I was pondering verb tenses the other day. Thinking about the tenses we employ when we write in Past Tense, as we generally do.
'Past Tense' should really be called 'past tenses' because you got yer
Simple Past Tense, [Myrtle hunted,]
and yer Past Progressive, [Myrtle was hunting,]
and yer Past Perfect, [Myrtle had hunted,]
and yer Past Progressive, (or Past Perfect Continuous,) [Myrtle had been hunting.]
And there may be some others, for all I know. All these verb tenses carefully define relationships between the particular bits of the past when stuff is happening. They are the 'home tense'.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Friday, March 05, 2010
The JUSTINE Manuscript
Slowly . . . slowly . . . slowly.
I've finished up a big section and I'm moving on to new territory.
Trying to limit the number of characters in the manuscript.
Trying to simplify this maze of a plot.
I'm about 50K words into the Very Rough Draft.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
More Maunderings About Saidisms
Responding in the comment trail, I got all talkative about saidisms and rules and thought I'd stretch out and natter about that in a post instead of trying to fit everything into the little comment box.
I saw the Guardian article with many Writers' Ten Rules of Writing. It's here, I enjoyed it up down and sideways, of course, and found it interesting and educative.
One problem with rules is that they tend to tell you what not to do.
But people don't read books because of the tremendous number of adverbs the writer didn't employ. They read books because of what the author is doing right.
I saw the Guardian article with many Writers' Ten Rules of Writing. It's here, I enjoyed it up down and sideways, of course, and found it interesting and educative.
One problem with rules is that they tend to tell you what not to do.
But people don't read books because of the tremendous number of adverbs the writer didn't employ. They read books because of what the author is doing right.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Fight Scenes
I was thinking about fight scenes.
I'm not about to write one just in the next week, but I will need one near the end of JUSTINE.
So I am pondering the physical aspects of violence in the back of my mind.
You got yer 'one guy attacks another guy' kinda scenes.
These do not tend to be fair fights because if you want to 'attack' somebody, you bring a gun and shoot them or you pick up a baseball bat and jump out and hit them over the head.
So I am pondering the physical aspects of violence in the back of my mind.
You got yer 'one guy attacks another guy' kinda scenes.
These do not tend to be fair fights because if you want to 'attack' somebody, you bring a gun and shoot them or you pick up a baseball bat and jump out and hit them over the head.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
When to use saidisms.
A 'saidism' is one of those nifty replacements for 'said'.
He whispered, he noted, he declared, he suggested, he promised and so on and on and on.
You run into the rule sometimes --
No Saidisms.
And it just seems so wrong.
What it is . . .
there's this unfortunate tendency of novice writers to pluck creative dialog tags, apparently at random, from a list they have in the back of their three-ring binder from sixth grade.
This leads the friendly folks who put together writing books to grow thin and haggard and tear their hair out and make a rule
No Saidisms
which probably relieves their minds considerably,
but it's, like, y'know, more of a guideline.
Pretty obviously, the first thing we ask ourselves when we come up with a nifty saidism is whether this word
-- and all the information packed into this word --
has been put into a dialog tag because we need that information.
Are we writing he complained because the complaining is important
or have we just decided to tag dialog in a novel way because we're sick of using 'said' and Mrs. Grundy told us in sixth grade not to repeat words?
A dismaying proportion of the saidisms used by novice writers are information that
-- does not need to be conveyed,
-- or can be revealed another, better, way,
-- or is exaggerated or inappropriate.
When you use a saidism, what you get, a lot of times, is:
"I'll tell them to leave the mayo off your sandwich," Maurice stated . . . (or declared, cajoled, promised, expostulated, argued, complained, opined, or maintained.)
Really. No.
Don't use that saidism. Use 'he said.'
Maurice didn't promise or declare.
He just said it, for Pete's sake.
Before we use a saidism, we assure ourselves the saidism is logical and necessary and not exaggerated and we're dealing with information the reader must be told.
Even if this is necessary information -- is a dialog tag is the best way to get it across to the reader??
The brute force way to determine this is to try out a couple different techniques that convey this necessary and exciting information.
One way to convince ourselves we don't really need to tell the reader that Maurice is asserting and maintaining and cajoling about mayonnaise is to drag those saidisms out of the dialog tag and put them into action or internals. That's when we suddenly realize that Maurice ain't doing any such thing as cajoling, nohow.
Anyhow . . . let's say we got this character is whispering.
First we satisfied ourselves that the character is really whispering
and not just 'saying'.
We also decided we need to tell the reader the character is whispering
and we have decided that the nature of the dialog itself and the surrounding action does not at this time make it clear this is all in whispers.
Ok. So, having got those questions out of the way, we look at our saidism as a dialog tag --
She whispered, with a child’s simplicity, “I do not need to see your face, Citoyenne Finch.”
We change it around a bit. Take it out of the dialog tag and put it into action or description or internals.
They could only speak in whispers. She said, with a child’s simplicity, “I do not need to see your face, Citoyenne Finch.”
We convey it in Internal Monolog.
I must not be overheard. She said, with a child’s simplicity, “I do not need to see your face, Citoyenne Finch.”
We drop the information into description.
“I do not need to see your face, Citoyenne Finch.” The words snaked out from under the rain; words made of cool wavery sounds.
When we look at these couple alternatives, the simplicity of simply laying out the whisper as a dialog tag is obvious.
We place the saidism in this sentence and we know it's right.
We can break that 'no saidisms rule' and still sleep easily at night which is nice.
Speaking generally, it has been my experience that verbs in the class of saidisms that relate to the actual mouth-moving action of speaking,
like whispered, murmured, muttered, yelled, spat out, grated under his breath, and so on
are the most apt to become elegant and thrifty dialog tags.
They are simple, straightforward actions that lend themselves to expression as simple action verbs.
Having determined that we should tell the reader about the mouth movements, we may often do this with a saidism.
Moving along -- there is a much larger class of saidisms that show intent and emotion. Avowed, complained, averred, promised, guessed, questioned, concluded, wished, harassed, rejoiced, mourned, remembered, and so on.
These are the saidisms that end up getting latched onto sentences that do not deserve them.
What we tend to forget is that these are powerful words. You can't just drop them down anywhere.
This is where we get the infamous:
"I'll tell them to leave the mayo off your sandwich," he promised. Or avowed, stated, maintained, declared, cajoled, expostulated or stone-walled.
All those words are too important and exciting to get attached to a sentence about mayo. They are BIG. In this case, he didn't promise or declare.
He just said it, for Pete's sake.
Speaking very generally again,
these saidisms that carry intent and emotion are full of complex information and abstract concepts.
The concepts are so big and floppy they want to spread out comfortably in Internal Monolog, in other internals, or in the dialog itself, or in really sneaky and significant accompanying action.
The information -- and we are assuming it is vitally necessary information and relevant and all that -- doesn't like to be crammed into a dialog tag.
Let's say we have something to say about Hawker's state of mind.
“You don’t eat your own donkey. And you don’t use your own woman as bait,” Hawker complained. "That’s one of those delicate distinctions gentlemen make.”
or
“You don’t eat your own donkey. And you don’t use your own woman as bait,” Hawker said sarcastically. "That’s one of those delicate distinctions gentlemen make.”
But let's put it into action instead.
“You don’t eat your own donkey. And you don’t use your own woman as . . .” Hawker kicked a loose chunk of cobble in the gutter. It rolled end-over-end and rapped up against a wall. “bait. That’s one of those delicate distinctions gentlemen make.”
The action carries the big, complex emotion in a way the dialog tag can't.
If we have an emotion to convey, we take it out of the dialog tag where it is all cramped up and simplified. We stop trying to compress big important emotion into the tone of a voice. In IM, in action, in description, we can use more words, basically.
And it lets us pull in some images we got lying around in our brains doing nothing in particular.
The final class of saidism is the fairly innocuous
replied, answered, repeated, interrupted, cut off, and so on.
The whole -- 'when do we use saidisms' question -- is like talking about anything else in writing. You read the advice in the writing books. Take some. Leave some. Some gets rained out.
He whispered, he noted, he declared, he suggested, he promised and so on and on and on.
No Saidisms.
And it just seems so wrong.
What it is . . .
there's this unfortunate tendency of novice writers to pluck creative dialog tags, apparently at random, from a list they have in the back of their three-ring binder from sixth grade.
This leads the friendly folks who put together writing books to grow thin and haggard and tear their hair out and make a rule
No Saidisms
which probably relieves their minds considerably,
but it's, like, y'know, more of a guideline.
When do we use saidisms?
Lots of places.
-- and all the information packed into this word --
has been put into a dialog tag because we need that information.
Are we writing he complained because the complaining is important
or have we just decided to tag dialog in a novel way because we're sick of using 'said' and Mrs. Grundy told us in sixth grade not to repeat words?
-- does not need to be conveyed,
-- or can be revealed another, better, way,
-- or is exaggerated or inappropriate.
When you use a saidism, what you get, a lot of times, is:
"I'll tell them to leave the mayo off your sandwich," Maurice stated . . . (or declared, cajoled, promised, expostulated, argued, complained, opined, or maintained.)
Really. No.
Don't use that saidism. Use 'he said.'
Maurice didn't promise or declare.
He just said it, for Pete's sake.
Before we use a saidism, we assure ourselves the saidism is logical and necessary and not exaggerated and we're dealing with information the reader must be told. Even if this is necessary information -- is a dialog tag is the best way to get it across to the reader??
The brute force way to determine this is to try out a couple different techniques that convey this necessary and exciting information.
One way to convince ourselves we don't really need to tell the reader that Maurice is asserting and maintaining and cajoling about mayonnaise is to drag those saidisms out of the dialog tag and put them into action or internals. That's when we suddenly realize that Maurice ain't doing any such thing as cajoling, nohow.
First we satisfied ourselves that the character is really whispering
and not just 'saying'.
We also decided we need to tell the reader the character is whispering
and we have decided that the nature of the dialog itself and the surrounding action does not at this time make it clear this is all in whispers.
Ok. So, having got those questions out of the way, we look at our saidism as a dialog tag --
She whispered, with a child’s simplicity, “I do not need to see your face, Citoyenne Finch.”
We change it around a bit. Take it out of the dialog tag and put it into action or description or internals.
They could only speak in whispers. She said, with a child’s simplicity, “I do not need to see your face, Citoyenne Finch.”
We convey it in Internal Monolog.
I must not be overheard. She said, with a child’s simplicity, “I do not need to see your face, Citoyenne Finch.”
We drop the information into description.
“I do not need to see your face, Citoyenne Finch.” The words snaked out from under the rain; words made of cool wavery sounds.
When we look at these couple alternatives, the simplicity of simply laying out the whisper as a dialog tag is obvious.
We place the saidism in this sentence and we know it's right.
We can break that 'no saidisms rule' and still sleep easily at night which is nice.
like whispered, murmured, muttered, yelled, spat out, grated under his breath, and so on
are the most apt to become elegant and thrifty dialog tags.
They are simple, straightforward actions that lend themselves to expression as simple action verbs.
Having determined that we should tell the reader about the mouth movements, we may often do this with a saidism.
Moving along -- there is a much larger class of saidisms that show intent and emotion. Avowed, complained, averred, promised, guessed, questioned, concluded, wished, harassed, rejoiced, mourned, remembered, and so on.
These are the saidisms that end up getting latched onto sentences that do not deserve them.
What we tend to forget is that these are powerful words. You can't just drop them down anywhere.
This is where we get the infamous:
"I'll tell them to leave the mayo off your sandwich," he promised. Or avowed, stated, maintained, declared, cajoled, expostulated or stone-walled.
All those words are too important and exciting to get attached to a sentence about mayo. They are BIG. In this case, he didn't promise or declare.
He just said it, for Pete's sake.
Speaking very generally again,
these saidisms that carry intent and emotion are full of complex information and abstract concepts.
The concepts are so big and floppy they want to spread out comfortably in Internal Monolog, in other internals, or in the dialog itself, or in really sneaky and significant accompanying action.
The information -- and we are assuming it is vitally necessary information and relevant and all that -- doesn't like to be crammed into a dialog tag.
Let's say we have something to say about Hawker's state of mind.
“You don’t eat your own donkey. And you don’t use your own woman as bait,” Hawker complained. "That’s one of those delicate distinctions gentlemen make.”
or
“You don’t eat your own donkey. And you don’t use your own woman as bait,” Hawker said sarcastically. "That’s one of those delicate distinctions gentlemen make.”
But let's put it into action instead.
“You don’t eat your own donkey. And you don’t use your own woman as . . .” Hawker kicked a loose chunk of cobble in the gutter. It rolled end-over-end and rapped up against a wall. “bait. That’s one of those delicate distinctions gentlemen make.”
The action carries the big, complex emotion in a way the dialog tag can't.
If we have an emotion to convey, we take it out of the dialog tag where it is all cramped up and simplified. We stop trying to compress big important emotion into the tone of a voice. In IM, in action, in description, we can use more words, basically.
And it lets us pull in some images we got lying around in our brains doing nothing in particular.
replied, answered, repeated, interrupted, cut off, and so on.
These talk about the mechanics of the dialog train. Useful friends of the writer, this lot, but only if the answering or repeated or interrupting is significant.
We don't use them when it is obvious that one line of dialog is in answer to the other. (Well . . . duh.) We don't use them when the act of answering or repeating is not in itself important.
The whole -- 'when do we use saidisms' question -- is like talking about anything else in writing. You read the advice in the writing books. Take some. Leave some. Some gets rained out.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
And we got book covers pretty much galore
In the interests of bringing exciting covers to my blog ... Here is Cathy Clamp's Serpent Moon and the May trade reprint of Spymaster's Lady.
Annique certainly gets around, doesn't she?
(I moved all these covers below the cut, so browers won't have a hard time loading the blog, which I think they may do, sometimes.)
Annique certainly gets around, doesn't she?
(I moved all these covers below the cut, so browers won't have a hard time loading the blog, which I think they may do, sometimes.)
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Happy Chinese New Year
This is especially fun for me since I have Chinese relatives.
photocredit Susan Watkins Schwartz
More work on the galleys
This is @ Ev, Linda and Annie down in the comment trail. I started a reply to comment and then it just growed. So I pulled it up here to make a regular post out of it.
I get prolix. This is why I do not tweat. Or tweet. Or whatever.
The galleys . . . I think I am a little dyslexic or something. I have never been able to spell and if there are two periods where there should only be one, I literally do not see it.
I sit here right now, looking at
(jo checks)
page 335 out of 392 densely-written pages. Yet another page to check line by line by line by line, (This is like getting your teeth cleaned with the little buzzy drill at the dentists ouch ouch ouch,)
all the while getting yelled at by my Internal Editor who says I could have done this or that much better.
We will not take our usual walk. The big lumberyard where we've been going to do walks had all its building roofs cave in last week under the weight of snow. The irony of an establishment that sells pre-assembled roof trusses for a living having its own roofs fail did not escape me.
And there might be wolves, y'know, coming down from the hills. There might be wolves.
Let me tell you about the storm.
The day before the big snowstorm, in the spirit of longstanding storm-panic tradition, I decided to pick up a spare gallon of milk.
There are two grocery stores in my neck of the woods.
There is the old Food Lion where you can buy chicken necks and slim jims and collard greens and there is the big new shiny Harris Teeter where you can buy wasabi and sushi and there is a choice of four kinds of organic, free-range eggs.
(I do not buy eggs because I have an 'in' with a woman who keeps chickens. I know the name of the particular hen who lays each of the eggs. Some of the eggs are green. I find this weird.)
Anyhow. I went into Harris Teeter and the shelves were . . . eerily empty.
Nothing on the shelves. No milk, no eggs, no soft drinks, no snack chips, no cheese, no bread, no oranges, no strawberries, no blueberries, and one lone, battered and unappealing melon. No yoghurt.
The clientele is admittedly pretty Yuppie-heavy, but what kind of emergency strips out every brand of yoghurt?
Every shopping cart was in use. I went through the checkout line -- I'd picked up a loaf of raisinbread that had somehow been overlooked since I was there anyway -- and had a nice chat with the lady from the accounting department who had been pressed into service. Apparently, it had been frantic-horde-of-locusts all day.
The bottled water was all gone.
(Hello . . . People. What do you think is going to fall from the sky? Lead shot? Cornmeal?)
So I went across the street to Food Lion where they had milk and tortillas and lettuce, all of which I bought, and then I went home to hunker down, somewhat underprepared for Armegedon, but then, who among us is not?
I worked onward. Page 120. Page 185. Page 236. Every time I got so disgusted and weary I couldn't look at the galleys for one more minute I went in and made brownies or something else unhealthy. If I have to face the end of the world, I'm not going to do it on yoghurt.
You know how there are background tasks that go on when your computer is working on somethingelsealtogether? You can look at the task manager and see them in realtime, using up 5% of CPU or 8%.
That's how it is with me and the JUSTINE manuscript. All the time I'm proofing galley I'm working on JUSTINE in the background about 5%.
The good news is I changed my mind about how to handle the first lovescene in JUSTINE. I have a roughed-in a first draft of something unambitious in the way of tab A and slot B. But now I think I'm going to do something more risky. (Risky, not risqué. *g*)
If I write it to do everybody justice, I'll be working a good bit beyond my technical competence and my writerly skill and my all-round maturity and I will definitely be out of my comfort zone. I will probably flop badly. But I guess I gotta try.
I get prolix. This is why I do not tweat. Or tweet. Or whatever.
Trying to fix the galley drives me insane.
Though sanity may be over-rated.
I sit here right now, looking at
(jo checks)
page 335 out of 392 densely-written pages. Yet another page to check line by line by line by line, (This is like getting your teeth cleaned with the little buzzy drill at the dentists ouch ouch ouch,)
all the while getting yelled at by my Internal Editor who says I could have done this or that much better.
The cat walks over the keyboard, gently shedding cat hairs, generously adding random keystrokes.
The dog -- she is my henchdog --(hench comes from OE hengest meaning horse so this is probably not a logical formation but whatthehell, Archie. Toujours gai.) sits and WATCHES me, ready to rise and accompany me on our next foray. (From ME forrai, to plunder.) Having something lie there and be intensely loyal to you is very distracting.
We will not take our usual walk. The big lumberyard where we've been going to do walks had all its building roofs cave in last week under the weight of snow. The irony of an establishment that sells pre-assembled roof trusses for a living having its own roofs fail did not escape me.
And there might be wolves, y'know, coming down from the hills. There might be wolves.
Let me tell you about the storm.
The day before the big snowstorm, in the spirit of longstanding storm-panic tradition, I decided to pick up a spare gallon of milk.
There are two grocery stores in my neck of the woods.
There is the old Food Lion where you can buy chicken necks and slim jims and collard greens and there is the big new shiny Harris Teeter where you can buy wasabi and sushi and there is a choice of four kinds of organic, free-range eggs.
Anyhow. I went into Harris Teeter and the shelves were . . . eerily empty.
It was like one of those movies where the world is going to end so everybody grabs up their arsenal of automatic weapons and climbs into their RVs, (8 mpg on a highway,) loads up on Little Debbies and Ding Dongs and Classic Coke, and heads out to the wastelands where they will naturally be invisible to the technology of aliens who have just crossed interstellar space.
The clientele is admittedly pretty Yuppie-heavy, but what kind of emergency strips out every brand of yoghurt?
Every shopping cart was in use. I went through the checkout line -- I'd picked up a loaf of raisinbread that had somehow been overlooked since I was there anyway -- and had a nice chat with the lady from the accounting department who had been pressed into service. Apparently, it had been frantic-horde-of-locusts all day.
The bottled water was all gone.
(Hello . . . People. What do you think is going to fall from the sky? Lead shot? Cornmeal?)
So I went across the street to Food Lion where they had milk and tortillas and lettuce, all of which I bought, and then I went home to hunker down, somewhat underprepared for Armegedon, but then, who among us is not?
I worked onward. Page 120. Page 185. Page 236. Every time I got so disgusted and weary I couldn't look at the galleys for one more minute I went in and made brownies or something else unhealthy. If I have to face the end of the world, I'm not going to do it on yoghurt.
You know how there are background tasks that go on when your computer is working on somethingelsealtogether? You can look at the task manager and see them in realtime, using up 5% of CPU or 8%.
That's how it is with me and the JUSTINE manuscript. All the time I'm proofing galley I'm working on JUSTINE in the background about 5%.
The good news is I changed my mind about how to handle the first lovescene in JUSTINE. I have a roughed-in a first draft of something unambitious in the way of tab A and slot B. But now I think I'm going to do something more risky. (Risky, not risqué. *g*)
So that's what I decided while I was snowed in with the galleys.
And the cat.
And the dog.
the photcredit for the supermarket is nsub1 and it's not me locally. but that's what it all looked like.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Prooding the glleys
Proofing the galleys, I mean.
This takes a while.
What you have is a copy of the manuscript,
your manuscript,
and YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO FIX IT
your manuscript,
and YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO FIX IT
except for typos.
If I could SEE the bloody typos I wouldn't have made them in the first place, now would I?
All I can see are things that it is too late to fix. Hah!
All I can see are things that it is too late to fix. Hah!
I find this frustrating and become forlorn.So I am including a picture of my cat because my cat is a very restful and centering creature even though she has the intelligence of bovril.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Plot, Story and Chapter One
The question was -- when do we start talking about the central conflict of a story? The first chapter?
Says I, at tedious length . . .
Fiction tells a story. 'Story' can usually be boiled down to a few sentences. The brevity is part of how you know you've got to the heart of the story. As in;
-- Luke Skywalker is called to become a hero. He overcomes his own doubts and fears, faces evil, and defeats it. He grows up.
-- Elizabeth Bennet must establish herself. Challenged by forces that attempt to abash and belittle her, she is steadfast in maintaining her own worth. This makes her the equal of a man of superior rank and she marries well.
-- Meg Murry must rescue her kidnapped brother. Her angry, adolescent stubbornness fuels her fight to his side, but it is a recognition of the mature and generous love inside her that saves him.
That is 'story'.
This is what the book is 'about'.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Kinds of Romance
I come up with a character and get to know her and I ask myself,
"What is her story?"
and
"Who does she deserve to get rewarded with after 347 pages of being brave and soul-searching and maybe getting shot at
or at least misquito-bit?"
In the most basic way, that's where the stories come from. From that heroine.
Other folks look at plots.
And they come up with lists of plots.
Which is kinda interesting and something that I would never do myself.
Find lists of Romance plots here, here, here, here.
The picture up top, in case you were wondering, is my very favorite photo from catsinsinks.com
Technical Topic -- What is 'voice'?
just on the chance it might be useful to someone.
Looking at Voice.
Not saying anything about how to write voice just here and now . . .
But looking at 'What is voice?'
When an author has a strong 'voice' you can flick the book open anywhere and the vocabulary choices, pacing, cadence, imagery and so on tell you that you have a Dorothy Dunnett in your hand as opposed to a Wodehouse or an Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers or Wilkie Collins.
These writers have a recognizable 'voice'. It is found everywhere in the book, in all character POVs.
Now, just to be confusing, we use the same word -- 'voice' -- when we talk about aspects of characterization.
Each character in a good work of fiction has a distinct voice in dialog. That's his 'voice'.
The same dialog 'voice' is found in the POV character's internals.
In POV we are also immersed in the POV character's distinct worldview and beliefs, the character's physicality, observations, memory, knowledge, and the character's emotional reactions.
These attitudes and motives are also part of the character's 'voice'.
A 'Narrator' may be added to a story as a distinct character. In this case, the Narrator will also have a distinct voice.
As a general rule, none of the character voices -- not even the Narrator --represents the author talking to the audience. A Narrator is just as much a fictional creation as Peter Rabbit.
So ...
-- An author's 'voice' is how the author writes every part of the story. Stephen King's voice or Emile Loring's voice.
-- Character 'voice' belongs to each fictive creation -- Heathcliffe or Eliza Dolittle or Sinbad the Sailor's voice. This character voice is found in (a) dialog, (b) the language of internals, (c) the constellation of belief, motive, and emotional response that is the character persona.
image attribution josephthornley
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Your suggestions welcome . . at Yale.
Want to add your comments/book suggestions to the
'Reading the Historical Romance' Course
at Yale?
In the comment trail, Cara Elliott (Andrea Pickens, Andrea DaRif ) writes:
*********
Hi Jo,
Thanks for posting the syllabus and reading list here. Lauren and I are having an amazing time teaching this course—the student discussions are wonderful!
I know we're going to get LOTS of comment about the reading lists. We know we've left off many great books, but we did it rather quickly and consider it a work in progress. Everyone should feel free to give us suggestions. Just visit my website and send me an e-mail.
Best,
Cara Elliott
**************
Information on the course here. Syllabus here. Supplemental Reading List here.
So many books . . . so little time ...
'Reading the Historical Romance' Course
at Yale?
In the comment trail, Cara Elliott (Andrea Pickens, Andrea DaRif ) writes:
*********
Hi Jo,
Thanks for posting the syllabus and reading list here. Lauren and I are having an amazing time teaching this course—the student discussions are wonderful!
I know we're going to get LOTS of comment about the reading lists. We know we've left off many great books, but we did it rather quickly and consider it a work in progress. Everyone should feel free to give us suggestions. Just visit my website and send me an e-mail.
Best,
Cara Elliott
**************
Information on the course here. Syllabus here. Supplemental Reading List here.
So many books . . . so little time ...
Bibliography of Romance Novels
In re the Academic Study of Romance.
For all you home gamers:
Here -- I don't know how long this will be posted so you may want to copy it -- is the
Supplemental Reading List for Yale College seminar, “Reading the Historical Romance Novel” Instructors: Andrea DaRif (Cara Elliott) and Lauren Willig
For all you home gamers:
Here -- I don't know how long this will be posted so you may want to copy it -- is the
Supplemental Reading List for Yale College seminar, “Reading the Historical Romance Novel” Instructors: Andrea DaRif (Cara Elliott) and Lauren Willig
First Chapters and The Central Conflict
In a discussion of whether stories should start with the central conflict
or not . . .
My characters hit the ground running. They are immediatrly in action that is directed literally or metaphorically towards the main plot conflict.
The last couple chapters solve the central problem.
I want my first chapter to open the central problem of the story.
And just to be holisitc and fancy about writing, I want an 'echo' between the beginning and the ending chapters.
If the conflict is resolved when (a) the hidden plans are disposed of and (b) the villain is foiled . . .
I want to open the story with the heroine being tortured by the villain in re the whereabouts of those plans.
(The Spymaster's Lady)
If the conflict is resolved when the heroine succeeds in (a) freeing the hero and (b) saving what is most valuable from the wreck of civilization . . .
I want the story to open with the heroine's determination to free the innocent and the wreck of civilization still smoking in the background.
(Forbidden Rose)
So, the first chapter is not just a hook, not just interesting action, not just:
this is where everything changes; this is the point of no return; this is the hero's worst day ever.
The first chapter sets the protagonist point blank against the central problem of the story. And he, (or in my case, she,) is taking action.
Galley of Forbidden Rose
Once upon a time this galley would have been a big ole pack of paper, brought to the door by UPS. Now it is a pdf file, and I print it out myself and mark it up and e-mail a list of corrections back to the admirable Editorial Assistant at Berkley.
This is much more efficient.
The galley is when you see 3000 things you want to change and you can fix 32 typos.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Some more questions
More questions --
And more, well, answers.
8) How did she . . . . put such nuances into her dialogue?
For me, dialog is something I hear.
A 'voice' comes from listening to people speak. The written language is helpful, but the heart of it is the sound.
If it's French accents, I have to go sit and listen to French people talk. I was lucky enough to live in France. There are movies with authentic French accents I think . . . (she says vaguely.)
East Enders is a good start for Cockney. I watched a lot of BBC.
Yorkshire dialect was Herriot and the movie Babe and the bits and pieces they have recorded on dialect sites.
I'd say you build a voice by spending days and weeks listening to the accent you want to reproduce. You keep at it till you 'hear' the voices in your head.
Trying to hear voices is not universally excellent advice, but it's good advice for writers.
9) Does she place hooks purposefully every half chapter?
I do?
I mean . . . yeah. Right. I do.
Ok. I don't know about planting hooks purposefully in any particular places, but I do want the reader to have questions about what's going to happen next. This is the narrative drive thingum.
10) Does she plan out her POV characters?
Oh dear.
Sorta.
In Spymaster's Lady I didn't do this very well, as a matter of fact.
What it is . . .
In a Romance genre book. you have two POV characters, the hero and heroine. This is right and traditional and works very well and it's what I fully intended to do. The two POVs go switching back and forth at frequent intervals so you see motivation from both sides.
I knew I'd be using more heroine POV than hero, because this is really 'her' story.
I ended up with three other POVs.
Sorta by accident.
I did the in-cuts with the villain in Omniscient Narrator. They're not in any character's POV. An example is the scene where the villain goes to the little hut on the beach and questions the fisherman about Annique leaving the Normandy coast. This is all written as if some undefined person was watching the scene.
Omniscient POV.
I had two other scenes that were supposed to be Omniscient Narrator.
Adrian is wading out to the smuggler's boat.
Galba is playing chess.
The scenes ended up in Adrian POV and Galba POV. I didn't plan this at the beginning, but when I came to writing the scenes, I just couldn't keep out of character POV.
It's bad technique to go wandering into random heads all the time, but then I went and did it because I thought it told the story better.
I'm weak.
11) What's been the reception - from the pub world and readers to Spy series?
People have said such wonderful things about the book.
For instance, the ALA listed it as the 2008 Romance genre book to recommend to Library readers. I am so surprised and pleased.
The funny thing is, I seem to get folks who like the book and people who hate the book with a burning passion.
Not so much in between.
Odd, that.
And more, well, answers.
8) How did she . . . . put such nuances into her dialogue?
For me, dialog is something I hear.
A 'voice' comes from listening to people speak. The written language is helpful, but the heart of it is the sound.
If it's French accents, I have to go sit and listen to French people talk. I was lucky enough to live in France. There are movies with authentic French accents I think . . . (she says vaguely.)
East Enders is a good start for Cockney. I watched a lot of BBC.
Yorkshire dialect was Herriot and the movie Babe and the bits and pieces they have recorded on dialect sites.
I'd say you build a voice by spending days and weeks listening to the accent you want to reproduce. You keep at it till you 'hear' the voices in your head.
Trying to hear voices is not universally excellent advice, but it's good advice for writers.
9) Does she place hooks purposefully every half chapter?
I do?
I mean . . . yeah. Right. I do.
Ok. I don't know about planting hooks purposefully in any particular places, but I do want the reader to have questions about what's going to happen next. This is the narrative drive thingum.
10) Does she plan out her POV characters?
Oh dear.
Sorta.
In Spymaster's Lady I didn't do this very well, as a matter of fact.
What it is . . .
In a Romance genre book. you have two POV characters, the hero and heroine. This is right and traditional and works very well and it's what I fully intended to do. The two POVs go switching back and forth at frequent intervals so you see motivation from both sides.
I knew I'd be using more heroine POV than hero, because this is really 'her' story.
I ended up with three other POVs.
Sorta by accident.
I did the in-cuts with the villain in Omniscient Narrator. They're not in any character's POV. An example is the scene where the villain goes to the little hut on the beach and questions the fisherman about Annique leaving the Normandy coast. This is all written as if some undefined person was watching the scene.
Omniscient POV.
I had two other scenes that were supposed to be Omniscient Narrator.
Adrian is wading out to the smuggler's boat.
Galba is playing chess.
The scenes ended up in Adrian POV and Galba POV. I didn't plan this at the beginning, but when I came to writing the scenes, I just couldn't keep out of character POV.
It's bad technique to go wandering into random heads all the time, but then I went and did it because I thought it told the story better.
I'm weak.
11) What's been the reception - from the pub world and readers to Spy series?
People have said such wonderful things about the book.
For instance, the ALA listed it as the 2008 Romance genre book to recommend to Library readers. I am so surprised and pleased.
The funny thing is, I seem to get folks who like the book and people who hate the book with a burning passion.
Not so much in between.
Odd, that.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Technical Topics -- Historical Words for Explicit Content
In the interest of providing useful bibliographies . . . here's a list of references for words in use in the Regency Period for explicit behavior.
You'll note a good many of these works are fifty or sixty years after the Regency. If you find a promising word or phrase in some later reference, you'll need to go back and check it.
Educated folks would have also read French and Latin erotic classics. The Satryicon was available in German in the Regency era, for instance.
The Slang Dictionary. Hotten. 1859. Here.
Grose's Classical Ditionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Pierce Egan. 1823. here.
A Physical View of Man and Woman in a State of Marriage. de Lignac. 1798. Here.
Dictionary of Slang, Jargon and Cant. Barrere and Leland. 1889 Here.
The Works of Francis Rabelais. Here .
Slang. Badcock. 1823. Here.
A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon and Cant. Leland. 1890. Here.
Philosophy in the Bedroom and 120 Days of Sodom. De Sade Here.
The Lustful Turk. John Benjamin Brookes. 1828. Here.
A Night in a Moorish Harem. Anon. 1896. Here.
Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs. John Davenport. 1869. here.
Autobiography of a Flea. Anon. 1901. Here.
My Secret Life. Anon. 1888. Here.
The Kama Sutra of Vatsayayana. Richard Burton. Here.
Liber Amoris or the New Pygmalian. William Hazlitt. 1823.here.
The London Bawd. Anon. 1705. here.
Memoirs of a Young Rakehell. Guillaume Appollinaire. 1907.Here.
The New Ladies Tickler. Anon. 1866. Here.
The Romance of Lust Anon. 1873. Here.
The Three Chums. Ridley. 1882. Here.
The Way of a Man with a Maid. Anon.
I don't know where this is free online, but it can be downloaded for a small fee several places.
ETA:
I'd recommend picking up C18 and C19 erotic wordage from the period literature rather than period dictionaries.
The couple few C18 slang 'dictionaries' are irreplaceable for confirmation of earliest date.
They're less reliable for showing usage.
What it is -- these early dictionaries were intended for entertainment rather than scholarly reference. They conflate clever one-offs, (a good many created by the author, I suspect,) with true slang.
So it's cute to call a coachman a 'Knight of the Whip'? as per Grosse, but it sounds like literary affectation, not what one character could say to another. And calling a whore an 'Athanasian wench'??
Not so much.
The slang, 'blowen' -- meaning a woman -- gets 630 hits on googlebooks for the 1700-1830 time period. 'Athanasian wench' appears only in Grosse.
So I'd pull erotic usage out of the literature and then check the dctionaries for confirmation. Or googlebook search.
I am just in love with googlebook search.
You'll note a good many of these works are fifty or sixty years after the Regency. If you find a promising word or phrase in some later reference, you'll need to go back and check it.
Educated folks would have also read French and Latin erotic classics. The Satryicon was available in German in the Regency era, for instance.
The Slang Dictionary. Hotten. 1859. Here.
Grose's Classical Ditionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Pierce Egan. 1823. here.
A Physical View of Man and Woman in a State of Marriage. de Lignac. 1798. Here.
Dictionary of Slang, Jargon and Cant. Barrere and Leland. 1889 Here.
The Works of Francis Rabelais. Here .
Slang. Badcock. 1823. Here.
A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon and Cant. Leland. 1890. Here.
Philosophy in the Bedroom and 120 Days of Sodom. De Sade Here.
The Lustful Turk. John Benjamin Brookes. 1828. Here.
A Night in a Moorish Harem. Anon. 1896. Here.
Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs. John Davenport. 1869. here.
Autobiography of a Flea. Anon. 1901. Here.
My Secret Life. Anon. 1888. Here.
The Kama Sutra of Vatsayayana. Richard Burton. Here.
Liber Amoris or the New Pygmalian. William Hazlitt. 1823.here.
The London Bawd. Anon. 1705. here.
Memoirs of a Young Rakehell. Guillaume Appollinaire. 1907.Here.
The New Ladies Tickler. Anon. 1866. Here.
The Romance of Lust Anon. 1873. Here.
The Three Chums. Ridley. 1882. Here.
The Way of a Man with a Maid. Anon.
I don't know where this is free online, but it can be downloaded for a small fee several places.
ETA:
I'd recommend picking up C18 and C19 erotic wordage from the period literature rather than period dictionaries.
The couple few C18 slang 'dictionaries' are irreplaceable for confirmation of earliest date.
They're less reliable for showing usage.
What it is -- these early dictionaries were intended for entertainment rather than scholarly reference. They conflate clever one-offs, (a good many created by the author, I suspect,) with true slang.
So it's cute to call a coachman a 'Knight of the Whip'? as per Grosse, but it sounds like literary affectation, not what one character could say to another. And calling a whore an 'Athanasian wench'??
Not so much.
The slang, 'blowen' -- meaning a woman -- gets 630 hits on googlebooks for the 1700-1830 time period. 'Athanasian wench' appears only in Grosse.
So I'd pull erotic usage out of the literature and then check the dctionaries for confirmation. Or googlebook search.
I am just in love with googlebook search.
Monday, January 25, 2010
More questions
Y'know, the whole blog thing is just a morass and murky swamp of talking about yerself. This is not -- despite abundant evidence to the contrary -- my favorite activity. I feel like Dickinson's dreary public frog.
So. More Questions and more Answers.
5) Any advice for unpublished writers?
Don't give up. Do work you're proud of. Have faith in yourself.
Sit down and write. Do it hour after hour, even when you think you're not producing good stuff.
And what is going to sound like contradicting those comments above --
Take joy in what you do.
6) What's next in this series?
Forbidden Rose will be out June 1. That's Maggie and Doyle's story. They meet during the French Revolution, at the height of the Terror.
7) Does she plot out the whole series first?
When I see this, I think, immediately, of Dorothy Dunnett. You look at the first scene of the first book of her House of Niccolo series and it is perfectly obvious Dunnett knew what was going to happen in the last scene of Book Eight.
I am not doing that,
on so many levels.
But, then, I'm not writing a series of books that tells a single story, so I don't have to plan out a whole story.
Instead, I'm basing distinct and separate stories in the same fictive universe. My characters intersect, not because one story leads to another, but because the 'world' I'm writing about is very small.
So. More Questions and more Answers.
5) Any advice for unpublished writers?
Don't give up. Do work you're proud of. Have faith in yourself.
Sit down and write. Do it hour after hour, even when you think you're not producing good stuff.
And what is going to sound like contradicting those comments above --
Take joy in what you do.
6) What's next in this series?
Forbidden Rose will be out June 1. That's Maggie and Doyle's story. They meet during the French Revolution, at the height of the Terror.
7) Does she plot out the whole series first?
When I see this, I think, immediately, of Dorothy Dunnett. You look at the first scene of the first book of her House of Niccolo series and it is perfectly obvious Dunnett knew what was going to happen in the last scene of Book Eight.
I am not doing that,
on so many levels.
But, then, I'm not writing a series of books that tells a single story, so I don't have to plan out a whole story.
Instead, I'm basing distinct and separate stories in the same fictive universe. My characters intersect, not because one story leads to another, but because the 'world' I'm writing about is very small.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Technical Topics -- POV
I've done a few exercises on POV over at Books and Writer's Community.
I gathered these together for somebody the other day, and it was all so neat and nifty I thought I'd just put the reference down here. Hope it is of use to somebody.
ETA: And here's the link again. Or, if it doesn't work, here it is written out:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4556266&postcount=19
The links to old exercises are down at the bottom of the post.
I gathered these together for somebody the other day, and it was all so neat and nifty I thought I'd just put the reference down here. Hope it is of use to somebody.
ETA: And here's the link again. Or, if it doesn't work, here it is written out:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4556266&postcount=19
The links to old exercises are down at the bottom of the post.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
More Questions
3) How long did it take you to write THE SPYMASTER'S LADY? Was it your first
manuscript?
It's not my first manuscript. I wrote a sweet Regency Romance for Avon back in the early dawn of the modern era. Then I went to work overseas and raised a couple kids and got busy writing lots of impenetrable technical non-fiction.
For years, I wrote fiction in little corners of time. I wasn't satisfied with any of it. I wanted to expand the scope of the story and I couldn't seem to do it. I have maybe four or five completed manuscripts trunked away.
Maybe I was learning my craft.
I dunnoh.
Somewhere in there I started playing with scenes that would eventually end up in the Spymaster's Lady manuscript. Worked on them a bit and didn't get far. I'd get all complicated and tangled up in plot. Put it away. Worked on some other projects.
Then in February of 2003 I got evacked out of Saudi Arabia to the US and found myself with time on my hands. I picked up the notes and bits of scenes I had in a folder for Spymaster's Lady. I liked my characters. I liked the scenes. The plot was garbage. But I could write another plot.
"Let's run with this one," I said to myself.
Eighteen months later the Spymaster's Lady manuscript was finished.
4) What was your journey to publication?
As I say, I finished Spymaster's Lady in mid 2005. It was on the shelves in July 2008. Three years.
First came the strange and horrible process of writing a query letter and a synopsis. And I started the next manuscript, because that's what you do when you are writing your query letters.
It was time to go agent hunting. I looked up the RWA list of agents who represented Historical Romance. I subscribed to Publisher's Marketplace. I bought Jeff Herman's Guide and the Writer's Guide to Literary Agents. I searched the web for the agents who represent my favorite authors.
I made spreadsheets. I googled agents.
I came up with a list of the five top agents I could possibly want. The dream agents. The A list.
I mailed out queries. I guess it was August.
By the end of the month, I had three requests for the full manuscript. A month after that, I got 'the call' and signed immediately.
This was all Good, Excellent, and Scary.
The agent began sending the manuscript out to publishers.
And I started collecting rejections from major publishers. I got six or seven of them. Some found the plot unlikely; some already had a full list of Regency Historicals; several liked the book but didn't think they could sell a French-set historical. One editor pointed out that I seemed to have problems with grammar and usage. Was English my native language?
The agent said not to be discouraged. Finish the next manuscript, she said. Spymaster's Lady would sell, but it might not sell as the first book.
Then, in December, an editor moved to a most desirable publisher. The agent sent Spymaster's Lady to her. On January 18 I sold the manuscript of Spymaster's Lady, (then called ANNEKA,) and a second, to-be-written manuscript, (that was JESSAMYN which became Lord and Spymaster,) in a two-book deal.
Spymaster's Lady hit the stands 18 months later.
photocredit. The bathtub is supposed to be a gift from Napoleon to somebody in Louisian, so it's a period bathtub
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Some questions
I received a few questions lately from a couple places. Thought I'd share the answers here. This is the first two questions.
Both, I think.
Way back at the start, first thing, I dream up my characters. I get a sense of the story I want to tell about them.
Then I write a 'plot outline' that says what happens.
Then I sit down to do the long, discursive, inefficient, stiff, stupid, misspelled, repetitive rough draft.
So the first thing that gets written down is a stark little outline of the action. This is plot. This is What Has to Happen.
This 'plotting' is sketchy. Think of those three-line blurbs you get from the TV guide.
What the plot outline looks like:
Scene: The Bad Guys fire through the windows in Meeks Street and run away. Nobody gets hurt.
or
Scene: Annique and Grey go walking along the Dover Road. Something exciting happens.
or
Couple of scenes: Annique gets away from Grey and goes to England.
So first I have the Story in my head. 'Annique grows up. Annique must make a choice.'
Then I come up with a plot. The plot is the set of actions I use to tell that Story. The plot is how I pace the action and set it in logical sequences. The plot gives me a structure where problems get presented one-by-one and then solved one-by-one or stored up to get solved at the end.
Then, when I have a plot, I sit down and tell the Story inside the plot structure.
So I would 'plot' a set of scenes of Annique and Grey walking the Dover Road. I know this has to be an 'on stage' journey because the action is there to give me space to do Relationship Stuff. Also, I need to give the reader a sense of time and space passing.
I plot that, 'something exciting happens,' because the hero and heroine can't go all that distance all smooth and easy like a couple of UPS packages.
But I don't know that somebody takes a shot at Annique till I sit down to write the rough draft.
I don't go into the rough draft cold. Even while I'm writing along, I'll be using my leisure time when I'm washing the dishes and chopping onions to think about the scenes that lie ahead. I remind myself of the practical stuff I have to accomplish and the pacing needs. I shuffle possible places and characters back and forth in my head.
By the time I sit down to write the first rough draft of the scene, I have pictures and dialog. I can drop into the scene. I can go in there and throw words down.
But the rough draft continually tosses up stuff I didn't plan. I never saw it coming. Stuff that surprises the heck out of me.
2) Did the idea for THE SPYMASTER'S LADY arise from your love of the time period or did you research as you wrote?
I was familiar with the time and place. Writing gave me an excuse to learn even more.
I knew I wanted to write genre Romance in the Napoleonic time period.
(Such sexy clothes.)
What I love about this era . . .
This two or three decades when the Eighteenth Century turned into the Nineteenth is the great watershed in how people in the Western World think about human rights and freedoms, about the importance of the individual.
There is a tremendous philosophical battle going on in this period. When the Declaration of Independence says -- "We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal." -- this is a New and Exciting Idea.
1) What's your process? Are you a plotter or does the story unfold as you write?
Both, I think.
Way back at the start, first thing, I dream up my characters. I get a sense of the story I want to tell about them.
Then I write a 'plot outline' that says what happens.
Then I sit down to do the long, discursive, inefficient, stiff, stupid, misspelled, repetitive rough draft.
This 'plotting' is sketchy. Think of those three-line blurbs you get from the TV guide.
What the plot outline looks like:
Scene: The Bad Guys fire through the windows in Meeks Street and run away. Nobody gets hurt.
or
Scene: Annique and Grey go walking along the Dover Road. Something exciting happens.
or
Couple of scenes: Annique gets away from Grey and goes to England.
So first I have the Story in my head. 'Annique grows up. Annique must make a choice.'
Then I come up with a plot. The plot is the set of actions I use to tell that Story. The plot is how I pace the action and set it in logical sequences. The plot gives me a structure where problems get presented one-by-one and then solved one-by-one or stored up to get solved at the end.
Then, when I have a plot, I sit down and tell the Story inside the plot structure.
So I would 'plot' a set of scenes of Annique and Grey walking the Dover Road. I know this has to be an 'on stage' journey because the action is there to give me space to do Relationship Stuff. Also, I need to give the reader a sense of time and space passing.
I plot that, 'something exciting happens,' because the hero and heroine can't go all that distance all smooth and easy like a couple of UPS packages.
But I don't know that somebody takes a shot at Annique till I sit down to write the rough draft.
I don't go into the rough draft cold. Even while I'm writing along, I'll be using my leisure time when I'm washing the dishes and chopping onions to think about the scenes that lie ahead. I remind myself of the practical stuff I have to accomplish and the pacing needs. I shuffle possible places and characters back and forth in my head.
By the time I sit down to write the first rough draft of the scene, I have pictures and dialog. I can drop into the scene. I can go in there and throw words down.
But the rough draft continually tosses up stuff I didn't plan. I never saw it coming. Stuff that surprises the heck out of me.
2) Did the idea for THE SPYMASTER'S LADY arise from your love of the time period or did you research as you wrote?
I was familiar with the time and place. Writing gave me an excuse to learn even more.
I knew I wanted to write genre Romance in the Napoleonic time period.
(Such sexy clothes.)
What I love about this era . . .
This two or three decades when the Eighteenth Century turned into the Nineteenth is the great watershed in how people in the Western World think about human rights and freedoms, about the importance of the individual.
There is a tremendous philosophical battle going on in this period. When the Declaration of Independence says -- "We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal." -- this is a New and Exciting Idea.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Progress on JUSTINE
I'm 16,600 words into the first rough draft.
Maybe this sounds like lots of words. But not so much. These are wild, whirling, mostly useless words that are me seeing the story in a blurry way and reporting on it very fast as the film runs by.
Most of the words will never make it into the final manuscript. What the First Rough Draft mostly does is show the shape of the scenes.
First Rough Draft Progress:
Now I'm also about 4000 words into the 120,000 words that will make up the second draft.
Why I'm setting toe into the second draft . . .
Normally I'd finish Draft One all the way through before I started Draft Two,
but I needed chapters to send in with the book proposal, so I took the first four chapters of the rough draft and polished them up a bit.
Second Draft Progress:
The sun came in through the window this morning, so I thought I'd share with anyone who's clouded over today.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Technical Topics -- Using somebody else's words
Sometimes you want to use somebody else's words.
Can you? How do you? And how do you tell everybody you've done this?
Couple or three thoughts here.
1) Copyright.
Public Domain: If you're quoting something that's in the public domain you don't have to get anyone's permission. Stuff before 1923 is almost always in the public domain.
Here's the skinny on copyright and fair use.
If you write, you should know this stuff.
Here's a chart on what's in the public domain.
Copyright Protected: If something is inside copyright protection, a couple dozen words from a book or movie can be used without permission. That is Fair Use. Poems and songs, on the other hand, just about cannot be quoted. The titles of poems and songs can be.
Phrases in common usage do not need permission, even if they were also lyrics of a song.
He pulled his fur hood up over his head. "You sure as hell don't need to be a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
Phrases now in common usage that originated as the lyrics of songs do not need permission.
I came out of CrossStictches, clutching two huge sacks of fabric remnants.
"That seems thorough." But he opened the car door for me.
"Let's just say I am a material girl."
2) Plagiarism.
You're not going to do this on purpose, but you also want to avoid looking like you're stealing words.
-- If a character is obviously quoting something, you don't have to attribute it to avoid the appearance of plagiarism. There is a presumption that a character in the process of quoting is using language that is not the author's.
"Our revels now are ended." Blood seeped from the side of his mouth. "And out little life . . . " he coughed, trying to get breath into him, "is rounded by a . . . a sleep."
-- If the words are well known, you do not need to attribute them.
Professor Marvin was the burning bright tyger of the Physics faculty and his fearful symmetry tried the patience of many a grad student.
She picked up her drink and looked me straight in the eyes. "What you have to ask yourself, punk," she smiled, "is, 'Do you feel lucky?'"
In deciding whether this is well-known language, you may assume an educated audience.
3) What to attribute
If your words are not a character quoting, not a borrowing made obvious from context, and not words recognizable to an educated reader,
then you should attribute.
You do this whether the words are in copyright or not. If you got permission to quote copyright material, you mention this
If you have been influenced by someone else's ideas, it is graceful to acknowledge this.
4) How to attribute.
-- You can insert the information that this is a borrowed language into the story itself.
"My luv is like a red, red rose." He grinned. "Sweetly sprung."
"Don't drag Bobbie Burns into this. What did you do with the guard?"
-- If you have just lots and lots of this attribution to do and many many choice factoids to add and historical wonders to expound upon, you can put do this in notes at the end.
I would advise against trying out footnotes until you are multipubbed and have acquired a reputation for eccentricity.
-- If you have just a few attributions to make, put them in the acknowledgements.
-- You use language like:
Every reader will recognize Captain Nemo's Nautilus in my 'Deep Challenger'.
The words, "Debts must be paid. The books must balance." come from the incomparable storyteller Robert A Heinlein.
My robots, like many before them, follow the Three Rules of Robotics laid down by Isaac Asimov.
The paragraph beginning, "The American Revolution was one cocked-up mess of a dogfight . . ." is taken from Marc Sigusmund's 'A Manifesto for Trumpet and Pennywhistle.'
-- End notes are submitted along with the manuscript.
The acknowledgements page, like the dedication, can be sent in with the manuscript, or you can add them at the time of the copyedits. You will be prompted to do so by the wise and canny editorial assistant.
Can you? How do you? And how do you tell everybody you've done this?
Couple or three thoughts here.
1) Copyright.
Public Domain: If you're quoting something that's in the public domain you don't have to get anyone's permission. Stuff before 1923 is almost always in the public domain.
Here's the skinny on copyright and fair use.
If you write, you should know this stuff.
Here's a chart on what's in the public domain.
Copyright Protected: If something is inside copyright protection, a couple dozen words from a book or movie can be used without permission. That is Fair Use. Poems and songs, on the other hand, just about cannot be quoted. The titles of poems and songs can be.
Phrases in common usage do not need permission, even if they were also lyrics of a song.
He pulled his fur hood up over his head. "You sure as hell don't need to be a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
Phrases now in common usage that originated as the lyrics of songs do not need permission.
I came out of CrossStictches, clutching two huge sacks of fabric remnants.
"That seems thorough." But he opened the car door for me.
"Let's just say I am a material girl."
2) Plagiarism.
You're not going to do this on purpose, but you also want to avoid looking like you're stealing words.
-- If a character is obviously quoting something, you don't have to attribute it to avoid the appearance of plagiarism. There is a presumption that a character in the process of quoting is using language that is not the author's.
"Our revels now are ended." Blood seeped from the side of his mouth. "And out little life . . . " he coughed, trying to get breath into him, "is rounded by a . . . a sleep."
-- If the words are well known, you do not need to attribute them.
Professor Marvin was the burning bright tyger of the Physics faculty and his fearful symmetry tried the patience of many a grad student.
She picked up her drink and looked me straight in the eyes. "What you have to ask yourself, punk," she smiled, "is, 'Do you feel lucky?'"
In deciding whether this is well-known language, you may assume an educated audience.
3) What to attribute
If your words are not a character quoting, not a borrowing made obvious from context, and not words recognizable to an educated reader,
then you should attribute.
You do this whether the words are in copyright or not. If you got permission to quote copyright material, you mention this
If you have been influenced by someone else's ideas, it is graceful to acknowledge this.
4) How to attribute.
-- You can insert the information that this is a borrowed language into the story itself.
"My luv is like a red, red rose." He grinned. "Sweetly sprung."
"Don't drag Bobbie Burns into this. What did you do with the guard?"
-- If you have just lots and lots of this attribution to do and many many choice factoids to add and historical wonders to expound upon, you can put do this in notes at the end.
I would advise against trying out footnotes until you are multipubbed and have acquired a reputation for eccentricity.
-- If you have just a few attributions to make, put them in the acknowledgements.
-- You use language like:
Every reader will recognize Captain Nemo's Nautilus in my 'Deep Challenger'.
The words, "Debts must be paid. The books must balance." come from the incomparable storyteller Robert A Heinlein.
My robots, like many before them, follow the Three Rules of Robotics laid down by Isaac Asimov.
The paragraph beginning, "The American Revolution was one cocked-up mess of a dogfight . . ." is taken from Marc Sigusmund's 'A Manifesto for Trumpet and Pennywhistle.'
-- End notes are submitted along with the manuscript.
The acknowledgements page, like the dedication, can be sent in with the manuscript, or you can add them at the time of the copyedits. You will be prompted to do so by the wise and canny editorial assistant.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Covers
just because I felt like posting covers ...
ETA: I have moved the covers below the fold so they will not slow the loading of the blog for slow machines.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Creativity
In the comment trail of the post below, the one on 'The odds of getting published,' I was nattering on about the creative process. I have a certain stake in this, being in one of those particularly creative professions, like knitting or cooking or being a confidence trickster.
So I pondered about process a bit.
Whether a writer comes up with cool-and-wonderful creative or three-day-old-mackerel creative, I think it's the same process. That is, good writers, mediocre writers and downright poor writers probably all go about it in pretty much the same ways. There's not one supergood process and fifty bad ones.
Being organizational here,
(I do love to sort and categorize,)
you got . . . hmmm . . . three paths to creation,
says I.
The Boys in the Basement Process.
And the,
I Haz Got Muse Process.
Though it occurs to me Mystery writers, being plot heavy, might tend to go more with the brick-and-mortar approach.
And LitFic writers may be more 'muse oriented', them being above the crass commercial need to create a comprehensible plot or deliver on deadline,
(Is this so? I darkly suspect LitFic writers claim an innate superiority for the muse method by virtue of its being associated with The Gigantic Importantness of Teh Literary Fic. Hah, says I.)
But I digress.
Anyhow,
if a person's creative process leans toward the bricklayer -- or they can learn to be creative in that way -- they've got a commercial writing process.
I'd call myself 40% bricklayer and 60% Boys in the Basement.
So I pondered about process a bit.
Whether a writer comes up with cool-and-wonderful creative or three-day-old-mackerel creative, I think it's the same process. That is, good writers, mediocre writers and downright poor writers probably all go about it in pretty much the same ways. There's not one supergood process and fifty bad ones.
Being organizational here,
(I do love to sort and categorize,)
you got . . . hmmm . . . three paths to creation,
says I.
The Bricklayer Process.
'I sketch the plan and get out my measuring tape and blue chalk line. I keep laying bricks down till I have a barbecue.'
'My subconscious does the work. I toss a hook down into my mind and pull up pictures and ideas.'
And the,
'There's a force that comes from outside. If it comes to me, I write furiously. When it doesn't, I can't write.'
Most writerly folk combine these methods, doing a bit of one and a bit of the other.
It's not about being good writers or bad writers, skilled writers, hack writers, wildly unusual writers, commonplace and predictable writers, LitFic writers, Romance writers in upstate Maine, S.F. writers, or Steampunk writers with purple hair. I think everybody uses roughly the same methods.
It's not about being good writers or bad writers, skilled writers, hack writers, wildly unusual writers, commonplace and predictable writers, LitFic writers, Romance writers in upstate Maine, S.F. writers, or Steampunk writers with purple hair. I think everybody uses roughly the same methods.
And LitFic writers may be more 'muse oriented', them being above the crass commercial need to create a comprehensible plot or deliver on deadline,
(Is this so? I darkly suspect LitFic writers claim an innate superiority for the muse method by virtue of its being associated with The Gigantic Importantness of Teh Literary Fic. Hah, says I.)
But I digress.
Anyhow,
if a person's creative process leans toward the bricklayer -- or they can learn to be creative in that way -- they've got a commercial writing process.
When a writer leans towards having a muse -- they may be less commercial. Writing to deadline gets iffy when you have to wait till Godot the muse shows up.
I don't have any sense of an outside force at all. The work is all me.
The whole 'muse thingum strikes me as slightly creepy, in fact.
The creative part of writing feels like . . .
(I'd be happy to hear what anyone else's creative process feels like.)
(I'd be happy to hear what anyone else's creative process feels like.)
I have a sense of myself as an island of awareness floating on a vast dark sea of unawareness. Creation happens down there in the madness and dreams.
Up on the island I do the story organizing and the plot bricklaying and the chinking and tapping of individual words into place.
But the 'making up' of the story' . . . not so much.The creative process is me settling down and trying to go to that, 'near sleep state.' I build up a mental nugget of what I need. I say to that ocean in my mind -- "I need to hear and see the scene where Hawker and Justine meet at the foot of the guillotine."
I let go. I jump overboard and sink into this sea of translucent, formless crazy. The process is dreaming.
The process is watching
shimmerystrangecreatures swim by. I grab some of them and yank on the rope to get pulled back up.
The process is watching
shimmerystrangecreatures swim by. I grab some of them and yank on the rope to get pulled back up.
Then, at the top, safe on the dock again, I lay my catch out on the boards and turn over what I got. I have to write this down before the flopping bright critters turn into clear water and leak out between the cracks. Even when I pick 'em up for a good look, they're already running away through my fingers.
The good scenes, the ones that 'ring' right, come to me this way.
cat and mice cc attrib TanyaT, dog and cat image attrib GNU Wolf Howard
The good scenes, the ones that 'ring' right, come to me this way.
cat and mice cc attrib TanyaT, dog and cat image attrib GNU Wolf Howard
Friday, January 01, 2010
New Words
Reading here, The Lake Superior State University 2010 List of Banished Words.
They dislike; tweet, app, friend as a verb, shovel-ready, toxic assets, stimulus as in stimulus package, teachable moment, transparency in terms of public access, czar, bromance, sextexting, chillaxin', In these economic times, too big to fail, and Obama-prefix-suffix.
It's odd that I should be more flexible than a bunch of college kids . . . but I actively like about half of these.
Tweet, app, and 'friend as a verb' are all cases where new technology has created new behavior. We need words to describe a new world.
These delight me.
I am especially pleased that the old, old word 'friend' is not weakened by this new use.
I'm also a fan of technical jargon.
Now, I may not be fond of 'deplane' or 'preboarding', which are about as ugly as words can be, but most technical jargon -- 'boot', 'baby-catcher', 'WIP', 'malware', 'just-in-time', 'shrinkage' -- is wonderful. Working people create useful, thumping, earthy, in-the-field, kinda words.
While I haven't come across it myself, shovel-ready strikes me as one of these useful terms. It's colorful and clear. I can think of several phrases that mean the same thing, but not a better single word.
Toxic assets -- technical jargon -- comes from those hands-on economists-in-the-field. Toxic asset has a limited and specific meaning. Why spend ten words describing this concept when two will do? I can't understand the objection.
Stimulus, when reffing the Stimulus Package components, is also technical jargon, and useful in that narrow technical sense. It's confusing when anyone applies it beyond that immediate and specific usage. I wish they had come up with a more distinct jargon word for the bill.
Teachable moment, OTOH, is pseudo-jargon. It's 'invented' jargon introduced by folks whose job is not to do work, but to write about doing work and invent jargon for it. Bad phrase. Bad Bad. Nauseating language.
Transparency is not a new word, of course, but a hazy and poorly defined usage of a lovely old one. That hazinessis deliberate. Transparent is the word we use to speak of public access when we do not want to use words like honesty or openness.
Not an admirable word in this guise, but a useful one that has no exact replacement.
Moving to those words and phrases I agree we could do quite well without ...
Czar, to mean 'maven' or 'head honcho' or 'high muckety-muck', was apt in its early use, wearisome now that it has become diluted and routine. We will eventually have Parks and Recreation Czars in every small town. Refreshment Committee Czars at the church social.
I wish this usage would just disappear. I have many wishes about words. If wishes were horses, I would be trampled to death every time I opened a book.
Sextexting will, I believe, disappear as a redundancy. Sexxing, however, is here to stay. Bromance will be, thank God, temporary. Metrosexual will probably last. Chillaxin' became dork-speak immediately after coinage. This will not be recognized by the people who use it.
Catch phases like, in these economic times, too big to fail, and Obama-prefix-suffix merely remind us that folks who write about politics are not very original. This flock of honking geese will fly overhead and be replaced by the next lot.
They dislike; tweet, app, friend as a verb, shovel-ready, toxic assets, stimulus as in stimulus package, teachable moment, transparency in terms of public access, czar, bromance, sextexting, chillaxin', In these economic times, too big to fail, and Obama-prefix-suffix.
It's odd that I should be more flexible than a bunch of college kids . . . but I actively like about half of these.
Tweet, app, and 'friend as a verb' are all cases where new technology has created new behavior. We need words to describe a new world.
These delight me.
I am especially pleased that the old, old word 'friend' is not weakened by this new use.
I'm also a fan of technical jargon.
Now, I may not be fond of 'deplane' or 'preboarding', which are about as ugly as words can be, but most technical jargon -- 'boot', 'baby-catcher', 'WIP', 'malware', 'just-in-time', 'shrinkage' -- is wonderful. Working people create useful, thumping, earthy, in-the-field, kinda words.
While I haven't come across it myself, shovel-ready strikes me as one of these useful terms. It's colorful and clear. I can think of several phrases that mean the same thing, but not a better single word.
Toxic assets -- technical jargon -- comes from those hands-on economists-in-the-field. Toxic asset has a limited and specific meaning. Why spend ten words describing this concept when two will do? I can't understand the objection.
Stimulus, when reffing the Stimulus Package components, is also technical jargon, and useful in that narrow technical sense. It's confusing when anyone applies it beyond that immediate and specific usage. I wish they had come up with a more distinct jargon word for the bill.
Teachable moment, OTOH, is pseudo-jargon. It's 'invented' jargon introduced by folks whose job is not to do work, but to write about doing work and invent jargon for it. Bad phrase. Bad Bad. Nauseating language.
Transparency is not a new word, of course, but a hazy and poorly defined usage of a lovely old one. That haziness
Not an admirable word in this guise, but a useful one that has no exact replacement.
Moving to those words and phrases I agree we could do quite well without ...
Czar, to mean 'maven' or 'head honcho' or 'high muckety-muck', was apt in its early use, wearisome now that it has become diluted and routine. We will eventually have Parks and Recreation Czars in every small town. Refreshment Committee Czars at the church social.
I wish this usage would just disappear. I have many wishes about words. If wishes were horses, I would be trampled to death every time I opened a book.
Sextexting will, I believe, disappear as a redundancy. Sexxing, however, is here to stay. Bromance will be, thank God, temporary. Metrosexual will probably last. Chillaxin' became dork-speak immediately after coinage. This will not be recognized by the people who use it.
Catch phases like, in these economic times, too big to fail, and Obama-prefix-suffix merely remind us that folks who write about politics are not very original. This flock of honking geese will fly overhead and be replaced by the next lot.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Technical Topic -- The Odds of Getting Published
I was looking at the question --
What are the odds of getting published?
And the answer, of course, is that if you write a super manuscript that makes folks laugh and cry and forget to feed the hamster,
the odds are very good indeed.
Which is an answer not so much brimming with The Useful, is it?
. . . Since it's hard to figure out how to write such a manuscript and if you know the secret would you please share it with me.
But when folks ask, 'What are the odds?'
They are really asking --
"Do I have a chance of getting published?
Is this is a wild, impossible dream
or hard but doable?
Is getting published like the odds of getting struck by lighning, or more like the odds of playing professional football, or is it an abducted-by-aliens thing, or what?
Answering in a simple, literal manner ... I'd point to here where a reader for a literary agent looks at 'hundreds and hundreds' of slushpile submissions to find two writers who can be signed.
Not so good odds, overall.
Trying to be helpful, I could go on to talk about football tryouts and being 6'6", 280 lbs and spending 40 hours a week thumping heads.
Or about standing on high ridges in thunderstorms holding a long metal pole.
I don't feel so competent addressing the whole abducted-by-aliens scenario.
But let's say I riff on the unspoken question.
Which is -- 'What are MY chances?'
It is very hard to get published. There's a lot of competition.
--You have to be persistent. (This is in your control.)
--You have to work your butt off. (This is in your control.)
--You have to learn your craft. (This is in your control.)
--You are more likely to succeed if you consciously produce something in a marketable field. (This is in your control.)
--You have to write better than what is on the shelves. (This is only partially in your control.)
-- You need an innate ability to write. (This is not in your control.)
--You have to be lucky. (This is not in your control.)
Maybe, 'What are the odds?' is not a useful question.
'How can I improve the odds?' is.
What are the odds of getting published?
And the answer, of course, is that if you write a super manuscript that makes folks laugh and cry and forget to feed the hamster,
the odds are very good indeed.
Which is an answer not so much brimming with The Useful, is it?
. . . Since it's hard to figure out how to write such a manuscript and if you know the secret would you please share it with me.
But when folks ask, 'What are the odds?'
They are really asking --
"Do I have a chance of getting published?
Is this is a wild, impossible dream
or hard but doable?
Is getting published like the odds of getting struck by lighning, or more like the odds of playing professional football, or is it an abducted-by-aliens thing, or what?
Answering in a simple, literal manner ... I'd point to here where a reader for a literary agent looks at 'hundreds and hundreds' of slushpile submissions to find two writers who can be signed.
Not so good odds, overall.
Trying to be helpful, I could go on to talk about football tryouts and being 6'6", 280 lbs and spending 40 hours a week thumping heads.
Or about standing on high ridges in thunderstorms holding a long metal pole.
I don't feel so competent addressing the whole abducted-by-aliens scenario.
But let's say I riff on the unspoken question.
Which is -- 'What are MY chances?'
It is very hard to get published. There's a lot of competition.
--You have to be persistent. (This is in your control.)
--You have to work your butt off. (This is in your control.)
--You have to learn your craft. (This is in your control.)
--You are more likely to succeed if you consciously produce something in a marketable field. (This is in your control.)
--You have to write better than what is on the shelves. (This is only partially in your control.)
-- You need an innate ability to write. (This is not in your control.)
--You have to be lucky. (This is not in your control.)
Maybe, 'What are the odds?' is not a useful question.
'How can I improve the odds?' is.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
We begin
My mind goes to a strange place when I begin imagining a new story.
I embark upon JUSTINE.
I push away from the shore and see where the winds take me.
I have a map on board somewhere here. And a compass.
I'll consult them eventually.
I use the minutes when I'm falling asleep to see the story. This is a rich time for imagining, of course, but I don't remember it all.
Good stuff, lost.
Maybe it shows up someday in the writing. I hope so anyway.
Good stuff, lost.
Maybe it shows up someday in the writing. I hope so anyway.
In my dreams, I'm keeping a blog. I see the words on the screen. I edit. I write. And there's a story I'm working on in my dream.
So weird.
So weird.
In something approaching IRL . . .
I'm making the jump from my beloved old computer to a new one. These are two identical machines, so it's like some schizophrenic alter ego that looks the same but doesn't have the defaults set right.
I have a newer version of Internet Explorer.
It annoys me.
It annoys me.
Next on the agenda is to move everything from the old machine over to the new machine.
It is as if I were Robinson Crusoe unloading the wreck of the ship before it is finally washed away, salvaging one more barrel of nails. Rescuing one shovel, one coil of rope.
I put this dreadful day off till I was finished with Forbidden.
The old machine -- four or five years old now -- became more and more unreliable. I'd be typing away and some keys would stop working. Sometimes the A and the Z would become inert. Sometimes the shift key. Sometimes the M. One never knew.
The old machine -- four or five years old now -- became more and more unreliable. I'd be typing away and some keys would stop working. Sometimes the A and the Z would become inert. Sometimes the shift key. Sometimes the M. One never knew.
So exciting.
And the whole shebang turned off at random intervals, taking all my work down with it.
Like the copyedits I was dealing with
under deadline.
under deadline.
These things are sent to try us.
So now I must get the new machine up to speed
and do the galleys.
And the kitchen floor . . .. . . must eventually be washed.
and do the galleys.
And the kitchen floor . . .
And I'm starting on JUSTINE.
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