch'.
A stolid, unimaginative character would mentally note the colonel simply as 'furious' or 'about to go off in an apoplexy'.
Figurative language arises not just from the object described, but from the nature of the POV character observing the object.
Description -- Cliche
Go ahead. Just use the cliche, already.
Not every paragraph needs a novel figure of speech. Not every metaphor has to knock the readers' socks off. Sometimes you want the readers' socks to stay exactly where they are.
Some times ... maybe most times ... trite is OK.
What it is ...
Trite, familiar metaphors pass under the reader's radar. Like the hint of cinnamon in the chocolate, the paprika in the dumpling, the onion in the soup, they enriches the taste without making everybody stop and think, 'Hey! What the hell was that?"
Colorful metaphor -- that beautiful, fresh, unusual, original image -- can stick up like a sore thumb.
It can distract.
It can throw off the pacing, as the reader takes an extra beat to unravel it or simply to appreciate it.
If you don't want the reader stopping to look at the language, instead of what you're saying -- if you're trying to move things along in a lively way -- avoid those standout metaphors.
Save all that novelty for more contemplative, slower passages when you want the reader to pause and think about the guests star-scattered on the grass.
Cliché can also have the advantage of a succinct and emphatic clarity.
'Red flag to a bull' is a hackneyed phrase. But we know exactly what it means. In five words we get across a huge concept.
It is not always necessary to re-invent the wheel.
(Says I, using a cliché, because it is fast and exact and vivid.)
Do 'sore thumbs' actually stick out?
Description. Personalizing the object
Description, on its own, is not just of riveting interest, generally.
So attach your characters to objects and description.
Show, not merely the object, but how object and character are related. Continually put the character into the picture. Turn a general observation of some solid whatsit into an action, with the character doing something.
Not -- It was gray and gloomy up there, with an hour or two before night closed in.
But -- He shaded his eyes against the rain and inspected the gray and gloomy up there. He had an hour or two before night closed in.
Not -- The space under the oak tree gave some shelter from the rain and had a good, unobstructed view of their Frenchwoman.
But -- They made a silent agreement and crossed the courtyard in the rain, side by side, to stand under the oak tree. They had a good, unobstructed view of their Frenchwoman.
(Oh. This last example also happens to be a case of "showing with action instead of stating a reason, cause or emotion". I talk about that elsewhere. We drop the phrase, 'gave some shelter' because the actions now show the reader that the oak gives shelter. It would be repetitive to say it outright.)
Description of the tree holds us to a static and descriptive sorta feeling.
We 'personalize' the objects and the description. Now it's not an oak tree with a neutral description. It's an oak tree with our characters under it, sheltering. The oak tree has become part of the story. It's no longer just scenery.
Not -- There had to be some way to deal with the meerkats
But -- He'd find some way to deal with the meerkats.
Not -- The ruined side of his face was towards her.
But -- He held the ruined side of his face towards her.
Not -- The whole expedition was at risk because of that sharp-tongued scarecrow in there.
But -- He risked all of them if he got squeamish about that sharp-tongued scarecrow in there.
Personalizing objects this way is another of those twofers. We more fully describe the object and we define our character.
Travelling further into Obviousland, here.
I talk elsewhere about the verb 'to be'.
Some of the examples above are just prime examples of how the verb 'to be' can be weak.
Up there ... the verbs 'to find,' 'to risk,' and 'to hold' -- while not anything wildly special as verbs go -- are still infinitely stronger than 'to be'.
Varying sentence length
Short sentence after short sentence ... or phrases that are all the same length for half a page ... do the fingernail-on-a-blackboard bit on the poor reader.
Long sentences wind their convoluted, complicated, endless way to ... well ... the next long sentence. A slow slog for the poor reader.
Want to know if you're making one mistake or the other? Read it aloud.
Or you can spot the numbers.
Flip to a random, non-dialog, not-furious-action page of the WIP and use the wordcount feature. Consecutive sentences of 27, 26, 23, 30, 29, 21, 27, 19 will likely feel heavy as bad fruitcake. A run of 7, 10, 14, 3, 19, 5, 10, 8 will feel like bumper cars. Y'know. Abrupt.
More desirable is a lively balance of 19, 27, 3, 26, 15, 9, 12, 30.
You get a reward for varying your sentence length. When tucked in among their longer comrades, short sentences just leap out of ambush.
Whap.
POV -- Self-reference in POV
You want to flip the reader right out of deep POV? Let the POV character notice his own eyes brightening or himself smirking in triumph or that oddly pensive look crossing his face.
Unless the POV character deliberately smiles -- to make a point, to reassure someone, to communicate -- he doesn't notice that he's using his face muscles to smile. Thus it doesn't show up in his consciousness.
The POV character doesn't have to wriggle his face to convey emotion. He can just think about what he feels.
Not -- He wrinkled his forehead
But -- He felt mellow and hollow, but crisp
In POV, you can describe your guy's emotion down to the fifth digit to the right of the point.
There is no mystery.
Save the facial expressions for folks you're not sitting inside.
Test a phrase in First Person before you put it in your POV character's line of thought.
I pursed my lips and blew out.
I wrinkled my forehead.
I raised the corner of my mouth.
I arched a satiric eyebrow.
I wrinkled my forehead inquisitively.
If it doesn't sound natural in First Person, it doesn't belong in the POV character's thoughts.
Description -- Bespoke Metaphors
Metaphors are not one-size-fits-all.
It doesn't matter how cool the metaphor is, it has to fit the character who uses it.
Each POV character will have, as part of his 'voice', his own particular style of metaphor and simile.
A character will also have a readiness or a reluctance to use figurative language.
Caliban speaks in poetry.
Go figure.
So let's say we have a choleric little colonel, strutting about, and I want my characters to describe him.
In the POV of a fanciful character, the red-faced colonel is 'angry as a bantam rooster'.
A vulgar, downright character sees him, 'about to bust a gut'.
A fastidious, intellectual character would think about a 'red-faced, ranting Punch'.
A stolid, unimaginative character would mentally note the colonel simply as 'furious' or 'about to go off in an apoplexy'.
Figurative language arises not just from the object described, but from the nature of the POV character observing the object.
Description -- Cliche
Go ahead. Just use the cliche, already.
Not every paragraph needs a novel figure of speech. Not every metaphor has to knock the readers' socks off. Sometimes you want the readers' socks to stay exactly where they are.
Some times ... maybe most times ... trite is OK.
What it is ...
Trite, familiar metaphors pass under the reader's radar. Like the hint of cinnamon in the chocolate, the paprika in the dumpling, the onion in the soup, they enriches the taste without making everybody stop and think, 'Hey! What the hell was that?"
Colorful metaphor -- that beautiful, fresh, unusual, original image -- can stick up like a sore thumb.
It can distract.
It can throw off the pacing, as the reader takes an extra beat to unravel it or simply to appreciate it.
If you don't want the reader stopping to look at the language, instead of what you're saying -- if you're trying to move things along in a lively way -- avoid those standout metaphors.
Save all that novelty for more contemplative, slower passages when you want the reader to pause and think about the guests star-scattered on the grass.
Cliché can also have the advantage of a succinct and emphatic clarity.
'Red flag to a bull' is a hackneyed phrase. But we know exactly what it means. In five words we get across a huge concept.
It is not always necessary to re-invent the wheel.
(Says I, using a cliché, because it is fast and exact and vivid.)
Do 'sore thumbs' actually stick out?
Description. Personalizing the object
Description, on its own, is not just of riveting interest, generally.
So attach your characters to objects and description.
Show, not merely the object, but how object and character are related. Continually put the character into the picture. Turn a general observation of some solid whatsit into an action, with the character doing something.
Not -- It was gray and gloomy up there, with an hour or two before night closed in.
But -- He shaded his eyes against the rain and inspected the gray and gloomy up there. He had an hour or two before night closed in.
Not -- The space under the oak tree gave some shelter from the rain and had a good, unobstructed view of their Frenchwoman.
But -- They made a silent agreement and crossed the courtyard in the rain, side by side, to stand under the oak tree. They had a good, unobstructed view of their Frenchwoman.
(Oh. This last example also happens to be a case of "showing with action instead of stating a reason, cause or emotion". I talk about that elsewhere. We drop the phrase, 'gave some shelter' because the actions now show the reader that the oak gives shelter. It would be repetitive to say it outright.)
Description of the tree holds us to a static and descriptive sorta feeling.
We 'personalize' the objects and the description. Now it's not an oak tree with a neutral description. It's an oak tree with our characters under it, sheltering. The oak tree has become part of the story. It's no longer just scenery.
Not -- There had to be some way to deal with the meerkats
But -- He'd find some way to deal with the meerkats.
Not -- The ruined side of his face was towards her.
But -- He held the ruined side of his face towards her.
Not -- The whole expedition was at risk because of that sharp-tongued scarecrow in there.
But -- He risked all of them if he got squeamish about that sharp-tongued scarecrow in there.
Personalizing objects this way is another of those twofers. We more fully describe the object and we define our character.
Travelling further into Obviousland, here.
I talk elsewhere about the verb 'to be'.
Some of the examples above are just prime examples of how the verb 'to be' can be weak.
Up there ... the verbs 'to find,' 'to risk,' and 'to hold' -- while not anything wildly special as verbs go -- are still infinitely stronger than 'to be'.
Varying sentence length
Short sentence after short sentence ... or phrases that are all the same length for half a page ... do the fingernail-on-a-blackboard bit on the poor reader.
Long sentences wind their convoluted, complicated, endless way to ... well ... the next long sentence. A slow slog for the poor reader.
Want to know if you're making one mistake or the other? Read it aloud.
Or you can spot the numbers.
Flip to a random, non-dialog, not-furious-action page of the WIP and use the wordcount feature. Consecutive sentences of 27, 26, 23, 30, 29, 21, 27, 19 will likely feel heavy as bad fruitcake. A run of 7, 10, 14, 3, 19, 5, 10, 8 will feel like bumper cars. Y'know. Abrupt.
More desirable is a lively balance of 19, 27, 3, 26, 15, 9, 12, 30.
You get a reward for varying your sentence length. When tucked in among their longer comrades, short sentences just leap out of ambush.
Whap.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Warm-up exercises
OK. Maggie and Doyle are about to meet.
But I'm 6700 words (of Rough Draft Two) in.
:headbang:
:more headbang:
I have no icons.
You must imagine.
Anyhow . . . That's too many words of warm-up.
I know better than this.
If somebody came to me and said they'd spent six chapters messing around in one head and then the other head, just revealing volumes about the characters,
but still hadn't brought the H&H face to face,
I'd say to scrap it all and start with the moment of meeting.
But -- dang it -- the shape feels right, even if it's not proper Romance genre plotting shape.
This feels like good story.
I will have to be more disciplined.
So . . . I'll write forward till I get some perspective.
When I have another ten chapters of RoughDraft2 under my belt I'll be stronger and wiser and able to cut this 6700 words of warm-up perplucketimity.
6700 / 130000 words. 5% done!
I'm going to plog onward (plog = slog + plot).
You remember the story about the two frogs who fell in the butter churn?
One of them was realistic and wise and knew he was doomed.
He gave up and drowned.
The other one was a fool. He just kept paddling and paddling and eventually he churned up a big pat of butter and climbed on top and floated there, safe and happy, till the milkmaid came in the morning and opened the churn and screamed bloody murder and beat him to death with the butter paddle.
I take comfort in these wise old fables.
But I'm 6700 words (of Rough Draft Two) in.
:headbang:
:more headbang:
I have no icons.
You must imagine.
Anyhow . . . That's too many words of warm-up.
I know better than this.
If somebody came to me and said they'd spent six chapters messing around in one head and then the other head, just revealing volumes about the characters,
but still hadn't brought the H&H face to face,
I'd say to scrap it all and start with the moment of meeting.
But -- dang it -- the shape feels right, even if it's not proper Romance genre plotting shape.
This feels like good story.
I will have to be more disciplined.
So . . . I'll write forward till I get some perspective.
When I have another ten chapters of RoughDraft2 under my belt I'll be stronger and wiser and able to cut this 6700 words of warm-up perplucketimity.
I'm going to plog onward (plog = slog + plot).
You remember the story about the two frogs who fell in the butter churn?
One of them was realistic and wise and knew he was doomed.
He gave up and drowned.
The other one was a fool. He just kept paddling and paddling and eventually he churned up a big pat of butter and climbed on top and floated there, safe and happy, till the milkmaid came in the morning and opened the churn and screamed bloody murder and beat him to death with the butter paddle.
I take comfort in these wise old fables.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Progress ... sorta
The good news is, I've pulled out paragraphs and sentences and a lot of weed-words from the early scenes,
so the beginning is speeding up some.
Maybe I won't need to toss out the whole first five chapters,
which I seriously consider doing on even days.
Tomorrow is an even day, so I will consider it.
The further good news is I've done some just excellent clever plotting to fix the major pacing problem that was clunking up the last quarter of the story.
Yeah!!!
The bad news is
I keep tossing out words and tightening up the Second Rough Draft.
Instead of moving along and making progress
I write and write and the word count doesn't go anywhere.
I hope I chug along faster now that my Maggie and Doyle are about to meet.
I wish I could do all this faster.
5700 / 130000 words. Only 4% done, unfortunately
so the beginning is speeding up some.
Maybe I won't need to toss out the whole first five chapters,
which I seriously consider doing on even days.
Tomorrow is an even day, so I will consider it.
The further good news is I've done some just excellent clever plotting to fix the major pacing problem that was clunking up the last quarter of the story.
Yeah!!!
The bad news is
I keep tossing out words and tightening up the Second Rough Draft.
Instead of moving along and making progress
I write and write and the word count doesn't go anywhere.
I hope I chug along faster now that my Maggie and Doyle are about to meet.
I wish I could do all this faster.
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