I have been deeply honored by Michelle Buonfiglio at mylifetime here.
Oh my. What does one say? What does one say?
Thursday, December 11, 2008
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.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Buenas noticias
Cool.
That is, fresca.
Monday, October 06, 2008
another lolcat
I worked good today. I was productive and scholarly and a useful member of the writing community. I DESERVE a few minutes lolcatting.
Right.
Monday, September 22, 2008
On to the next draft
Sunday, September 21, 2008
On the other hand again ...
I spent three solid working days on the new opening.
I wrote a pretty good couple-thousand words.
But ... it isn't 'right'.
If somebody came to me and said,
"I have two openings. One drops us down in the middle of action. The other is folks thinking and talking and the action happened a week ago. Which should I use?"
I'd tell them to go for the action. Go for stuff happening. Danger and chaos and decisions belong on-stage, not mulled and mumbled over later.
But when I try to follow that advice,
it's just not working.
That will make me a little less ready to give advice, maybe.
So I'm going to go back to my original opening ... bunny scene and all.
Bunch of time and effort wasted. Much useless gnawing of fingernails.
I wish I didn't keep doing this to myself.
I wrote a pretty good couple-thousand words.
But ... it isn't 'right'.
If somebody came to me and said,
"I have two openings. One drops us down in the middle of action. The other is folks thinking and talking and the action happened a week ago. Which should I use?"
I'd tell them to go for the action. Go for stuff happening. Danger and chaos and decisions belong on-stage, not mulled and mumbled over later.
But when I try to follow that advice,
it's just not working.
That will make me a little less ready to give advice, maybe.
So I'm going to go back to my original opening ... bunny scene and all.
Bunch of time and effort wasted. Much useless gnawing of fingernails.
I wish I didn't keep doing this to myself.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
The old one-step-forward-two-steps-back
Sunday, I hit 76,000 words on the First Rough Draft.
Mostly, I have some bad writing to cover everything that's happening. There are a few important scenes in the last quarter of the manuscript that exist only as
"Maggie and Doyle stagger upstairs and make love'
or
'All the good guys sit at the kitchen table and plot'
or
'Everybody goes into one room. They duke it out and the bad guy loses.'
After agonizing back and forth, I've decided to change a perfectly good opening for what may be a better one. I've lifted out Chapters One to Five, 12K words, and saved them in my discard file.
Now I'll redo the beginning. We're still in Rough Draft One mode.
So ... I'm back to:
64000 / 80000 words. 80% done
Progress of a sort, I suppose.
Mostly, I have some bad writing to cover everything that's happening. There are a few important scenes in the last quarter of the manuscript that exist only as
"Maggie and Doyle stagger upstairs and make love'
or
'All the good guys sit at the kitchen table and plot'
or
'Everybody goes into one room. They duke it out and the bad guy loses.'
After agonizing back and forth, I've decided to change a perfectly good opening for what may be a better one. I've lifted out Chapters One to Five, 12K words, and saved them in my discard file.
Now I'll redo the beginning. We're still in Rough Draft One mode.
So ... I'm back to:
Progress of a sort, I suppose.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Me ...lolcatting
Ok. Ok. I know I have better things to do.
But I can't resist lolcatting a bit.
Edited to add: There's no picture on this post. There used to be. There was a day I came back and found all my pictures had disappeared. I found most of them. Not this.
But I can't resist lolcatting a bit.
Edited to add: There's no picture on this post. There used to be. There was a day I came back and found all my pictures had disappeared. I found most of them. Not this.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Writing along in Rough Draft One
My H&H feel mushy. Everybody else who walks on stage steals the story.
And I'm not happy with anybody's 'voice'.
Problems:
(minor) I'm still dithering about the action that kicks off the story.
(major) I don't have my teeth gripped into Maggie's motivations.
I didn't get much done yesterday. I stopped to chat with a friend.
Good prospects for work today though. They had Danish at the coffeeshop, (yeah!) and I think it may be going to rain.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Mulling the opening of Maggie
I'm zipping right along to the end of the First Rough Draft of MAGGIE.
Rough Draft One
64300 / 80000 words. 80% done!
You will note I'm much closer to finished with the First Rough Draft than I was a few days ago.
This is because the First Rough Draft is going to be shorter.
Not 130,000 words.
More along the lines of 80K.
Progress is like that. Illusionary. Or illusive. Or hiding in the bushes laughing at me. Or something.
Where I am ...
-- I have the last scenes imagined, but not written. Some I can see clearly and it's just a matter of sitting down and writing.
Some, not so much clear.
I'll keep plugging along, doing that.
-- Next ... I'll look at the 'shape' of everything that's happening in the whole plot. I'll see it visually and in color. I'll draw the plot on paper with high excitement points and low and see what characters are coming forward or falling back. I'll draw character arcs. See how my central love story is holding the stage.
Or not.
I do know I need more of Maggie and Doyle. I need them together more.
-- Then there's Major Research.
I have major and weird research to do.
I'll have to visit the university library. But I'm not going to find most of what I need.
I'll try.
Then I'll bother actual living folks only as a last resort.
-- There is this one pivotal scene.
I have to put my villain and Doyle and Maggie all in the same room right near the end. This is, of course, for the express purpose of allowing them to be, respectively villainous, heroic and heroine-oic.
And we do this denouement thingum.
I just need to get them there. Plausibly.
That's technical plotting junk and will doubtless clear itself up.
-- All the time, I can't decide which of three possible ways to write the opening scenes.
Things are not looking good for the bunny scene, though.
Rough Draft One
You will note I'm much closer to finished with the First Rough Draft than I was a few days ago.
This is because the First Rough Draft is going to be shorter.
Not 130,000 words.
More along the lines of 80K.
Progress is like that. Illusionary. Or illusive. Or hiding in the bushes laughing at me. Or something.
Where I am ...
-- I have the last scenes imagined, but not written. Some I can see clearly and it's just a matter of sitting down and writing.
Some, not so much clear.
I'll keep plugging along, doing that.
-- Next ... I'll look at the 'shape' of everything that's happening in the whole plot. I'll see it visually and in color. I'll draw the plot on paper with high excitement points and low and see what characters are coming forward or falling back. I'll draw character arcs. See how my central love story is holding the stage.
Or not.
I do know I need more of Maggie and Doyle. I need them together more.
-- Then there's Major Research.
I have major and weird research to do.
I'll have to visit the university library. But I'm not going to find most of what I need.
I'll try.
Then I'll bother actual living folks only as a last resort.
-- There is this one pivotal scene.
I have to put my villain and Doyle and Maggie all in the same room right near the end. This is, of course, for the express purpose of allowing them to be, respectively villainous, heroic and heroine-oic.
And we do this denouement thingum.
I just need to get them there. Plausibly.
That's technical plotting junk and will doubtless clear itself up.
-- All the time, I can't decide which of three possible ways to write the opening scenes.
Things are not looking good for the bunny scene, though.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Alpha Heroes
Christine Wells said, over on the Berkley-Jove board : here
And Jo, about talking your way out rather than hitting someone--do you think that characteristic precludes Doyle from being alpha? I never quite know what an alpha male is. To me, he's the one who will take the lead in a given situation, the one other men/women will instinctively turn to to solve their problems. A man of action, yes, but not necessarily violence.
What does an alpha hero mean to you?
So I replied ...
I've done the ponder-ponder-muse-muse bit on this.
This starts out being a little confusing to me because 'alpha' in Romance does NOT mean the same thing as 'alpha' in animal behaviour. I keep forgetting that.
In Romance, 'alpha' is all about the power balance in the male-female relationship.
Set aside whether the hero is rich or competent or dangerous or useful to the community as a whole. Set aside whether he gives orders to other folks.
The alpha- or beta- ness of the hero, in Romance terms, lies in who gives the orders in the H&H relationship.
Do they eat Chinese or Thai? Who makes the decision -- or voluntarily passes decision power to the other?
Some of the most interesting stories involve changes in the balance of power
or struggles between the protagonists to determine the BoP
or relationships where strongly assertive H&Hs approach intimacy while dancing around an undetermined and unsettled BoP.
So ... you thought I'd never get to the point, didn't you?
... when I look at my super-competent Doyle. My sneaky and covert Doyle. My hyper-self-aware Doyle ....
I see him as alpha in a relationship.
Anyone this self-contained does not have within him the capacity for trust of a beta hero. It's going to be hard enough making Doyle even moderately honest and open when he falls in love.
This being the case, I must make Maggie self-contained and independent and a little isolated as well.
I'm setting her to useful and forceful actions, or course. But I'll also give her some kind of overt bang-slap-pop thing to do near the end -- probably in the confrontation with the villain -- just so everyone KNOWS she's powerful.
And Jo, about talking your way out rather than hitting someone--do you think that characteristic precludes Doyle from being alpha? I never quite know what an alpha male is. To me, he's the one who will take the lead in a given situation, the one other men/women will instinctively turn to to solve their problems. A man of action, yes, but not necessarily violence.
What does an alpha hero mean to you?
So I replied ...
I've done the ponder-ponder-muse-muse bit on this.
This starts out being a little confusing to me because 'alpha' in Romance does NOT mean the same thing as 'alpha' in animal behaviour. I keep forgetting that.
In Romance, 'alpha' is all about the power balance in the male-female relationship.
Set aside whether the hero is rich or competent or dangerous or useful to the community as a whole. Set aside whether he gives orders to other folks.
The alpha- or beta- ness of the hero, in Romance terms, lies in who gives the orders in the H&H relationship.
Do they eat Chinese or Thai? Who makes the decision -- or voluntarily passes decision power to the other?
Some of the most interesting stories involve changes in the balance of power
or struggles between the protagonists to determine the BoP
or relationships where strongly assertive H&Hs approach intimacy while dancing around an undetermined and unsettled BoP.
So ... you thought I'd never get to the point, didn't you?
... when I look at my super-competent Doyle. My sneaky and covert Doyle. My hyper-self-aware Doyle ....
I see him as alpha in a relationship.
Anyone this self-contained does not have within him the capacity for trust of a beta hero. It's going to be hard enough making Doyle even moderately honest and open when he falls in love.
This being the case, I must make Maggie self-contained and independent and a little isolated as well.
I'm setting her to useful and forceful actions, or course. But I'll also give her some kind of overt bang-slap-pop thing to do near the end -- probably in the confrontation with the villain -- just so everyone KNOWS she's powerful.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Technical Topics -- Preliminary thoughts on the Balance of Power
I blog over at the Berkley Jove site.
Here.
And I wrote a long and involved post and thought I'd compound the offense by double posting it. To wit:
This is what I'd originally posted:
All-in-all, this was a very useful bit of advice -- the call for a direct hero-and-villain confrontation. Thinkiing about it has helped me tremendously.
Christine Wells said:
That's the kind of thing you know in your gut should happen but sometimes you forget. And then someone reminds you and you say, of course! That's how such stories are usually told.
This discussion made me realize that the book I've just written is mainly my heroine's story and there is a final confrontation. But I'd like my hero to kick some butt at the end, too. I'll have to think about how I might arrange that...-
So I said:
Knowing nothing about the story, I'd nonetheless be in favor of bringing the hero in at the cusp of major struggle.
Otherwise you got all that missed an opportunity for H&H to interact and for their relationship to change or consolidate or whatever it is you're doing at that moment.
But that's the trick ... isn't it?
You bring your guy in without lessening the heroine.
You build power in both hero and heroine -- whatever power is appropriate to your characters -- without one power diminishing the other.
I try to do this. I've tried to give the overall story to the heroine. It is her 'quest', if you will.
But I want to keep the hero heroic.
And that means he has to have his own heroic story, not merely heroic attributes.
The way I think of it ... the shape of the plot should be reciprocal.
Even though I am writing 'her' story, I want the totality of the fiction to be such that if we looked at the line of events primarily from hero's Point of View, HE would plausibly be the one moving the plot.
The hero needs his own set of fruitful, effective action and a story that can be followed from beginning to growth to 'black moment' and denoument. His story doesn't have to happen 'on stage', but I feel it has to exist.
Because even where the heroine is primary,
the hero has to be an edgy force with motives of his own.
He has to be big enough to be heroic, here, in the story that's underfoot right now.
Heroism, like heroine-ism, is in the action.
Or, at least, that's what I think. I'm still working out the basics of this writing stuff.
Anyhow ...
what I've done with my villain confrontations, so far --
(Can I say 'so far' with only two books? It seems ... cheeky,)
I've made the true and important and meaty action lie between the HEROINE and the villain,
then I kinda call my hero in at the last moment to do some heavy lifting,
in part because his own 'story' calls for him being there.
This is probably not the best shape to that sort of scene.
This is a danger that the 'heavy lifting' of the scene -- which is apt to be full of bang-pop-slam action -- is so impressive, the reader can miss the quite obvious fact that the heroine -- like your heroine -- was managing nicely on her own.
So if you place your hero in the showdown scene with the villain,
which I think is a good idea,
you may wish to keep a lid on his contribution to the bang-pop-slam.
Which I have failed to do, myself.
The fact that BOTH H&H are winning needs to be, like, obvious.
Maybe you can have the heroine stab somebody or run over them with a truck.
Or something.
Here.
And I wrote a long and involved post and thought I'd compound the offense by double posting it. To wit:
This is what I'd originally posted:
All-in-all, this was a very useful bit of advice -- the call for a direct hero-and-villain confrontation. Thinkiing about it has helped me tremendously.
Christine Wells said:
That's the kind of thing you know in your gut should happen but sometimes you forget. And then someone reminds you and you say, of course! That's how such stories are usually told.
This discussion made me realize that the book I've just written is mainly my heroine's story and there is a final confrontation. But I'd like my hero to kick some butt at the end, too. I'll have to think about how I might arrange that...-
So I said:
Knowing nothing about the story, I'd nonetheless be in favor of bringing the hero in at the cusp of major struggle.
Otherwise you got all that missed an opportunity for H&H to interact and for their relationship to change or consolidate or whatever it is you're doing at that moment.
But that's the trick ... isn't it?
You bring your guy in without lessening the heroine.
You build power in both hero and heroine -- whatever power is appropriate to your characters -- without one power diminishing the other.
I try to do this. I've tried to give the overall story to the heroine. It is her 'quest', if you will.
But I want to keep the hero heroic.
And that means he has to have his own heroic story, not merely heroic attributes.
The way I think of it ... the shape of the plot should be reciprocal.
Even though I am writing 'her' story, I want the totality of the fiction to be such that if we looked at the line of events primarily from hero's Point of View, HE would plausibly be the one moving the plot.
The hero needs his own set of fruitful, effective action and a story that can be followed from beginning to growth to 'black moment' and denoument. His story doesn't have to happen 'on stage', but I feel it has to exist.
Because even where the heroine is primary,
the hero has to be an edgy force with motives of his own.
He has to be big enough to be heroic, here, in the story that's underfoot right now.
Heroism, like heroine-ism, is in the action.
Or, at least, that's what I think. I'm still working out the basics of this writing stuff.
Anyhow ...
what I've done with my villain confrontations, so far --
(Can I say 'so far' with only two books? It seems ... cheeky,)
I've made the true and important and meaty action lie between the HEROINE and the villain,
then I kinda call my hero in at the last moment to do some heavy lifting,
in part because his own 'story' calls for him being there.
This is probably not the best shape to that sort of scene.
This is a danger that the 'heavy lifting' of the scene -- which is apt to be full of bang-pop-slam action -- is so impressive, the reader can miss the quite obvious fact that the heroine -- like your heroine -- was managing nicely on her own.
So if you place your hero in the showdown scene with the villain,
which I think is a good idea,
you may wish to keep a lid on his contribution to the bang-pop-slam.
Which I have failed to do, myself.
The fact that BOTH H&H are winning needs to be, like, obvious.
Maybe you can have the heroine stab somebody or run over them with a truck.
Or something.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Making progress
I'm making progress. But I'm writing the easy parts, kinda.
What it is ...
My Averatec stopped printing the 'm'.
This makes an appreciable difficulty in writing, by the way. You'd be surprised how many words have 'm' in them.
I await a new keyboard.
Rough draft 1
59000 / 130000 words. 45% done!
Meanwhile, I'm sitting in coffee houses, working on my old laptop, doing the easy stuff.
This old laptop is the one I wrote Anneka on and I'm fond of it. But it is gaping open at the corners with its mechanical innards showing and 10% of the screen doesn't work and the 'b' key is unreliable.
Though not as unreliable as the 'm' on the Averatec.
My soul gets battered when my laptop doesn't work well. I have a close and personal relationship with my laptop.
We are more than friends.
So I am doing easy little sketches of the scenes I see.
Even taking this into account, I've made some progress.
What it is ...
My Averatec stopped printing the 'm'.
This makes an appreciable difficulty in writing, by the way. You'd be surprised how many words have 'm' in them.
I await a new keyboard.
Rough draft 1
Meanwhile, I'm sitting in coffee houses, working on my old laptop, doing the easy stuff.
This old laptop is the one I wrote Anneka on and I'm fond of it. But it is gaping open at the corners with its mechanical innards showing and 10% of the screen doesn't work and the 'b' key is unreliable.
Though not as unreliable as the 'm' on the Averatec.
My soul gets battered when my laptop doesn't work well. I have a close and personal relationship with my laptop.
We are more than friends.
So I am doing easy little sketches of the scenes I see.
Even taking this into account, I've made some progress.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Progress in Maggie
Monday, August 25, 2008
New look to the blog
You know how folks decide to put up a website and three or four weeks later ... Shazamm ... there's a website?
It's taken me a little longer.
Ok. Much Longer.
But I'm getting reasonably close. Couple of weeks now, I think.
Anyhoo ... I've changed the face of the blog so it'll look sorta like the rest of the website and everything will be symmetric and pleasant when the website goes live.
(Cue to spooky music and someone shouting, 'Give my creature life!')
So what am I doing this week?
I'm settled down firmly on the first draft of MAGGIE ...
Rough Draft of MAGGIE ...
37000 / 130000 words. 28% done!
Which is less progress than it may look like,
and less progress than I should be making,
but we're headed in the right direction.
Can I speak up about Nora Roberts here? Or is that name-dropping and crass?
I saw Nora Roberts at a panel she gave at RWA National. It was one of about four workshops I actually got to attend in the whole four days. I had no idea National was such a madhouse.
But I picked well. It was useful as well as decorative.
N.R. said her working method was to write her first draft right from beginning to end, not going back to fix anything. Just laying it down.
"Oooooh," says I. "That sounds good. I can do that, too."
It kinda 'clicked'.
The meter shows my progress, NOT on the story, but on the First Rough Draft.
(Which is a really, really rough draft.)
When I get finished with that first draft, I'll be about halfway through the writing.
Maybe not quite halfway.
And this is not counting research, which I have, like, the Baltic Sea still to go through, teaspoon by teaspoon.
This zipping-to-the-end approach feels comfy, natural, satisfying, fruitful. If it were food, it'd be pumpkin pie.
I've been trying to find an efficient modus de writing. I'm optimistic. This might be it.
Where I am right now in the story --
Adrian has just crawled his secret and unregarded way out of British Service Headquarters in Paris, headed for the slums of ... someplace in Paris. I haven't looked up where the slums were. OK.
Adrian is -- putting it in modern terms -- pursuing his own agenda.
We're in his POV.
Re Adrian POV -- this is challenging because
a) Adrian-at-twelve doesn't sound like Adrian-at-twenty.
b) a long stretch of Adrian POV gives him more weight in the story than I really want him to have.
But my plot demands it.
If I could just learn to plot.
So. Next.
I have to balance my people here. I can't do too long a straight run of Adrian because this is Doyle and Maggie's story and the secondary characters are not allowed to run away with the reader's sympathy and attention.
So I now need a strong vignette of Doyle -- which I have in my head. And then I need one of Maggie -- which I haven't the least idea of what it is.
Maggie, Maggie, Maggie ... tell me what you are doing.
If you don't, you're going to sit there with a hairbrush in your lap, looking at mirror, thinking about things.
We don't want that, do we?
It's taken me a little longer.
Ok. Much Longer.
But I'm getting reasonably close. Couple of weeks now, I think.
Anyhoo ... I've changed the face of the blog so it'll look sorta like the rest of the website and everything will be symmetric and pleasant when the website goes live.
(Cue to spooky music and someone shouting, 'Give my creature life!')
So what am I doing this week?
I'm settled down firmly on the first draft of MAGGIE ...
Rough Draft of MAGGIE ...
Which is less progress than it may look like,
and less progress than I should be making,
but we're headed in the right direction.
Can I speak up about Nora Roberts here? Or is that name-dropping and crass?
I saw Nora Roberts at a panel she gave at RWA National. It was one of about four workshops I actually got to attend in the whole four days. I had no idea National was such a madhouse.
But I picked well. It was useful as well as decorative.
N.R. said her working method was to write her first draft right from beginning to end, not going back to fix anything. Just laying it down.
"Oooooh," says I. "That sounds good. I can do that, too."
It kinda 'clicked'.
The meter shows my progress, NOT on the story, but on the First Rough Draft.
(Which is a really, really rough draft.)
When I get finished with that first draft, I'll be about halfway through the writing.
Maybe not quite halfway.
And this is not counting research, which I have, like, the Baltic Sea still to go through, teaspoon by teaspoon.
This zipping-to-the-end approach feels comfy, natural, satisfying, fruitful. If it were food, it'd be pumpkin pie.
I've been trying to find an efficient modus de writing. I'm optimistic. This might be it.
Where I am right now in the story --
Adrian has just crawled his secret and unregarded way out of British Service Headquarters in Paris, headed for the slums of ... someplace in Paris. I haven't looked up where the slums were. OK.
Adrian is -- putting it in modern terms -- pursuing his own agenda.
We're in his POV.
Re Adrian POV -- this is challenging because
a) Adrian-at-twelve doesn't sound like Adrian-at-twenty.
b) a long stretch of Adrian POV gives him more weight in the story than I really want him to have.
But my plot demands it.
If I could just learn to plot.
So. Next.
I have to balance my people here. I can't do too long a straight run of Adrian because this is Doyle and Maggie's story and the secondary characters are not allowed to run away with the reader's sympathy and attention.
So I now need a strong vignette of Doyle -- which I have in my head. And then I need one of Maggie -- which I haven't the least idea of what it is.
Maggie, Maggie, Maggie ... tell me what you are doing.
If you don't, you're going to sit there with a hairbrush in your lap, looking at mirror, thinking about things.
We don't want that, do we?
Sunday, August 24, 2008
New Contract
I just got the signed copy of the new contract with Berkley.
Two book contract.
Two ... book ... contract.
Oh my.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Desert Island Keepers VII
KSGuard says ...
My DIK list? Do I have to only have one?
Difficult, very difficult.
Shanna - for certain. My first love in historical romance since the age of 11.
Uncertain Magic and The Shadow and the Star - Kinsale
Outlander - Diana Gabaldon.
Bet Me - Jennifer Crusie, though it'd be a tie with Welcome to Temptation.
Bible - it should be first or the lightening might get me.
Montana Sky and the Chesapeake Bay Series - Nora Roberts. I just never get tied of them.
Charm School - Nelson DeMille - not romance but a page-turner
A Macgyver How-to book
I'll stop here...for now.
I loved Shanna when I read it many years ago. Must have read it three or four times. I still have the copy on my Keeper Shelf. Would I enjoy it now? Would it feel dated?
I just don't know.
Outlander ... oh yes. Hmmm ... or maybe Drums. Which would I rather reread if I could only do one. I'd have to think about that for a while.
Great, great books. Such fluid expression and vividness.
(le sigh.)
Crusie ... the book most recently read and loved with an unruly passion was Faking It. But Welcome to Temptation is probably favorite.
I have never read Montana Sky.
So weird. I can't imagine how I missed it. Maybe I slipped into some alternate reality for a while.
I'm pretty sure I have MS tucked away in the TBR pile where it sits like the cherry on the Sundae, waiting for last.
I must think up some plausible excuse to reward myself. Yes.
Haven't read the DeMIlle. Can I say spy thrillers are not my usual cup of tea? Perhaps I will thumb through it in the library and see if it grabs me.
My DIK list? Do I have to only have one?
Difficult, very difficult.
Shanna - for certain. My first love in historical romance since the age of 11.
Uncertain Magic and The Shadow and the Star - Kinsale
Outlander - Diana Gabaldon.
Bet Me - Jennifer Crusie, though it'd be a tie with Welcome to Temptation.
Bible - it should be first or the lightening might get me.
Montana Sky and the Chesapeake Bay Series - Nora Roberts. I just never get tied of them.
Charm School - Nelson DeMille - not romance but a page-turner
A Macgyver How-to book
I'll stop here...for now.
I loved Shanna when I read it many years ago. Must have read it three or four times. I still have the copy on my Keeper Shelf. Would I enjoy it now? Would it feel dated?
I just don't know.
Outlander ... oh yes. Hmmm ... or maybe Drums. Which would I rather reread if I could only do one. I'd have to think about that for a while.
Great, great books. Such fluid expression and vividness.
(le sigh.)
Crusie ... the book most recently read and loved with an unruly passion was Faking It. But Welcome to Temptation is probably favorite.
I have never read Montana Sky.
So weird. I can't imagine how I missed it. Maybe I slipped into some alternate reality for a while.
I'm pretty sure I have MS tucked away in the TBR pile where it sits like the cherry on the Sundae, waiting for last.
I must think up some plausible excuse to reward myself. Yes.
Haven't read the DeMIlle. Can I say spy thrillers are not my usual cup of tea? Perhaps I will thumb through it in the library and see if it grabs me.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
and in Library Journal news ...
Blowing my own horn a bit,
Neal Wyatt here offers some summer reading in the Library Journal, 8/18/2008
You see me in illustrious company.
The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne (Berkley)
The Pretender by Celeste Bradley (St. Martin’s)
Daughter of the Game by Tracy Grant (Morrow)
All the Queen's Men by Linda Howard (Pocket)
The Seduction of the Crimson Rose by Lauren Willig (Dutton )
I post this, not just for the satisfying blare of trumpets ... but to offer the other books to you. If you like Spymaster's Lady, you're likely to enjoy the others as well.
I'd be delighted to know what you think.
Neal Wyatt here offers some summer reading in the Library Journal, 8/18/2008
You see me in illustrious company.
The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne (Berkley)
The Pretender by Celeste Bradley (St. Martin’s)
Daughter of the Game by Tracy Grant (Morrow)
All the Queen's Men by Linda Howard (Pocket)
The Seduction of the Crimson Rose by Lauren Willig (Dutton )
I post this, not just for the satisfying blare of trumpets ... but to offer the other books to you. If you like Spymaster's Lady, you're likely to enjoy the others as well.
I'd be delighted to know what you think.
Desert Island Keepers VI
Liz Baldwin says:
This is too tempting to pass up, but I fear making my DIK list has exposed a nasty practical streak. I would pick:
Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl - Very basic so I won't have to waste a book choice on a tool-building book.
U.S. Army Survival Manual
Persuasion by Miss Austen (THE BEST EVER)
Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale - one of the first romance novels to just catapult me.
The Complete Works of Robert Frost
And a Blank Book so I might write. Otherwise, that way lies madness.
This does betray a very practical streak.
The hero who came to rescue a heroine with this set of books wouldn't know whether he was dealing with the
'find fresh water in the jungle inside bamboo stalks' woman
or the 'can that possibly be Fabio on the cover?' woman.
I loved KonTiki.
I have always rather doubted folks came from PreColumbian South America to settle the Pacific Islands, (or vice versa, for that matter,) but the chicken bones from 1300 -1400 BCE intrigue me. here. Oh, Yes.
It's all a lesson to me to be more open hearted and open minded.
Kinsale is wonderful, of course. Maybe I will reread me some from the Keeper Shelf when I am desperate on this next manuscript.
This is too tempting to pass up, but I fear making my DIK list has exposed a nasty practical streak. I would pick:
Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl - Very basic so I won't have to waste a book choice on a tool-building book.
U.S. Army Survival Manual
Persuasion by Miss Austen (THE BEST EVER)
Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale - one of the first romance novels to just catapult me.
The Complete Works of Robert Frost
And a Blank Book so I might write. Otherwise, that way lies madness.
This does betray a very practical streak.
The hero who came to rescue a heroine with this set of books wouldn't know whether he was dealing with the
'find fresh water in the jungle inside bamboo stalks' woman
or the 'can that possibly be Fabio on the cover?' woman.
I loved KonTiki.
I have always rather doubted folks came from PreColumbian South America to settle the Pacific Islands, (or vice versa, for that matter,) but the chicken bones from 1300 -1400 BCE intrigue me. here. Oh, Yes.
It's all a lesson to me to be more open hearted and open minded.
Kinsale is wonderful, of course. Maybe I will reread me some from the Keeper Shelf when I am desperate on this next manuscript.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Desert Island Keepers V
Marie Jolie said --
Oh well! I must contribute. If stranded. My DIKs would be. . .
1. Lamb: The gospel according to Biff Christ's childhood pal-- Chris Moore
2. The Viscount Who Loved Me-- Julia Quinn
3. Pride and Prejudice. . . I would re-read and envision a different Darcy each time. They are all so yummy.
4. The Complete works of William Shakespeare. . . The sonnets and the comedies would come in handy. . . and I'm sure the Tempest would feel most ironic and perhaps nervous that my island had a Caliban.
5. The Time Traveler's Wife--- Audrey Niffenegger
6.The Poisonwood Bible-- Barbara KingsolverSo I've got half fun half serious.
The first ... I have to admit, I've never heard of.
Time Traveler's Wife and Poisonwood Bible have been in my TBR pile for about a year. I'm really looking forward to them.
But when I look up from working and pull out a book to relax with ...
I pick something real thin and easy.
However, when I do get stranded on a desert island I'll finally have time to sit down and read them,
so maybe they should have been on my list.
Have you noticed that Caliban had all the good lines?
I see a great paranormal. Miranda and Caliban -- Now the story can be told.
Oh well! I must contribute. If stranded. My DIKs would be. . .
1. Lamb: The gospel according to Biff Christ's childhood pal-- Chris Moore
2. The Viscount Who Loved Me-- Julia Quinn
3. Pride and Prejudice. . . I would re-read and envision a different Darcy each time. They are all so yummy.
4. The Complete works of William Shakespeare. . . The sonnets and the comedies would come in handy. . . and I'm sure the Tempest would feel most ironic and perhaps nervous that my island had a Caliban.
5. The Time Traveler's Wife--- Audrey Niffenegger
6.The Poisonwood Bible-- Barbara KingsolverSo I've got half fun half serious.
The first ... I have to admit, I've never heard of.
Time Traveler's Wife and Poisonwood Bible have been in my TBR pile for about a year. I'm really looking forward to them.
But when I look up from working and pull out a book to relax with ...
I pick something real thin and easy.
However, when I do get stranded on a desert island I'll finally have time to sit down and read them,
so maybe they should have been on my list.
Have you noticed that Caliban had all the good lines?
I see a great paranormal. Miranda and Caliban -- Now the story can be told.
Desert Island Keeper IV
Oh ...
I should put my own Romance DIKs up top here where they can be seen, instead of in the comments trail.
It's confusing the way posts pile on top of each other. You probably want to read through these I-IV instead of IV to I.
My DIKs
Alinor, by Roberta Gellis,
The Windflower, by Sharon and Tom Curtis, (Laura London,)
Angelique, by Serge and Anne Golon, (Sergeanne Golon,)
By Arrangement, by Madeline Hunter,
It's in His Kiss, by Julia Quinn,
An Unwilling Bride, by Jo Beverley.
I got two of the 2007 RITA winners on the list. I got taste, I do.
I should put my own Romance DIKs up top here where they can be seen, instead of in the comments trail.
It's confusing the way posts pile on top of each other. You probably want to read through these I-IV instead of IV to I.
My DIKs
Alinor, by Roberta Gellis,
The Windflower, by Sharon and Tom Curtis, (Laura London,)
Angelique, by Serge and Anne Golon, (Sergeanne Golon,)
By Arrangement, by Madeline Hunter,
It's in His Kiss, by Julia Quinn,
An Unwilling Bride, by Jo Beverley.
I got two of the 2007 RITA winners on the list. I got taste, I do.
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