Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 187
March 22, 2011
Pirates, Ahoy!
The trailer is out for Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and I'm both excited about it and leery. Excited because the first PoC movie was completely awesome and Johnny Depp is damn smoking hot. I especially like him as Captain Jack Sparrow.
Tempering my enthusiasm, though, is my memories of PoC 2 and PoC 3. Both were pretty bad and lost everything that made the first movie so much fun. In fact, the third movie (IMO) betrayed the characterization that was created in the earlier movies for Will Turner. The Will Turner who came out at the end of the original movie would never have betrayed Jack.
Here's hoping PoC 4 recaptures the awesomeness of the first movie and doesn't rely on special effects and stupid story elements like the kraken.
Tempering my enthusiasm, though, is my memories of PoC 2 and PoC 3. Both were pretty bad and lost everything that made the first movie so much fun. In fact, the third movie (IMO) betrayed the characterization that was created in the earlier movies for Will Turner. The Will Turner who came out at the end of the original movie would never have betrayed Jack.
Here's hoping PoC 4 recaptures the awesomeness of the first movie and doesn't rely on special effects and stupid story elements like the kraken.
March 20, 2011
Love-Hate Relationship
Once upon a time, I used to love email. I had Outlook Express setup to download new mail once a minute and I always had it open. Those days are long gone.
Don't get me wrong, I still like email. I hate the phone with the fire of a thousand suns and will do whatever I can to avoid it. Email is a blessing in this regard. It lets me take care of things without having to talk. I'm much better at writing than talking. Especially talking on the phone where there's no facial expression to help me out on the communication front. I just don't love email anymore.
It's not the spam. I actually get very little spam since I went to a contact form on my website. What ended my love affair with email was the sheer volume of it.
Right now, I have 275 emails in my inbox. 275!
Some of them required a response, but got pushed so far down the list as new notes poured in that I forgot they were there. Some of them I kept so that I would take some action on them. Same problem, though. New email pushed them off the radar. Some of them I kept for the information they held. I looked at several that had me scratching my head, trying to figure out why I still had them.
To make things worse, I also get email in on Facebook and even on MySpace. This makes me whimper. I can't keep up with my actual inbox, so please, please don't message me on FB. And if you're an author pushing your book via FB mail, well, you don't want to know what I'm muttering about you. Trust me, it's not "I've got to add him/her to my To Be Bought List."
It all leaves me feeling very overwhelmed.
The articles I've read on taming the email inbox all say only handle an email once. Read it and do what needs to be done with it right away. Sure, like that works. Maybe if this was my day job email this would be doable. But my personal email? Not doable.
There are a couple of issues. First is all the email that comes in overnight. I might have 20 emails in my inbox when I wake up in the morning. There's no way to handle them all before I have to leave for work. I delete what I can, but that still leaves a handful to deal with.
The second problem is that I get a lot of email while I'm at my day job. I skim it quickly on lunch, but again, I don't have time to handle anything then and afternoons/and evenings are busy as I try to get everything done that I need to do.
I've tried different sorting methods for email, but none of them have really tamed the electronic tiger. Then toss in another issue--Outlook Express is no more and I'm using Outlook 2010 now. As soon as I download email into that program, it becomes invisible to me. I don 't know why. I even bought an Outlook 2010 For Dummies book thinking that if I knew the program backward and forward that I would solve this problem. It didn't work.
I'm not saying don't email me. Trust me, if you loved my books and want to tell me how much, your note will be welcomed and much enjoyed.
Don't get me wrong, I still like email. I hate the phone with the fire of a thousand suns and will do whatever I can to avoid it. Email is a blessing in this regard. It lets me take care of things without having to talk. I'm much better at writing than talking. Especially talking on the phone where there's no facial expression to help me out on the communication front. I just don't love email anymore.
It's not the spam. I actually get very little spam since I went to a contact form on my website. What ended my love affair with email was the sheer volume of it.
Right now, I have 275 emails in my inbox. 275!
Some of them required a response, but got pushed so far down the list as new notes poured in that I forgot they were there. Some of them I kept so that I would take some action on them. Same problem, though. New email pushed them off the radar. Some of them I kept for the information they held. I looked at several that had me scratching my head, trying to figure out why I still had them.
To make things worse, I also get email in on Facebook and even on MySpace. This makes me whimper. I can't keep up with my actual inbox, so please, please don't message me on FB. And if you're an author pushing your book via FB mail, well, you don't want to know what I'm muttering about you. Trust me, it's not "I've got to add him/her to my To Be Bought List."
It all leaves me feeling very overwhelmed.
The articles I've read on taming the email inbox all say only handle an email once. Read it and do what needs to be done with it right away. Sure, like that works. Maybe if this was my day job email this would be doable. But my personal email? Not doable.
There are a couple of issues. First is all the email that comes in overnight. I might have 20 emails in my inbox when I wake up in the morning. There's no way to handle them all before I have to leave for work. I delete what I can, but that still leaves a handful to deal with.
The second problem is that I get a lot of email while I'm at my day job. I skim it quickly on lunch, but again, I don't have time to handle anything then and afternoons/and evenings are busy as I try to get everything done that I need to do.
I've tried different sorting methods for email, but none of them have really tamed the electronic tiger. Then toss in another issue--Outlook Express is no more and I'm using Outlook 2010 now. As soon as I download email into that program, it becomes invisible to me. I don 't know why. I even bought an Outlook 2010 For Dummies book thinking that if I knew the program backward and forward that I would solve this problem. It didn't work.
I'm not saying don't email me. Trust me, if you loved my books and want to tell me how much, your note will be welcomed and much enjoyed.
March 17, 2011
What a Writer Knows
Let's talk about what the author knows versus what the characters know versus what the reader needs to know.
There's a bunch of limitations an author has to work with when telling a story. One of these is Point Of View (POV). When we write a scene in a character's head, we can't make the time-out sign and step forward and explain things to the reader. If you're doing it right and deep enough in the character's head, you'll be seeing everything from his slant. It's supposed to be that way.
The character's viewpoint might not match reality. It might not match another character's opinion. It might aggravate the reader. But it's that character's idea of reality and you're stuck with it as an author no matter how much you wish otherwise.
One of the hits I took in a review for my first book was that the villain was portrayed as a monster and there weren't any redeeming qualities shown for him. There wasn't a choice about how the villain was portrayed. There were four POV characters in this book and all of them thought of the villain as an evil killer. None of them were going to stop and say: Well, maybe he slaughtered all my friends, but I bet he loves small animals. Um, no. People don't think that way and it's a cheat if the writer does something like that.
Be prepared to take the hits when you write. This isn't the only one I've collected because of POV, but you can't compromise on who your characters are and what they think. And you can't step outside the story and say to the reader, well, of course you and I know the heroine was abused, but she doesn't think she was.
This topic came to mind because of Tuesday's post about world building and that my characters don't know information that I need to have.
For me to write this story in this future world (Not J9), I need to understand the events that formed the world and what the characters are living with now. What caused the change is in the past and neither the hero nor the heroine know what happened to the world before they were born. In all honesty, they don't care with what was, they only care about surviving what is. Not necessarily an easy thing to do.
So if the characters don't know and don't care, that means the reader might have some unanswered questions. Maybe I should apologize in advance for this. But for me, my first responsibility is to the characters and I have to respect how they think and what they believe. Maybe for this story I should add a page to my website explaining why the world is the way it is. :-)
There's a bunch of limitations an author has to work with when telling a story. One of these is Point Of View (POV). When we write a scene in a character's head, we can't make the time-out sign and step forward and explain things to the reader. If you're doing it right and deep enough in the character's head, you'll be seeing everything from his slant. It's supposed to be that way.
The character's viewpoint might not match reality. It might not match another character's opinion. It might aggravate the reader. But it's that character's idea of reality and you're stuck with it as an author no matter how much you wish otherwise.
One of the hits I took in a review for my first book was that the villain was portrayed as a monster and there weren't any redeeming qualities shown for him. There wasn't a choice about how the villain was portrayed. There were four POV characters in this book and all of them thought of the villain as an evil killer. None of them were going to stop and say: Well, maybe he slaughtered all my friends, but I bet he loves small animals. Um, no. People don't think that way and it's a cheat if the writer does something like that.
Be prepared to take the hits when you write. This isn't the only one I've collected because of POV, but you can't compromise on who your characters are and what they think. And you can't step outside the story and say to the reader, well, of course you and I know the heroine was abused, but she doesn't think she was.
This topic came to mind because of Tuesday's post about world building and that my characters don't know information that I need to have.
For me to write this story in this future world (Not J9), I need to understand the events that formed the world and what the characters are living with now. What caused the change is in the past and neither the hero nor the heroine know what happened to the world before they were born. In all honesty, they don't care with what was, they only care about surviving what is. Not necessarily an easy thing to do.
So if the characters don't know and don't care, that means the reader might have some unanswered questions. Maybe I should apologize in advance for this. But for me, my first responsibility is to the characters and I have to respect how they think and what they believe. Maybe for this story I should add a page to my website explaining why the world is the way it is. :-)
March 15, 2011
Researching the World
I've mentioned in the past that I do bedtime stories to fall asleep. These used to be the Work In Progress (WIP) until it started causing insomnia. Whenever I came up with a good sentence that I wanted to use, I'd stress myself up trying to make sure I remembered it when I woke up in the morning. That's when I decided to switch to stories I knew I'd never write.
Only now I am going to write one of them as a short story.
It's not too weird because I'm used to getting information this way, but what I find interesting is the world building. Details have become set in my mind because of the years of running pieces of the story at night and now I have to find ways to make them work logically and realistically.
This isn't quite as easy as it seems. Oh, some of it is coming together. There's been a couple of vague ideas that research has nailed down perfectly. I think I might have happy dog danced when I discovered I could use those elements.
Other pieces of information are proving more elusive. Writers sometimes have weird questions and it's not always easy to find answers. That's where I'm at now, trying to hammer down a few more details.
Some of these pieces are things that will never come up in the story because the hero and heroine don't know them, but I need to know them to build the world.
And world building is critically important. I read a story recently where the author had me rolling my eyes as I read details of her world. I never want anyone to do that when they read my stories. Since this world is predicated on something that's never happened in the recorded history of mankind, it won't be easy to find everything I need to know. What I plan on doing is learning as much as I can and logically extrapolate from there.
Only now I am going to write one of them as a short story.
It's not too weird because I'm used to getting information this way, but what I find interesting is the world building. Details have become set in my mind because of the years of running pieces of the story at night and now I have to find ways to make them work logically and realistically.
This isn't quite as easy as it seems. Oh, some of it is coming together. There's been a couple of vague ideas that research has nailed down perfectly. I think I might have happy dog danced when I discovered I could use those elements.
Other pieces of information are proving more elusive. Writers sometimes have weird questions and it's not always easy to find answers. That's where I'm at now, trying to hammer down a few more details.
Some of these pieces are things that will never come up in the story because the hero and heroine don't know them, but I need to know them to build the world.
And world building is critically important. I read a story recently where the author had me rolling my eyes as I read details of her world. I never want anyone to do that when they read my stories. Since this world is predicated on something that's never happened in the recorded history of mankind, it won't be easy to find everything I need to know. What I plan on doing is learning as much as I can and logically extrapolate from there.
March 13, 2011
Sydney Harbor in Office Supplies
This video is really cool. It might be a commercial from Australia, but I'm not 100% certain of that.
March 10, 2011
What I Learned About Writing Short
Now that I've written four short stories and a novella, I thought I'd talk a little about what I've learned. Keep in mind that--as always--your mileage may vary and that different authors do things in different ways. There is no right or wrong way, it's whatever works.
With that caveat...
I've always written long and seeing minimum word count requirements in my contracts always makes me laugh. No worries. The only time I would get concerned is if a publisher gave me a maximum word count restriction. Because of my tendency to write long, I was kind of concerned about being asked to write a short story. Could I even do this?
It turns out I could. And the more I do it, the more I learn. I've also learned from reading other novellas and short stories. The big things:
Keep the story simple
There isn't room to unfold an elaborate plot. Also, the storyline needs to be something that can be resolved satisfactorily in the short amount of space.
In my first short story Blood Feud, the plot is that there's a demon killing vampires. The hero who's a demon and the heroine who's a vampire team up to find out who he is and to stop him. In Demon Kissed the heroine is a demon slayer sentenced to death by the demons. She finds this out when the hero rescues her from a demon executioner. And in Shadow's Caress, the hero is a vampire trapped in limbo who needs the heroine, a former vampire hunter, to return him to his life as the undead.
All three stories have a straightforward goal that can be explained quickly, and which also have a problem that can be resolved.
Keep characters to a minimum
This ties in to keeping the story simple. There isn't room for a cast of thousands, and the more people involved, the less focus is on the h/h. I write action/adventure/suspense so there has to be a villain. I've had other characters involved, but they're like unnamed henchman #1. I've read some novellas by authors who thought they could have a cast of thousands and it usually turns out to be a mess where too much has to be breezed through. Again, YMMV.
The rules of good storytelling still apply
Yes, some things can be shorthanded, but that doesn't mean the author gets to info dump. If you need 20 pages to explain the characters' backgrounds before the story gets started, you're in trouble. This is boring in a full-length novel, in a short story/novella, precious word count has been wasted. If the backstory is important, then it needs to be dribbled in. If it's unimportant, leave it out. The reader doesn't need every last bit of information about the pasts of the hero and heroine.
As in a novel, the time line needs to be clear as does Point of View (POV). I'm not a strict POV purist, but if I don't know whose head I'm in, there's a problem. I should know immediately if it's the hero or heroine. Also, if a scene ends at night and if it's daylight in the next scene, I'm going to assume it's the next day. If you've backtracked to show the same span of time from the other character's POV, then you need to clue the reader in before they're halfway into the scene.
The relationship does not get to be glossed over
No, there aren't many pages, but romance readers are looking for the relationship between the h/h. If the story puts the characters together only a couple of times, and if they only really talk to each other once, then no one is going to believe the happy ending. And yes, I've read this. It happened because the author had a plot that was far too complicated for a novella with a cast of thousands. Something had to give. She chose to sacrifice together time for her h/h.
The ending of a novella/short story needs to be satisfying
You do not get to info dump at the end either to explain everything that was going on during the course of the story. If your plot is so complicated that the reader needs this explanation to understand what the hell was going on, then you need to find a simpler story or need to flesh it out to novel length.
With that caveat...
I've always written long and seeing minimum word count requirements in my contracts always makes me laugh. No worries. The only time I would get concerned is if a publisher gave me a maximum word count restriction. Because of my tendency to write long, I was kind of concerned about being asked to write a short story. Could I even do this?
It turns out I could. And the more I do it, the more I learn. I've also learned from reading other novellas and short stories. The big things:
Keep the story simple
There isn't room to unfold an elaborate plot. Also, the storyline needs to be something that can be resolved satisfactorily in the short amount of space.
In my first short story Blood Feud, the plot is that there's a demon killing vampires. The hero who's a demon and the heroine who's a vampire team up to find out who he is and to stop him. In Demon Kissed the heroine is a demon slayer sentenced to death by the demons. She finds this out when the hero rescues her from a demon executioner. And in Shadow's Caress, the hero is a vampire trapped in limbo who needs the heroine, a former vampire hunter, to return him to his life as the undead.
All three stories have a straightforward goal that can be explained quickly, and which also have a problem that can be resolved.
Keep characters to a minimum
This ties in to keeping the story simple. There isn't room for a cast of thousands, and the more people involved, the less focus is on the h/h. I write action/adventure/suspense so there has to be a villain. I've had other characters involved, but they're like unnamed henchman #1. I've read some novellas by authors who thought they could have a cast of thousands and it usually turns out to be a mess where too much has to be breezed through. Again, YMMV.
The rules of good storytelling still apply
Yes, some things can be shorthanded, but that doesn't mean the author gets to info dump. If you need 20 pages to explain the characters' backgrounds before the story gets started, you're in trouble. This is boring in a full-length novel, in a short story/novella, precious word count has been wasted. If the backstory is important, then it needs to be dribbled in. If it's unimportant, leave it out. The reader doesn't need every last bit of information about the pasts of the hero and heroine.
As in a novel, the time line needs to be clear as does Point of View (POV). I'm not a strict POV purist, but if I don't know whose head I'm in, there's a problem. I should know immediately if it's the hero or heroine. Also, if a scene ends at night and if it's daylight in the next scene, I'm going to assume it's the next day. If you've backtracked to show the same span of time from the other character's POV, then you need to clue the reader in before they're halfway into the scene.
The relationship does not get to be glossed over
No, there aren't many pages, but romance readers are looking for the relationship between the h/h. If the story puts the characters together only a couple of times, and if they only really talk to each other once, then no one is going to believe the happy ending. And yes, I've read this. It happened because the author had a plot that was far too complicated for a novella with a cast of thousands. Something had to give. She chose to sacrifice together time for her h/h.
The ending of a novella/short story needs to be satisfying
You do not get to info dump at the end either to explain everything that was going on during the course of the story. If your plot is so complicated that the reader needs this explanation to understand what the hell was going on, then you need to find a simpler story or need to flesh it out to novel length.
March 8, 2011
Where You At?
There are authors who talk about setting as a character. I'm not one of those authors. :-/
As a reader, I skim or outright skip description especially of the setting. I have zero interest in reading it. Just ground me enough to know where I'm at and get me to the characters and the story. I can visualize my own airplane, my own living room, my own town without the author. :-) All I need to hear is gourmet kitchen and I have a mental image ready to go. Two words and the author has told me all I need or want to know.
Also, I get annoyed when the author's vision of the scene conflicts with my own. :-) I don't care that it's her world. The more the author repeatedly goes in and describes the hero, heroine, the room, the world, the clothing, the more irritated I get if it disturbs my image. Well, I also get irritated because it bores the hell out of me. Charles Dickens, anyone? He was paid by the word and it shows with the unending description of inconsequential stuff.
As a writer, I have to make a conscious effort to go back and add description. I probably still don't have enough for some readers, but believe me, what I've put in is more than I personally like or enjoy.
With the exception of the books I wrote which were part of series and which had the location dictated by the needs of the series, my stories could take place pretty much anywhere. Okay, so Jarved Nine and the Old City are kind of distinctive and those stories can't take place in another location. That's different. :-)
I do try to use the city to impact the story in some way. For example, snow in Minneapolis in March or having my hero hike in the mountains for the story that took place in Seattle, but setting isn't a character for me.
That said, my hero and heroine do influence where the story happens.
I just mailed a proposal to my agent yesterday. The book takes place in South America and the h/h live in Los Angeles. I wanted them to live somewhere else because I've have so many LA set stories. The Blood Feud world is all LA and I have several other proposals that either take place there or have a hero and/or heroine from there. As I get that this h/h are from LA, too, I'm like enough already.
It doesn't work that way, not for me. My characters are in charge, always. My heroine insisted on Los Angeles. As I researched her educational background, I discovered one of the really good graduate schools in her field is in that area. She came for the university and she stayed.
That said, the vast majority of the story takes place in South America and that's new for me. And the setting actually will have impact on the characters and the plot. It already has with the heroine starting in the capitol city, which is in the mountains, and her ending up in a small village in the rainforest. Elevation and humidity, respectively.
But even so, I wouldn't go as far as to say the setting is a character. I don't understand that, not even when I read the authors who claim their setting is a character. Is there an atmosphere? Sure. Would I call it a character? No. I don't even understand what those writers mean when they say it.
As a reader, I skim or outright skip description especially of the setting. I have zero interest in reading it. Just ground me enough to know where I'm at and get me to the characters and the story. I can visualize my own airplane, my own living room, my own town without the author. :-) All I need to hear is gourmet kitchen and I have a mental image ready to go. Two words and the author has told me all I need or want to know.
Also, I get annoyed when the author's vision of the scene conflicts with my own. :-) I don't care that it's her world. The more the author repeatedly goes in and describes the hero, heroine, the room, the world, the clothing, the more irritated I get if it disturbs my image. Well, I also get irritated because it bores the hell out of me. Charles Dickens, anyone? He was paid by the word and it shows with the unending description of inconsequential stuff.
As a writer, I have to make a conscious effort to go back and add description. I probably still don't have enough for some readers, but believe me, what I've put in is more than I personally like or enjoy.
With the exception of the books I wrote which were part of series and which had the location dictated by the needs of the series, my stories could take place pretty much anywhere. Okay, so Jarved Nine and the Old City are kind of distinctive and those stories can't take place in another location. That's different. :-)
I do try to use the city to impact the story in some way. For example, snow in Minneapolis in March or having my hero hike in the mountains for the story that took place in Seattle, but setting isn't a character for me.
That said, my hero and heroine do influence where the story happens.
I just mailed a proposal to my agent yesterday. The book takes place in South America and the h/h live in Los Angeles. I wanted them to live somewhere else because I've have so many LA set stories. The Blood Feud world is all LA and I have several other proposals that either take place there or have a hero and/or heroine from there. As I get that this h/h are from LA, too, I'm like enough already.
It doesn't work that way, not for me. My characters are in charge, always. My heroine insisted on Los Angeles. As I researched her educational background, I discovered one of the really good graduate schools in her field is in that area. She came for the university and she stayed.
That said, the vast majority of the story takes place in South America and that's new for me. And the setting actually will have impact on the characters and the plot. It already has with the heroine starting in the capitol city, which is in the mountains, and her ending up in a small village in the rainforest. Elevation and humidity, respectively.
But even so, I wouldn't go as far as to say the setting is a character. I don't understand that, not even when I read the authors who claim their setting is a character. Is there an atmosphere? Sure. Would I call it a character? No. I don't even understand what those writers mean when they say it.
March 6, 2011
Which Version?
I hate it when a song I want to buy has multiple versions because then I have to figure out which version I want. If it's just a remastered song or one copy is on the Best Of album then it's not a big deal. I know what that is, but a lot of times it's unclear.
Last week I wanted to buy a copy of Good To Be Me. I Googled the lyrics I remembered to get the name of the song and who sings it and then went to buy.
And found three versions. My choices were the regular song, the Deluxe version, and the River Road (River something) rendition. I figured out the Deluxe one had to do with the album and not the song, so I had it narrowed down to two options. I listened to a sample for each of them, but that didn't help me because of the parts of the song in the sample. The lengths were different; one was 4:12 and the other was 4:01.
I decided to Google this and didn't find anything helpful. I did find something interesting, though. The song had received "unsolicited" airplay and this bulletin board had people complaining that this song had gotten the play. There was another, more worthy country singer who hadn't gotten unsolicited airplay like this. I was like, whoa. There are really people discussing things like this? And becoming angry on behalf of another singer? I had no idea that fans kept track of stuff like that.
But I digressed. Sorry. So none of my search results that I checked were helpful. I decided to go to my local radio station's website, hoping they'd list which version of the song they played because that was the one I wanted. I had trouble getting parts of their site to load, including the listing that contained this song. I did find a video for it, played it, but it never said which version it was.
With nothing guiding me the direction I wanted to go, I punted and selected the longer version. I played it when it finished downloading and realized immediately that I'd bought the wrong one. Figures, doesn't it?
I ended up going back and buying the other version. This is the one I wanted. I probably should have figured it out sooner since this mentioned it "featured Kid Rock," but just because the other one didn't say that, didn't necessarily mean he wasn't singing on it. I've run into that before. But in this case, it was accurate.
Mission accomplished, it just took two tries to reach the goal.
Last week I wanted to buy a copy of Good To Be Me. I Googled the lyrics I remembered to get the name of the song and who sings it and then went to buy.
And found three versions. My choices were the regular song, the Deluxe version, and the River Road (River something) rendition. I figured out the Deluxe one had to do with the album and not the song, so I had it narrowed down to two options. I listened to a sample for each of them, but that didn't help me because of the parts of the song in the sample. The lengths were different; one was 4:12 and the other was 4:01.
I decided to Google this and didn't find anything helpful. I did find something interesting, though. The song had received "unsolicited" airplay and this bulletin board had people complaining that this song had gotten the play. There was another, more worthy country singer who hadn't gotten unsolicited airplay like this. I was like, whoa. There are really people discussing things like this? And becoming angry on behalf of another singer? I had no idea that fans kept track of stuff like that.
But I digressed. Sorry. So none of my search results that I checked were helpful. I decided to go to my local radio station's website, hoping they'd list which version of the song they played because that was the one I wanted. I had trouble getting parts of their site to load, including the listing that contained this song. I did find a video for it, played it, but it never said which version it was.
With nothing guiding me the direction I wanted to go, I punted and selected the longer version. I played it when it finished downloading and realized immediately that I'd bought the wrong one. Figures, doesn't it?
I ended up going back and buying the other version. This is the one I wanted. I probably should have figured it out sooner since this mentioned it "featured Kid Rock," but just because the other one didn't say that, didn't necessarily mean he wasn't singing on it. I've run into that before. But in this case, it was accurate.
Mission accomplished, it just took two tries to reach the goal.
March 3, 2011
To Revise Or Not To Revise
There's a very interesting discussion happening on one of my author loops about how much revising to do to backlist titles where the rights have reverted to the author before putting them up in eBook format. And being writers, the topic split off into multiple directions. :-)
One conversational path was the technology issue. Some of these authors have contemporary romances or mysteries written in the 1980s and a cell phone changes a lot. There were authors who updated for the new tech and some authors who didn't. They made mention in the front that the book was originally published in 1980-something and left it at that.
It was the second direction in which the conversation veered that has me thinking. Should an author revise her story to fix the writing?
A writer should be pushing herself with each project, learning more with each story and that means the writing should be improving. The difference between later books is smaller than on earlier stories because there's more room for improvement, but there still should be growth.
This made me think of my first book, Ravyn's Flight. I have a really strong memory of moaning to a group of online friends that I wished I could rewrite it because I was a much better writer now. This would have been around 2003/2004 because I know I'd finished The Power of Two and I learned a lot writing that book.
An author on the board, one who's been published for many years, asked me a question: Did you do the best job you were capable of doing when you wrote the book?
Of course I did. I throw myself heart and soul into every story I write and I always strive to do the best work I'm capable of doing. I also tend to be a perfectionist, so I nitpick a lot at my work and always find more to pick at every step of the way.
So this author said, if you did the best you could, then you have to accept that your writing is better now and move on.
I took her advice and didn't spend much time after that looking in the rearview mirror. That work was in print and I had no way to go back and fix it even if I wanted to. Only now I have the rights back to my first four books and I'm going to either resell the rights or put them up in eBook format or something. Which has me thinking hard--what do I fix?
In books 2-4, I don't think I'd do much. I do know I'd tweak the language some, but while they're a little wordier than I write now, I don't feel any compelling need to rewrite them. And then there's Ravyn's Flight.
There are little things I'd do there, too, of course. There are things that happened between when I turned the book in and when I saw the galleys (test prints of the book where few changes are allowed) that I didn't do and I didn't like. For example, the two sentences that became one clunky, run-on sentence or the line I really liked that had a few words cut out of it, which left it a shadow of what I'd intended. But that's little stuff.
If I was writing RF now, it would be different. Maybe drastically different. Is that a can of worms that I want to open?
Part of me would love to take that story apart and put it back together again. I am a better writer, a better storyteller now.
Part of me thinks I shouldn't do more than the little tweaks no matter what. It isn't just tightening up the writing, I'd probably end up changing plot stuff and that impacts story and character. I'm not sure I want to go there. I've heard from so many readers who've told me how much they love the story. What if the changes I make ruin the book for them? And do I really want to create a drastically different version of my first book?
At the moment, I'm leaning toward no. The book was the best I could write at the time that I worked on it. Maybe that needs to be enough.
One conversational path was the technology issue. Some of these authors have contemporary romances or mysteries written in the 1980s and a cell phone changes a lot. There were authors who updated for the new tech and some authors who didn't. They made mention in the front that the book was originally published in 1980-something and left it at that.
It was the second direction in which the conversation veered that has me thinking. Should an author revise her story to fix the writing?
A writer should be pushing herself with each project, learning more with each story and that means the writing should be improving. The difference between later books is smaller than on earlier stories because there's more room for improvement, but there still should be growth.
This made me think of my first book, Ravyn's Flight. I have a really strong memory of moaning to a group of online friends that I wished I could rewrite it because I was a much better writer now. This would have been around 2003/2004 because I know I'd finished The Power of Two and I learned a lot writing that book.
An author on the board, one who's been published for many years, asked me a question: Did you do the best job you were capable of doing when you wrote the book?
Of course I did. I throw myself heart and soul into every story I write and I always strive to do the best work I'm capable of doing. I also tend to be a perfectionist, so I nitpick a lot at my work and always find more to pick at every step of the way.
So this author said, if you did the best you could, then you have to accept that your writing is better now and move on.
I took her advice and didn't spend much time after that looking in the rearview mirror. That work was in print and I had no way to go back and fix it even if I wanted to. Only now I have the rights back to my first four books and I'm going to either resell the rights or put them up in eBook format or something. Which has me thinking hard--what do I fix?
In books 2-4, I don't think I'd do much. I do know I'd tweak the language some, but while they're a little wordier than I write now, I don't feel any compelling need to rewrite them. And then there's Ravyn's Flight.
There are little things I'd do there, too, of course. There are things that happened between when I turned the book in and when I saw the galleys (test prints of the book where few changes are allowed) that I didn't do and I didn't like. For example, the two sentences that became one clunky, run-on sentence or the line I really liked that had a few words cut out of it, which left it a shadow of what I'd intended. But that's little stuff.
If I was writing RF now, it would be different. Maybe drastically different. Is that a can of worms that I want to open?
Part of me would love to take that story apart and put it back together again. I am a better writer, a better storyteller now.
Part of me thinks I shouldn't do more than the little tweaks no matter what. It isn't just tightening up the writing, I'd probably end up changing plot stuff and that impacts story and character. I'm not sure I want to go there. I've heard from so many readers who've told me how much they love the story. What if the changes I make ruin the book for them? And do I really want to create a drastically different version of my first book?
At the moment, I'm leaning toward no. The book was the best I could write at the time that I worked on it. Maybe that needs to be enough.
March 1, 2011
Bye Bye Obligation
I canceled Netflix.
I'd been debating this for a while because I would have the disks sitting for months before I played them. The envelope would be on top of my entertainment center, reminding me that I was paying every month for it to collect dust there.
I tried streaming movies, but my Wii is in the basement and I have one lawn chair down there and it's not exactly comfortable to sit on. I bought a Roku player for upstairs, but it quit working in the middle of the first movie I streamed and their support was a joke. Also, it didn't stream smoothly, but came in fits and starts which annoyed the hell out of me. This was a problem I didn't have if I streamed on my laptop or with the Wii, so I'm blaming Roku and not my wifi or internet speed.
Last week, I blogged about streaming via HDMI from my laptop to the television, but this wasn't seamless for me either. I only have one laptop that has an HDMI port--my newest one, the one I use all the time. It was a little inconvenient, although if I really wanted to watch a movie, I'd do it again.
But that's what it came down to--how often do I really want to watch a movie?
April through October I watch baseball and over the winter, I just didn't watch. And that envelope was on top of the entertainment center--a constant reminder.
And then Amazon announced free streaming for Prime members. That's something I pay for and use and now I can stream? That was the final prod I needed. I canceled Netflix the next day and returned the current unwatched disk.
I never expected the feeling of utter relief. It was as if a big weight had been lifted off of me. I was free!
Something that was supposed to be fun--watching movies--had somehow become a burden. An obligation. Something that wore at me every day that I didn't watch the disk or stream. I no longer have to watch a movie, now I can do it when I want to without the guilt. I feel so good now that I wish I had canceled earlier.
I'd been debating this for a while because I would have the disks sitting for months before I played them. The envelope would be on top of my entertainment center, reminding me that I was paying every month for it to collect dust there.
I tried streaming movies, but my Wii is in the basement and I have one lawn chair down there and it's not exactly comfortable to sit on. I bought a Roku player for upstairs, but it quit working in the middle of the first movie I streamed and their support was a joke. Also, it didn't stream smoothly, but came in fits and starts which annoyed the hell out of me. This was a problem I didn't have if I streamed on my laptop or with the Wii, so I'm blaming Roku and not my wifi or internet speed.
Last week, I blogged about streaming via HDMI from my laptop to the television, but this wasn't seamless for me either. I only have one laptop that has an HDMI port--my newest one, the one I use all the time. It was a little inconvenient, although if I really wanted to watch a movie, I'd do it again.
But that's what it came down to--how often do I really want to watch a movie?
April through October I watch baseball and over the winter, I just didn't watch. And that envelope was on top of the entertainment center--a constant reminder.
And then Amazon announced free streaming for Prime members. That's something I pay for and use and now I can stream? That was the final prod I needed. I canceled Netflix the next day and returned the current unwatched disk.
I never expected the feeling of utter relief. It was as if a big weight had been lifted off of me. I was free!
Something that was supposed to be fun--watching movies--had somehow become a burden. An obligation. Something that wore at me every day that I didn't watch the disk or stream. I no longer have to watch a movie, now I can do it when I want to without the guilt. I feel so good now that I wish I had canceled earlier.
