DABWAHA rides again

Like, wow

I was idly dropping by to see who would be in DABWAHA this year.  And, oh wow, Black Hawk is in there.

Let me repeat that.  Black Hawk is in DABWAHA.

Wow.



Now, you are probably muttering, "DABWHAT?"

Let me tell you about it. 

DABWAHA is a yearly contest put on by Dear Author and Smart Bitches where Romance and quasi-Romance books slug it out for world domination.
For information on the contest and how to play (vote) see here. 

Lookit   here   for the DABWAHA books. 
DABWAHA always has great books and if you haven't read all seven of the Historical Romances in contention, I am led to a 'Why Not?'

Anyhow, here's the list.
(Click on the author to go to author website.)

• One Night is Never Enough by Anne Mallory
• Unveiled by Courtney Milan
• Sea Change by Darlene Marshall
• Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne
• What I Did for a Duke by Julie Ann Long
• Silk is For Seduction by Loretta Chase
• The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton by Miranda Neville

I'm going to add some others that are not Historical Romances, but they are particularly cool.

• Heart of Steel  by Meljean Brook
• A Lot Like Love by Julie James
• The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley
• Fate’s Edge by Ilona Andrews

Now.  Here's a suggestion of how you can help promote works you admire.

In DABWAHA, you not only get to vote and participate and cheer your favorites on.   YOU  -- yes, you. (don't go looking over your shoulder) -- YOU get to nominate your favorites for the contest, one in each category.  Go  here   to add your favorite book that somehow got overlooked in the mad scramble.

I nominated:

Mercedes Lackey's Beauty and the Werewolf in SciFi  ISBN 0373803281
Grace Burrowes' The Virtuoso in Historical Romance  ISBN 1402245701
C.S. Harris' Where Shadows Dance in Crossover  ISBN 0451233956

because those are all three just excellent.

The AAR recognition and . . . rejoicing in Fictionville

Most excellent reader Valerie G writes to tell me she sees the celebration this way:

Congratulations on the AAR reader's poll recognition of The Black Hawk, Adrian and Justine!  Richly deserved!

In their universe, I imagine there's rejoicing all round.

There will be a celebration to honor Justine and Adrian at Doyle's place in the country, with presents for the happy couple.  Doyle, Grey, Sebastian and Pax chip in on a pair of matched knives, perfectly balanced for throwing, of course. (Later in the evening, Adrian tests them against the mantelpiece.). Ladislaus gives them a set of fake identity papers, because - well, you can never have too many sets of fake identity papers.

Annique, Jess, and Camille present a silver tea service that Maggie picked out. Severine thinks about baking something, but Maggie talks her out of it.  Carruthers sends a cactus.  Felicity scowls, so they know she's genuinely pleased.

The party goes on late into the night (or early into the morning, depending on how you look at it) with equal parts champagne and shared stories of the Game...

Giving a Workshop

I'll be giving a workshop on Point of View at a library near Richmond Virginia.

Here's the general information, at the library website.

And, more specifically, what's on offer --

Chesterfield County Public Library Writers' Workshop

Saturday, March 10, 9:30 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Meadowdale Branch Library

4301 Meadowdale Blvd., Richmond 23234

Registration $25.00 per person.

Registration Deadline Friday, March 2

The presenters:

Mollie Bryan:  The Mystery Writer’s Toolbox

Valley Haggard:  The Art of Creative Nonfiction

Valley Haggard:  Blasting through Writer’s Block

Joanna Bourne:  Point of View:  Dive into Your Character’s Head

Registration Includes a box lunch by Positive Vibe Café  

Please call Blanche DePonte at 804-717-6381 for more information. Registration forms will be available at all Chesterfield Public Libraries or can be downloaded and printed from their website library.chesterfield.gov

Technical Topics -- Character Description

Someone was asking whether they should pour out the whole description of a a character all at once -- which might be dull -- or chop it up some and spread it out over a chapter or two.

It occurred to me that this was missing the point somewhat.

So I thought a few scattered thoughts on describing characters.
 
When you describe a character, you can give a mere list of the obvious. Hair color, eye color, what he's wearing, height, skin tone. But description is more interesting and useful when it serves a secondary purpose. That's thrifty writing.

So we describe our characters and do something else as well.  Here's three or four of the several ways to add value to character description:
(ETA, I made that five ways.)

1) You can tell story with description. Make the appearance part of the ongoing action. The description shows result of what has been and intention for what is coming. You could think of it as description propelled by the action.

Not -- 'he had blue eyes'.
So much as -- 'he opened blue eyes, bloodshot from last night's bender'.

Not -- 'she had brown hair, worn long'.
But -- 'She wrestled with wind-tangled brown hair, taming it before she walked into the meeting.'

Not -- He was a huge, rough-looking man with a scar on his face and gray streaks in his hair. He dressed in the respectable, worn clothing a laborer might wear.

But -- He was dressed like a laborer today . . . a big, ugly, thuggish, barely respectable giant in sturdy clothes. His hair was wet and the gray streaks didn’t show. The scar that ran down his cheek was fake. The imperturbable strength wasn’t.

See how the first set of these is a static description. The second is a description that could only be right in that exact moment.
We don't just say, 'this is how Doyle looks', we imply he has looked different in the past.  It's not how he happens to look; his appearance is related to the rain outside.

2) We do not just see our fellow; we see him through one specific set of eyes. The POV character adds value, insight and weight to the description. The description turns around and reveals that POV character.

She watched him work for a moment, disquieted by the edged beauty of his face. Lines of his hair fell in thin slashes of black. His lips were strongly marked.


She was totally feminine in every movement, indefinably French. With her coloring—black hair, pale skin, eyes of that dark indigo blue—she had to be pure Celt. She’d be from the west of France. Brittany, maybe. Annique was a Breton name. She carried the magic of the Celt in her, used it to weave that fascination the great courtesans created. Even as he watched, she licked her lips again and wriggled deliberately, sensually. A man couldn’t look away.


Could that description of Hawker come from anyone but Justine?  Could Annique be seen that way by anyone but Grey, right then, right there, in their prison?

3) Description is not a 'fill in the blanks' list of things we need to convey. It's part of an overall impression. We do not need to be only literal. For the larger portrait, we mix physical details with metaphor and symbol, story history, archetype. Give the hair color, shape of nose, texture of skin.  Sure. But also enmesh them in meaning when you do it.  Imbed them in the intangibles of the character you are creating.

She had the face of an ardent Viking. Strands of wet hair lay along the spare curve of her cheek, outlining the bones. Her eyes were the color of Baltic amber.

He was young to be captain. Thirty, maybe. He had black hair and a big beak of a nose, and sailor skin, dark and rough, burned by suns that weren't polite and English. Colorful splotches of blood were drying on his shirt. That would be her blood, probably.


4) We use the small details and all the senses.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted a street whore. This one was fresh as a daisy, clean and sweet. She smelled of soap and flowers and spices. Even her fingernails were clean.


ETA:  The comment trail, and a comment elsewhere, brought to mind another common use of character description.  This uses description for a structural purpose. 

5)  Let's say you're going to step outside the on-going action, bring the narrative drive to a screeching halt, slow the pacing to molasses, and do some backstorying or philosophizing.  Character Description is a great way to segue into the internals you're laying down.  Backstory, for instance.  

Lookit here.  We're fairly early into Black Hawk and I'm filling in the What Has Gone Before column. 

“She’ll make it. She’s hard to kill.”

“Many have tried.”

Her hair spread everywhere on the pillow. Light-brown hair, honey hair, so soft and smooth it looked edible. He knew how it felt, wrapped around his fingers. Knew how her breasts fitted into his hands. He knew the weight and shape and strength of her legs when they drew him into her.

A long time ago, she’d shot him. They’d been friends, and then lovers, and then enemies. Spies, serving different sides of the war.

The war was over, this last year or two. Sometimes, he walked outside the shop she kept and looked in. Sometimes, he found a spot outside and watched for a while, just to see what she looked like these days.

The last time they'd exchanged words, she'd promised to kill him.  He hadn't expected her on his doorstep, half-dead, running from an enemy of her own.
 
I have the most dangerous woman in London in my bed.  


That's description opening the door to backstory.  We go in the order:
a) See her now. 
b) Think about her then.
c) Talk about the past.
d) Bring it back to the present. In this case I do that with a line of Internal Monolog.




ETA2: It occurs to me that I didn't really answer the question at the top.  
How long can a piece of Character Description be?  

Keep it short.  

Do not indulge in the flowery crap that readers skip anyhow.  
Doesn't matter how beautiful the words are, they have to earned a place in the story with something more than pretty.
This here is a famous example of what readers skip. 

I don't say you can't describe at length.  But if you've written more than half a page of Character Description, you should probably go back and reconsider.

Hoo Boy, Black Hawk is Best Romance at All About Romance

Oh wow.

Black Hawk has made an incredible showing in the All About Romance Reader's Poll.
Here.

(People liked it!!  They really liked it!  Lookit!  Lookit!)
(hyperventilates and uses up most of her exclamation points for 2012.)



Go here to see the covers of the other wonderful books readers chose.  You can click right through and have a close look and buy.  It's a wonderful list because these are fellow readers talking to you. 

This is the great stuff that came out in 2011.  Something for everybody.


Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews
Seduction of a Highland Lass, Maya Banks
The Black Hawk, Joanna Bourne
The Perfect Play, Jaci Burton
Silk is for Seduction by Loretta Chase
The Other Guy's Bride, Connie Brockway
Breaking Point, Pamela Clare
Dragon Bound, Thea Harrison
My One and Only, Kristan Higgins

Notorious Pleasures, Elizabeth Hoyt
Fifty Shades of Grey, E.L. James
When Beauty Tamed the Beast, Eloisa James
A Lot Like Love, Julie James
The Admiral's Penniless Bride, Carla Kelly 
What I Did for a Duke, Julie Anne Long
To The Moon and Back, Jill Mansell 
All They Need, Sarah Mayberry
Curio, Cara McKenna
Unraveled, by Courtney Milan 
Unlocked, Courtney Milan 
Call Me Irresistible, Susan Elizabeth Phillips 
Just Like Heaven, Julia Quinn 
Treachery In Death by J.D. Robb 
New York to Dallas by J.D. Robb 
Archangel's Blade, by Nalini Singh
Stranded With Her Ex, Jill Sorenson 
Yours To Keep, Shannon Stacey


This is what I said at the AAR site:

I don't know what to say. I am touched beyond measure and utterly flabbergasted. Thank you. 

Black Hawk was a hard book to write. Five years ago, when I was putting the finishing touches on Spymaster's Lady, I firmly relegated Adrian to supporting-character status. He wasn't sequel bait, I thought. He was too hard, too cynical, and too wounded to ever make hero material.

"But I found myself fascinated by him. He kept trying to take over other people's books. After a bit, it became apparent the only way I could get Adrian to stop upstaging the current hero was to give him a book of his own.

"I am so happy to think of my Justine and my Adrian coming alive in peoples' minds. If I was writing of the long journey these two had to take to earn their happy ending, I'm overjoyed to know readers liked traveling with them.

"I am so proud that Black Hawk holds these honors for 2011. Thank you, everyone who voted. And thank you, AAR, for supporting the Romance genre for all these years.

image Hawk attrib phae

Doing the Writerly Thing

Nothing too exciting to write about, but the mood struck me anyhow. 

Worked a little in the morning at the cafe.

Creative barista is creative

Yeah! Booksigning!!

The posters for the March booksigning have been handed over to the out-of-town folks by my most excellent friend Mary Ann.




I sorted the animals. 
What, doesn't everyone have huge pet beds in the living room?

Sorted animals

They promised us snow, but it never materialized.  We do however have ferocious winds and cold.  22 degrees (minus 5 for you folks who think in Celsius.)  I have stacked up the firewood for a long evening.

I am not writing on the Pax manuscript just at the moment.  I'm trying to understand the next contract.  Eventually I will give up and just sign the thing.

I'm going to go back and move the first Pax/Camille dialog into her viewpoint and out of Pax's.  This is not just a 'When all else fails, try changing the viewpoint' kinda thing.  There's probably some reasoning behind it. 

This whole first third of the manuscript is just a plotting mess.  

Jo Beverley Interview and A Scandalous Countess

Jo Beverley

Joanna here, and an interview with the illustrious Jo Beverley, bestselling author of over 30 Historical Romances, one of 12 members of the RWA Hall of fame, and just a really cool writer.

Her latest book,  A Scandalous Countess, came out yesterday and she's agreed to talk about it a little, down there at the bottom.



Me:  A Historical Romance novelist needs to be a historian, a storyteller, and a technically skilled writer. Tell us a little about how you balance these three parts of your writing.

Jo Beverley:  What an interesting question! The historian side can be the most  dangerous. It can suck me into research for the sake of research (and what's wrong with that? it protests) and used to tempt me to structure a book around some neat knowledge instead of the characters and the love story. I think I've won that battle, at least. I don't see a distinction between technical skill and storytelling, because I believe that anything that enhances the story, even incomplete sentences, dangling participles et al, is excellent technique for storytelling.

Me:  Did you come across any new and exciting historical tidbits while you were researching *A Scandalous Countess*?

Jo Beverley:  That fish could block London's water system!

I simply wanted to show Georgia being practical in her position as a patroness of a charitable home, but doing what? The water supply seemed a nicely down-to-earth one, but I had to research it. (And wasn't that fun, whispers the research demon.) Most prosperous homes had water supplied a few times a week, but it came from the minor rivers, so sometimes a fish or eel blocked the pipe. Of course people didn't drink water unless they could afford to have it come by barrel from a pure source, like the chalk Downs.

In the 18th century they drank small beer and later they drank tea. The secret? Both involved boiling the water. I remember my grandmother insisting that the steam must come out of all the vents on the kettle for at least a minute before pouring the water into the pot. I just put it down to an obsession with the water being hot enough, but now I think perhaps it was old wisdom of how to be sure the water was safe.

Me:  Your next book, A Scandalous Countess, is set in 1765.  Why do you choose to write in the Georgian period?

I fell in love with the Georgian period through Heyer's Georgians. Above all, it's the Georgian men I love. Strong men in plain dark clothing make me yawn, and I wrinkle my nose at stubble, but put them, well polished, in silken finery and I melt. Put them in high heels and they're even yummier, especially when they're carrying a sword and will kill with it if they have to.

It's also an exciting period all around. It's the period of the Enlightenment, when any idea was to be analyzed, questioned, and if necessary discarded for a better way, and I'm talking about the upper classes here, who led the explorations. The Georgian aristocracy could be wild, greedy and corrupt, but in general they weren't lazy. Intellectual curiosity was fertile ground for the age of revolutions -- the agricultural and industrial as well as the political.

Me: What do you like least about this era?  What are the hardest realities you find yourself 'writing around'?

You ask devilish questions! It was harsh for the weak and vulnerable, though to be fair many of the wealthier people worked hard to help. Politics was dirty and at times chaotic, which can be great for plots, and in fact, though the surface is smoother now, has much changed? Women lacked many rights and were vulnerable to abuse.

The area I write around is medical. That's not the fault of the Georgian age and things don't improve much for the next century or so, but my characters in all periods have good teeth and good health. If they get wounded I try to make it plausible that they can recover without lingering effect.


The greatest danger from lesser wounds was infection and sewing a wound would have horrified a doctor of the time as it hid any infection. The wound was, if necessary, held open until safe. That's from the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1768, which is available as a replica. I keep promising myself I'll read it cover to cover. It's fascinating.

Me:  In A Scandalous Countess, your heroine has unfairly lost her reputation in 'Society'.  Why does this matter?  How important was this reputation thing, really?

In my opinion many historical romances overplay the lost reputation card by using it to force marriages over a kiss, for example, but a real scandal definitely left a stain, on men as well as women. There would be places where they weren't welcome and many people who would avoid them. George III was quite sticky about who was welcome at court, and access to court was seen as crucial in the beau monde. Some people wouldn't care about that, but others would be devastated, which is true today. Some in that situation chose exile.

Georgia has been accustomed to a very high and very comfortable position. She's not willing to contemplate exile and is focused on proving her innocence and getting her life back.

Me:  If you were to join your fictive world; if you could become one of your characters -- even a minor character -- who would you be?

Temporarily or permanently? I think I'd be Elf Malloren for a while -- Lady Elfled Malloren as was, now Lady Walgrave, heroine of Something Wicked. She's fun, active, and would take me into the heart of the Malloren family as well as all over fashionable society.

Me: Tell us about your latest novel, A Scandalous Countess, that hit the stands yesterday.

As I indicated above, it's about a young, beautiful countess who wakes up to find her delightful life in ruins. Her husband has been killed in a duel and rumor whispers that it was fought over her. In addition to the scandal, because she hasn't borne an heir, she's lost her homes and her husband's wealth.

Her powerful family whisk her back to the family home for a year of demure mourning, but the scandal won't die, so in due course she determines to return to London, establish her innocence and get her life back -- ie find another rich, highly titled man to marry.

But then there's Lord Dracy, a scarred ex-naval officer. Georgia's father has asked her to help Dracy adjust to society, and she agrees out of kindness, but he's not the "beached tar" she expects. Instantly she likes him and soon she's attracted to him. There's no future in that, however, because he lacks a high title, money, and perhaps worse actually enjoys living in the country!

When it becomes clear that someone won't let the scandal die Dracy is her strongest ally. But how can they have a truly happy ending?


Thanks for much for dropping by the blog, Jo.  A Scandalous Countess, takes place in the Malloren Fictive World.  I'm looking forward to reading it.
Buy A Scandalous Countess at Amazon, B&N, kindle, nook, or Powells, and wherever fine books are sold.

Jo Beverley is GIVING AWAY a hot-off-the-presses copy of A Scandalous Countess to one lucky reader in the comments field.  Come tell us what you think of Scandal in the world of Georgian England.

2011 AAR Reviewers Choice: Black Hawk

I am so happy

I am deeply honored to get the nod at All About Romance
for Reviewers Choice for 2011,
for The Black Hawk.

The AAR announcement is Here.

They say such nice things about the book.  I'm blushing. 

Now, being perfectly honest here, I nipped in to top place, but just barely.  It was very close.  I just squeaked by these two great books:

Silk is for Seduction, Loretta Chase
The Rose Garden, Susanna Kearsley


These are the other Historical Romances the AAR reviewers loved:

A Night to Surrender, Tessa Dare
The Orchid Affair, Lauren Willig
What I did for a Duke, Julie Ann Long
Heartbreak Creek, Kaki Warner
A Lady's Lessons in Scandal, Meredith Duran 
When Beauty Tamed the Beast, Eloisa James
Follow My Lead, Kate Noble

If you are kind enough to like my books -- and I can't imagine why you would be reading the blog if you didn't -- you should go buy these.  Wonderful books.

Walking Through Regency London

I've been trying to imagine what the streets of Paris and London looked like and felt like underfoot in the Georgian and Regency eras.

The fashionable streets of Mayfair are fairly easy to picture.  We have lovely paintings of these, for one thing.
The wide, clean, quiet streets with expensive houses. The squares, with maybe a garden in the middle.  Yes.  I can see these.

I have some feeling of what the rookeries might have looked like too.  The grainy, mid-Victorian photos of the London slums give us an idea.  Hogarth illustrates the underbelly of London on one side of the era. Gustaf Dore on the other.

There be those who say that things and places have souls, and there be those who say they have not; I dare not say, myself.  H.P Lovecraft
But, what about the middling streets?  Not the privileged haunts of the nobility.  Not the stews.  The everyday streets and passageways of London and Paris.  My characters spend most of their time in this ordinary sort of place.  What did it look like?

We have pictures. 





























And we can guess a lot about what the city looked and felt like from elements common to cities now.

For more, travel to Word Wenches here.

Me and My Wrists. A Writer's Life.

My weak point

Carpal Tunnel is the occupation disease of authors, I guess.

I'm very foolish.  I start typing and I get all involved in the story.

I'll be sitting typing any which way with my laptop in my . . .  well, in my lap, and the wrists are all awkward and hanging at the wrong angle.

Not ergonomically correct

I don't notice, even when the muscles start to hurt.   In fact, I'll get to the end of a scene and straighten up and every muscle in my body will suddenly let out a long-suppressed scream.  Head to foot, I ache.  I mean, like, my jaw will hurt.  My auricular muscles will hurt -- those are the three muscle that allow you to wiggle your ears, (if you can wriggle your ears.)  My fingers hurt.

You remember the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Harrison Ford points to a spot on his elbow and says, "This doesn't hurt.  Here."  I'm like that, except I don't have a spot on the elbow.

So anyhow, the other aches go away, but the wrists keep at this ouching thing and I feel very stupid. Is there a Carpal-Tunnel-Stupid Syndrome?  That's what I have.

Me, in a couple few years

CTSS was interfering with my ability to get work done, so I went to a drugstore in California, being as I was in California at the time, and I bought a wrist brace.  (They had a selection of twenty.  Who knew?)

So now I put on a brace when I sit down to work for a long session.  Everyone who sees this thinks I have injured myself in some accident, so I try to look like I ride horses or ski or engage in other enterprises more interesting than staring at a computer screen.
Somehow this role playing makes me feel less like the old body is just falling apart.

There is interesting and useful information about this over at Word Wenches.  Here

The AAR Annual Romance Ballot

It's that time of year again. Who are your favorite Romance writers? Who are your favorite heroes and heroines. What book touched your heart?

Don't keep it to yourself. Tell the world.

The AAR Poll is the oldest and most widely respected Romance genre reader soundingboard on the net. And you can vote.

http://tinyurl.com/aarpoll

Technical Topics -- Flying into the story. Or driving.

I was commenting on a snippet of a first chapter that had been posted for comment.  The hero was in a car, headed for a party:

So I said,
Ahem.

One of the standard openings for novice manuscripts, one that lands in the slushpiles of New York with great frequency, is the protagonist on a means of transportation.

What it is -- the writer has facets a, b, and c she wants to reveal about the protagonist's character. She has factoids d, e and f that are backstory she wants to fill in. So the writer puts her characters in a box and lets them talk about or think about items ' a' through 'f'.

Things could happen in the car, I guess

This seems a simple and straightforward way to tell the readers all this nifty stuff.  It's a relatively easy scene to write because there isn't any distraction.

Problem is, nothing much happens while the writer is telling the reader 'a' through 'f'.  Nothing can happen till everybody climbs out of the transportation.


Speaking generally, whether it's the opening scene of Chapter One or the closing of Chapter 22,  a good way to approach it is to ask ourselves what story action is taking place.

A 'story action' is something that must happen for later events to work.  It's something significant.  If the hero and heroine don't go to the old Gold Mine, they won't discover the miner's body.  If Marvin doesn't kidnap Cecelia, Horace can't ride to her rescue.  That kinda thing.
Driving around in a car is very rarely story action.

We don't put all story action on stage.  Some of it isn't suited to dramatic, real-time presentation.  But story action is the backbone of the manuscript.  Most of what we do put 'on-stage' should be story action.

What kind of story action might appear in Chapter One, Scene One?

Boy meets girl

We could walk in on a crime in progress, if the story is about solving that crime.  We could set someone to making a decision that sends her in one direction on her journey instead of another.

We're Romance writers here, so let's say we make our first scene to contain the story action of 'boy meets girl'.



We can compare a mode-of-transportation beginning with the 'story action' beginning of the 'boy meets girl' type.

We can put the new schoolmarm in the stagecoach for four or five pages and have her look out at the cactus on the way to Dry Gulch, wondering what her life will be like in the West. And when we've done that for five or six pages, we can start the story action.

Or we can plunge in and write the story action and let that information and character development catch up as it will.

According to her schedule, in one hour, Miss Ermyntrude Wells was supposed to arrive at the Dry Gultch Hotel with three trunks of school equipment and one trunk of sober, sensible clothing.

That wasn't going to happen, was it?

She leaned out the coach window. "You can just put that gun down right this minute, young man."


Our protagonist is a cook hired to prepare a spectacular dinner party for a millionaire. We can put her in an airplane, circling in to land at an exotic island paradise. She thinks about why she's taken this job so far from New York and what she'll serve at the party and how things will be different in Santa Rosalita. She wonders why the millionaire requested her in particular.

versus

Or, y'know, peaches

"My peaches! You're bruising my peaches!"

Nobody stopped. Nobody paid any attention. The men kept heaving boxes around and ripping them open. Fruit bounced out of string bags and rolled across the tarmac. Drug-sniffing dogs picked their way through the carnage.

"Doesn't anybody here speak English? Damn it! If I wanted to get mugged I could have stayed in New York."

"I speak English." The chief of the uniformed thugs leaned against the hood of his patrol car, six feet of lean, dark, indifferent muscle, watching his men destroy good ingredients and watching her.

In the car, here's Mitzi and Donna are headed for the their job at the hospital. They talk about how the High School's bad boy, Tad Turner, has come back to town after 20 years. Mitzi remembers her own experiences with Tad, things she's never told anyone.

versus

The road was dark. Equally dark in both directions. And very quiet. The tire was very flat. "It's beginning to rain," Mitzi said.

"So it is," Donna agreed.

"You know how to change a tire?"

"Not the least particle of an idea. I don't even know where the damn spare thing is."

"Ah."

Neither of them got in the car. That would be giving up. They both looked at the tire. In the distance, a low drone told of an approaching sucker.

"Sounds like a sports car," Mitzi said.

You see all the things we don't know when the action of the story starts rolling? When we start with story action, we don't know why Ermyntrude has come west or that Mitzi's a nurse who had a fling with Tad 20 years ago. We don't know our New Yorker is a cook or anything about the millionaire.

The reader doesn't need to know all the background to get involved.   She just needs something interesting going on.

Technical Topics -- Advice on POV, the Collected Set

In the Comment Trail, Catherine says,

"Now, do you have a post on Point of View? That is something that really, really confuses me.

Obviously I'm okay writing in first person cos there is only one POV, but when I get to third person I get very confused about whose POV I'm looking from.

Can you help, dear Joanna?"


I have written a fair amount about POV.   What I'll do is give you lotsa links to where I'm nattering on about it.
But I'll do it in random order.  And probably repeat myself.
Just to make it challenging.

I hope this is of some use to you.


Here is me talking about POV and language.  This is An Overview on Building POV 

There's an exercise on POV techniques here and here, with the examples here, here, and some further comments here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

And we got an exercise on visualization here, which is a writing technique helpful on getting into POV. Talking about visualization, see here, here and here.


Then there are the POV exercises,  here, here and here  See here for more links. The message tells you how to track down the discussion and writing of those exercises.   

Here's me talking about how we use character names when we're in various folk's POVs.   I make a couple other comments in that thread.  Then there's  Here, here,  here, and here where I'm looking at a particular bit of someone else's writing and giving advice, trying to bring the snippet deeper into POV.


Look here, where Claire is talking about an exercise on stream-of-consciousness.

Here and here and here is an exercise on stream-of-consciousness which may people find useful for slipping into POV. Example from great writers can be found here, here, and here.


Leesee . . . more delights lie ahead.

Here's me analyzing a scene, which is not so much about POV.  Here I talk about POV and pacing.  Here is some of me talking about visualizing story from a POV starting point.  Here's more on character development, which is, again, not so much on POV.  Here  Omniscient POV.  Here  defining how POV works.  And here's some thoughts on the use of 'I' in 1st person POV.

Going over to Absolute Write . . .  This is a set of random posts where I touch upon POV in some way.  If you want to see the the other messages in the thread so you can figure out what is going on -- and, who knows, you might want to  --  click on the upper right hand corner where it says, 'thread'.  That will give you the entire thread where you can even read what other folks have to say.

multiple POVs

Ready?  Steady.  Go!

Here, here,  here, here, here,  here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,  here, here,  here, here, here, here, here, here, here,  here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and finally at long last here.

I get to contradict myself, by the way.  I get to talk nonsense.  I get to be just plain wrong, okay?

Oh.  And  Here's Doris Egan on POV which will doubtless be useful .  And more from her, here.

Authorial Intent and Reviews.

Jennie, at Dear Author writes:

 ***

"When I address authorial intent in reviews, it’s generally because I’m confused or bothered by something in a book. I don’t ever pretend to *know* an author’s intent, but sometimes I have ideas about what I *think* the author was going for. For instance, in the latest Joanna Bourne, I felt like the author made choices that deliberately made the heroine weaker than the hero (though no one seems to agree with me on that, which is fine). As is often the case, I chalked it up to romance genres conventions – the hero is favored a bit (by the author and presumably the reader) over the heroine, and the hero is expected to assert some mastery over the heroine. So I am assuming that the story is written a certain way to please the average reader.

"Is it wrong for me to assume I know the author’s intent? I don’t know, but I do know that I’m not just doing it to be an asshole – I’m addressing something that bothers me, and furthermore why it bothers me (my belief that romance still tends to be rather conventionally sexist in a lot of ways). I think I need to acknowledge my assumptions about the author’s intent to give context to why I feel what I feel."

***

I just about entirely don't respond to reviews or speak in the comment trail of discussions about my own books.  It's not that I'm not grateful for the interest.  But,

-- I don't want readers to think I'm looking over their shoulder when they discuss the books.  That has to be quelling.

-- I think books have to stand up for themselves, without explanation or defense.  

-- There's not much to say if somebody doesn't like the work.  It's like lichee nuts.  Lots of wonderful, intelligent, interesting folks are going to not like my books or lichee nuts and no amount of discussion is going to change this.

-- The most important reason I don't respond to comment or criticism is that I don't want to make a fool of myself, which is what folks mostly do when they try to defend something they've written.

But, breaking a long habit of keeping my mouth closed, I'm going to go ahead and respond here.

 ***

Dear Jennie,

I don't deliberately make the female protagonist of my stories less strong, competent or active than the male protagonist.  If I felt the Historical Romance genre demanded that the heroine be weaker than the hero, I wouldn't write Historical Romance.

It's true my heroes tend to be more skilled in killing than my heroines.  If there were only one sort of strength -- killing people -- then I'd have no argument.  But I'm trying to write stories about the decisions characters make, rather than stories that are primarily about killing people.   I'm writing about the strength that's shown by decision-making.     

At the end of Black Hawk, Adrian has grown to be the kind of man who refrains from killing his enemy until he has solid, incontrovertible proof of guilt.  Adrian's story, through several books, has been about acquiring ethics and self-control, not about learning to kill more skillfully.

And Justine's strength?  In Black Hawk I use Justine's willingness to give up her sister, her decision to risk her life to rescue the Caches, and her determination to overcome degradation and rape to show her strength.  She has spy skills -- they're probably better demonstrated in Forbidden Rose than in Black Hawk -- but I'm mainly interested in the hard choices she makes.

Is Adrian the 'better spy'?  He brings formidable spy skills to the table.  Consider his lockpicking.  He stands behind Justine and mentally complains about how slow she is getting through a door.  

But lookit at what's really happening in that scene.  Justine enticed him to that door, (which is why he's snarking at her.)  She holds all the knowledge in this situation.  In a few minutes she's going to make him do exactly what she wants.

Who's the master spy?  The boy who can pick locks?  Or that clever, clever girl with her knowledge and determination and her sure understanding of what makes him tick? 

I can't argue that you somehow should feel the balance of power and strength between hero and heroine is equal. Everybody who reads the book is going to have a different emotional response to what I consciously or unconsciously put in the story.  I can only say it is not my intention to show the heroine as weaker than the hero.

Jo

Technical Topics -- Character Development Scenes

Somebody says -- "I have a couple of scenes that are basically only used for character development, and I'm having a hard time writing them . . .  I feel a little strange about writing it because hardly anything noteworthy actually happens."

That's the sort of scene you cough a little and say -- "That's a character development scene," when somebody asks why it's in the manuscript.  It's the sort of scene that showcases and explains the character --  well, lots of scenes do that --  but when you think about it, nothing important to the plot took place.  There's no necessary decision, no character change, no story action. The scene could be removed without affecting what happens later.

The problem with character development scenes (and flashback scenes, talking head scenes, and prologues of this type,) is that they're written to convey information, rather than getting on with telling the story.

Now, IMO, there's nothing inherently wrong with having a few no-progress scenes in the manuscript. We have all this cool information lying around, after all, so why not pass it along to the reader?

But if the writer's going to drop the reader into a static, informational scene, the writer has to know he's stopped telling the real story. When he's done with his flashback or his character development scene, he's going to pick up the plot again in the same place as before. No forward movement. The writer had better want to slack off on the pacing, because that's what he's just done.

Readers don't so much want the story to stop dead in the water, so the writer had better make this digression interesting.

Some writers always start out with a couple just informational scenes as warm-up writing. It's an exercise that helps them organize their thoughts. It's part of their process. They pull the scenes out later and expect to.
No harm, no foul

But I think sometimes no-progress scenes arise from a misunderstanding of the old saw, Show Don't Tell. Folks feel they have to lengthily 'act out' specific information instead of just having somebody remark -- 'George has always been shy as a wild rabbit,' or 'It's been ten years, and Elinor has never admitted her passion for canasta,' -- while getting on with more important business like sawing up their latest victim or rearranging the political face of Europe.