Rowena's comments (member since Mar 29, 2008)

Rowena's comments from the Writerpedia group.

Hi, Nancy,

Insufficient Mating Material was accidentally added as a Kindle last summer. It has now been taken down.

Since it was there, I added the url to my sites and to my sig file, and made a determined effort to promote it.

In six months, it sold 7 copies.

Here's clarification from Lucinda herself:

<<Thanks for the email….membership is now free. If you go to the “signup” page, then in the drop-down box, you can click on “Copyright Advocate” which allows you to sign up for free.>>

Best wishes,
Rowena

Pat,

I apologize on both counts.
http://www.copyrightalliance.org/

I'm sure I saw an email recently saying that membership was going to be free. I must ask Lucinda Dugger why the website is still charging.

As for piracy, the various hosting sites are starting to take notice. If you do find your title on a torrent, go to the footer, find either "Copyright" or "DMCA", check out exactly what you have to do as an author to have a link removed, do that (it's a pain!),
and your book will be removed.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

You mean, self published audio books?

Orson Scott Card's book How To Write Science Fiction and Fantasy gives a first rate, and astonishingly broad definition of the genre, and if everyone read it, they'd save themselves a lot of time trying to extrapolate...

Kevin, by your definition, Asimov's The Gods Themselves might not qualify as Science Fiction because it deals with a scientifically impossible equation (which works in a parallel world) and scientifically unlike sex where three Soft Ones get together to make a Hard One.


How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy

Pat,

I'm no expert, and you might be correct, but the President of EPIC (Brenna Lyons) gave a different impression in some recent discussions. EPIC membership costs about $40 a year, and is thoroughly worth it!

How does Gather protect you from theft? Is it just words or do they go after thieves? I haven't attempted to snag anything from Gather, but I'll bet it would be possible if I wanted to do so.

I believe that if you don't defend your copyright regularly, your rights can be diluted. Look what happened to J K Rowling over the concordance.

You should join thecopyrightalliance.org (free to join, free to belong.)

Johanna,
I was not talking about used print books on e-bay, or even new print books on e-bay.

I was referring to electronic copies of books that were posted on an author's website as a free gift to readers, and which have been snagged, republished, and sold for profit by someone who does not choose to tell readers that they could read the book for free somewhere else.

If you are talking about an e-book that you gave away... that is another matter, because it is not possible to sell an e-book online without creating a copy (or three). Technically that is publishing. If you are self published, and you don't mind, then no worries.

However, I see that your book is a paperback printed by Author House, so this is probably a moot point.

Dear Tony,

Congratulations on your research and savvy. (I mean that most sincerely) and thank you for your gracious response to my comment.

I am thrilled that you are a well informed author, and wish you every success with your experiment.

I hope that our pleasant and thoroughly professional conversation here will help our colleagues who may be following us.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Tony,

Good for you. Let us know if your sales do increase. In the meantime, check with your publisher that you have the right to do this. You would need to have retained various publishing rights, electronic rights, and so forth.

You should also consider the effect on your copyright once you have "given" the book away on the internet. I've heard of authors whose free books from their sites have turned up on torrents, and also have been sold on E-Bay.

I'm sure you know of these minor annoyances and are on top of them.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

join the copyrightalliance.org

Hi, Evangeline,

Since there's a note by your name saying you are new, Welcome to GoodReads!

Best wishes,
Rowena

I write character-driven romances. For my god-Princes of Tigron (Space Snark) series, I started with a family tree going back 4 generations.

My advice for anyone wishing to write and not knowing where to start would be to read 2 books.

"Characterization and Viewpoint" by Orson Scott Card
"Twenty Master Plots" by Ronald Tobias.

There are 4 types of book. Orson Scott Card used M.I.C.E. as a memnemonic.

M is for Milieu, or worldbuilding. Sometimes, the place or the planet really is the star of your story. (Groan at my pun!). If that's what you are writing, you definitely start with either a big bang, or with that planet's sun.

I is for Idea. It may be an impossible conundrum to solve, or a particularly devious and hard to detect way of killing people. I'd call Greg Iles's "True Evil" a novel of idea. Also, Asimov's "The Gods Themselves" which features an impossible equation.

C is for Character-driven stories, in which case, everything that happens is a result of a logical choice (good or bad) made by the hero/heroine, and the way he is determines how he gets into trouble, and how he gets out of it. Pantsers tend to write character-driven stories.

E is for Event, or plot. That's where the series of spectacular doings are more important to the author than who is doing the blowing up, chasing, etc etc. Plot-driven stories make the best movies! Arguably, they are also the fastest to write.

The most important 3 pages you will write are the first three. Sometimes you have to rewrite your entire book several times in order to start the book in the right place.

The right starting place is the moment that either the hero's or the heroine's life is changed.

The first line has to be "a stopper" or a hook. Emily Bryan had a good one in "Distracting the Duchess" when the heroine announces: "I'm going to have to shorten his willy."

Makes you want to know what happens next, doesn't it? Is the Duchess a Regency lorena bobbit? Actually, no.

You need M+I+C+E in every book, but you won't have the word count (usually 90,000 words) to do full justice to all 4.

The Tobias book shows you how the great classic plots are structured and developed. Every story is a version of a story that has already been done.

I like to take two of Tobias's plots and mix them, for instance (this was my starting premise for Insufficient Mating Material )Green Acres type underdog hero meets Taming of the Shrew heroine on deserted sub-tropical alien island.

Wordy. Hollywood loves "Story Type V meets Story Type Y with lots of XXX". Check out the movie synopses on the cable tv guides.

With a Romance, the plot goes: boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back and they live happily ever after.

For Knight's Fork (a very snarky story) the plot went:
queen sees young god. Queen asks young god to be sperm donor. Young god says no. Queen asks again in badly chosen location and is seen.

However, the best advice is to get something down on paper, and then keep writing. You can fix drivel later, you cannot edit a blank page.

Rowena Cherry
Djinn Family Tree

Erica,

Six months is long enough to be writing your first ever short story. It may be time to take a look at what you've got.

When my first publisher ambushed me with a requirement that I had to produce a short (within 6 months) that represented the best of my worldbuilding, characterization, humor, flair for suspense etc etc, I had about 6 months to produce around 10,000 words.

What I did was take a short story that I admired very much, and I analysed it. How long was each chapter? What happened in each? What did I learn in each about the heroine? About the hero? At what point in the story was the villain/conflict/dark moment (very important)/sidekick/romance introduced?

My short story was MATING NET. The short story that I analysed was Georgette Heyer's The Duel from Pistols For Two. My story is dark, sexy, futuristic, and had nothing at all in common with a Regency romance.

Good luck.

Rowena Beaumont Cherry

Hi, Kenzi,

Have you finished anything? Short stories are an excellent way for a young (or debut) author to find an audience.

You need to get something finished at least in first draft, and then decide which genres you like best, and which seem to be most popular right now.

In Romance, one agent was recently looking for stories with sentient plants. Futuristics and Fantasies are very popular at the moment. Mysteries and Thrillers are always in season. Regencies are out of favor again.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Hi, Perrin,

I love dragon stories, and I think the premise is interesting, but I found your first paragraph distracting.

If your reader finds herself stopping to think about the mechanics or your style, it's a bit like driving a car down a road full of potholes. After a few jarring bumps, you stop thinking about the delights of the route and focus only on the next missing bit of pavement.

me-the

Repetition of: cold, scared, domain, (I can't remember the others) but it seemed that several phrases started with a repetition of a key word from the previous phrase or clause.

If I hadn't been a bit jolted, I probably would have overlooked the misuse of the "as..." clause about the trees looming and the leaves falling.

Your scene setting is quite vivid, and most of your readers can identify with the experience of being cold, but is the fact that you are cold the most interesting information you have to share?

Now... if the egg was cold, and I were to understand that coldness threatened the life (or the gender) of the life inside the egg, that would have sparked my curiosity.

I love speculative stories, particularly when biology is plausible and intellectually stimulating or satisfying.

I disapproved of "you" the narrator, because you obsessed about the emeralds, hid the egg somewhere unspecified but obviously not warm. An egg is some creature's innocent baby. If you are the hero, it's bad enough that you are a thief... don't leave the baby out in the cold.

I was confused about the relationship of the emeralds and the egg.

The egg appeared to call out to its parent, rather like the Ring in LOTR called out to Sauron. This was interesting, but I did not feel that you made enough of this possibility.

Grammatically, you lost me when you didn't know the difference between "prevail" and "avail" and lost interest in accuracy with "its" vs "it's"
although you began well with the latter.

However, Perrin, no one can edit a blank page. If this is all you have written, it may be premature to ask for criticism. Do not be discouraged.

Write the first 100 pages, then look it over and figure out where the life of your hero changed. That is your starting place.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Mari,

Thank you for your kind words. I will concede that there may be some perceived ageism, which might be why some aspiring authors use outdated photographs of themselves.

Malcolm, being a gentleman and of our generation, probably wouldn't dream of discussing a lady's age, let alone "outing" one who might be successfully passing for thirty-something.

Then again, we haven't defined what is meant by "successful" in terms of advances, and this sort of info is often kept confidential.

:-)

MI,

Speaking from my personal experience, I think you may exaggerate. I've only written three novels for a New York publisher (Dorchester Publishing, which has the Leisure and LoveSpell imprints).

However, I was past forty when I got a New York contract, and I have friends and colleagues who claim to be 100 on social networking sites. IMHO, of course, I think I write stellar stuff (futuristic romance).

When I was younger, better looking, and had an equally interesting past, but hadn't honed my craft or hit upon what an editor with a space in her line up considered "in", I did not sell.

Being in the right place at the right time with the right story is much more important.

For instance, someone at the Larsen Pomada literary agency is looking for an author who writes sentient plant romances.

Does she want sexually active Ents? Triffids? Sexy Whomping Willows? I don't know. Entwined rhizomes don't do it for me.

Rowena Cherry

Seth,

Maybe what you need is to research natural and alternative cures that the healer might plausibly use, and which could be applicable to both animals and humans. (Diet modification, Earth forces, meditation, exercise etc).

If possible, track down and interview some people who have experienced natural remission or the disappearance of a tumor... if your story has a happy ending. If it doesn't, still talk to the survivors of people who tried alternative methods.

Even if you don't use much of what you learn, the steps Dani went through in seeking a cure should give you a fascinating and informative middle, IMHO.

Rowena Cherry

Erica,

I commented on Dylan's thread, too. His question was how to start a book. Yours is how to end it.

IMHO, you should read Ronald Tobias's book, "Twenty Master Plots". I've written 3 paperbacks for a New York publisher, and one short short for an e-publisher, and I still turn back to my same favorite three How To books (one being Tobias's).

What you are writing about is a common issue for "pantsers" (authors who write without a fully developed outline) so you are in very good company. There is also an industry term for your problem, "the sagging middle".

Now you know what it is called, you can Google it, and find out what better authors than I have had to say about it. Jacqueline Lichtenberg (of simegen, but she also blogs on the craft of writing on http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.c... ) comes to mind.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
Rowena Cherry

Dylan,

Good for you for wishing to write a novel. Go for it. I think it's a wonderful ambition for a 16 year old, and a very good use of your spare time.

A much better author than I once said, "You cannot edit a blank piece of paper." So, Dylan, start writing, and don't worry about sp/p/g for now.

If you wish to know where to begin: Start your story at the moment when your hero's life changes. You need to fascinate your reader immediately.

Or, you might have a Prologue, perhaps the boy praying to God in his bedroom, trying to shut out the sounds of his mother abusing/screaming at his father as he prays. "God, let me die!" for instance.

Then, Chapter One of your novel would begin with the devil/the vampire approaching him or appearing to him.

Someone told you there are only 36 plots. Ronald Tobias wrote a fab book called "Twenty Master Plots". It's wickedly useful. What is more, you only need to read two chapters at the moment depending on which plot you are using!

You might also enjoy one of Orson Scott Card's manuals, such as How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. I think that's the title... anyway, if it is by Card, published by Writer's Digest books, and has "How To" in the title, you'll get his great advice.

I know you said you are 16, so please forgive me if this is not an appropriate comment, but if you intend to include sex in your work, Elizabeth Bennett's "The Joy Of Writing Sex" is an excellent work on technique that should be taken seriously.

My advice:
Start. Keep writing. When you have a first draft, think about editing, polishing, changing the order of some scenes. Maybe you'll decide to put your first draft in a drawer and take some classes... maybe you won't. Write it now, while you are inspired.

Good luck!

Rowena Cherry
former English teacher, author, mother

Way to go, Beth!