R.L. LaFevers's Blog, page 19

Picking Up The Pieces

One of the problems I've consistently had with this historical YA fantasy is whittling down momentous, national and political events to the personal, then including enough to give the story the needed weight and heft, but not so much that it swamps the characters.

So as I picked up the project again, I thought I'd try a few techniques, and I'm going to talk about them here because I think they apply to most big revisions.

The problems I've had with the story are:
A cast of thousands
Historical an...

What A Week!

Goodness, it's been a full week! There was completion and closure and celebration and all sorts of rich-yet-exhausting things going on.

I made my revision deadline for Theodosia and the Last Pharaoh, a three week turnaround of which I am very proud, then hot off the tail of that, our entire extended family (including all sets of grandparents!) went north for my eldest son's graduation from UC Santa Cruz. All of the grandparents have been amazingly generous and supportive in getting the boys th...

An Interview With Moi

I am being interviewed over at the Enchanted Inkpot today. Take a gander over there if you are interested. Also, we are having a drawing for a copy of THE BASILISK'S LAIR and an ARC of THE WYVERN'S TREASURE...in case you needed coaxing. :-)

And . . . I Lied

Okay, so I did want to share one other thing I read in MADE TO STICK. It touches on something I talk about a lot—concrete details.

The authors explain that for an idea to stick, it has to be credible. There are all sorts of ways to gain credibility, through bona fides, experts, celebrity endorsements, and true stories. However the one avenue to credibility that he talks about that has the most relevance to writers is concrete details. It turns out putting in solid, specific details in our writ...

Miscellany

Okay so maybe I won't be reporting on MADE TO STICK. No sooner did I announce that than I stopped reading the book. Felt too much like a book report. :-)  Suffice it to say, it has a lot of good stuff in it. Stuff like: We can't demand attention, we have to attract it, which pretty much sums up how I feel about first scenes.



Last night I was browsing at my local indie and came upon this most excellent book that I simply had to have. Renaissance Secrets: Recipes and Formulas. Just looking at it...

Writing Sticky Fiction

I've been reading a fascinating book called MADE TO STICK by Dan Heath and Chip Heath, and it talks about what makes some ideas stay with us while others barely make a dent in our consciousness. I originally picked it up because I thought some of what it said might pertain to writing, and it does, but it also deals a lot with how our brains process and retain information, but not in a highly technical or scientific way, rather in a practical way. Which actually, come to think of it, also pert...

Life Really Is Full of Little Miracles

And sometimes some not so little ones...

Lisa Yee posted this link on FB and I fell so head over heels in love with it that I had to share it here. It's a you tube video of a baby who has just recieved a cochlear  implant and can, for the first time, hear his mother's voice. The look on his face as he discovers this new sense, this entire new realm of sound, is beyond beautiful.

My Quantum Life or In Which I Confess How Crazy I Truly Am

So here's one of the reasons I adore traveling, even though I pretty much am not a traveler: It makes it easier for me to imagine my quantum lives.

I have had this belief, this theory, if you will, since I was young enough to remember—long before I'd ever heard of quantum physics or string theory or alternate universes—and it goes something like this: Every time I make a decision, one of the things that comforts me is I have this sense of Other Robins living out a multitude of lives and taking...

Attempting Re-entry

Upon my return from my trip, the revision letter for Theo Four was waiting for me. And due to a number of circumstances, it is due back to my editor SOON. Which gives me approximately seventeen days for the revision.

One of the things I struggle with every. single. time. is how much information to backfill in for readers regarding The Adventure So Far. I definitely tend to err on the side of not enough information, which isn't good, but I also loathe a great big recap of previous events in or...

Wrapping Up

Okay, I've been home two days and I should probably have posted this last entry on Saturday, at the latest, but I was exhausted. As I told the kids at all the events, my characters share some traits with me, not the least of which being—like Nathaniel Fludd—I am not an intrepid traveler. It totally wears me out. Add that to being an introvert, and I am pretty much a wet soggy dishrag by the end of the adventure.

That doesn't mean that I want to stay home all the time. I actually always get a ...