Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 102

Musings on Discovering/Implementing Theme in The Moonlight Mistress

Someone asked me fairly recently about how I use theme.For me, I might think about theme ahead of time, but it doesn't really start to manifest until I've written a certain amount of the manuscript. Then I start realizing what my subconscious is trying to tell me (or maybe my conscious mind gives it a name and a shape). Like, for The Moonlight Mistress I knew wolves were a symbol of the wild, but

Safer Sex in Erotica

Lisabet Sarai blogged on safer sex and erotic romance.For me, it depends on the story's sub-genre. In a fantastical setting, I don't usually mind if safer sex is not mentioned, because in science fiction or fantasy the issue can be easily covered by the worldbuilding (everybody has an injection! everybody has a spell!) even if the author hasn't mentioned it explicitly.In historicals, I wish

Backwards Outlining

I did not come up with this on my own; I got it from Sarah Monette back in 2003.Backwards or reverse outlining is, essentially, seeing what you've already done. It's an aid to structure, and it's helped me more than once.Take your completed novel draft. Outline it. What are the major ideas of each chapter, each scene?Study your outline. What did you repeat too many times? What didn't you

Ivor Gurney, "The Silent One"

The Silent OneWho died on the wires, and hung there, one of two--Who for his hours of life had chattered throughInfinite lovely chatter of Bucksaccent:Yet faced unbroken wires; stepped over, and wentA noble fool, faithful to his stripes --and ended.But I weak, hungry, and willing only for the chanceOf line--to fight in the line, lay down under unbrokenWires, and saw the flashes and kept unshaken,

Anne Sexton, "Courage"

CourageIt is in the small things we see it.The child's first step,as awesome as an earthquake.The first time you rode a bike,wallowing up the sidewalk.The first spanking when your heartwent on a journey all alone.When they called you crybabyor poor or fatty or crazyand made you into an alien,you drank their acidand concealed it.Later, if you faced the death of bombs and bulletsyou did not do it

Why Not Twentieth Century Historicals?

Why are so few romance novels set in the twentieth century?If you go to a bookstore and look at the section labelled "Romance," certain things are there and certain things are not. With the exception of occasional outliers like Harlequin's line of 20th century "decade" books-- a line of categories that some bookstores didn't carry, and which was then closed down--historicals seem to include only

How to Write - Linkgasm #4

I visited Lauren Dane's blog yesterday for Writerly Wednesday, to talk about Dialog Tricks.Also, Great War Fiction, one of my favorite blogs, reviewed The Moonlight Mistress yesterday! Here's the link. It's so cool to be meandering about, reading your usual blog feeds, and something like this pops up.But enough about me.The Magic Treehouse Writing Lessons. No, really. Have a look. Especially

I Like Being Reviewed

I like getting reviews of my work.Not everyone does. Not everyone is required to like it, or even to read reviews of their work. But some of us like reading reviews and commentary (which is how I think of feedback that states it isn't intended as a review, or is briefer or less thorough than a review).Reviews can give me a new way to think about my work. I like it when they confirm an opinion

Romance in Short

Having written a short romance story last month, I naturally had to think about how to do it. I've written many short stories, but I would classify them all as erotica whether or not they were romantic. This was the first time I'd explicitly tried to write a romance, meaning a story in which the romance was the primary focus. (And I hadn't written a short story in quite some time.)I had

Guest at Midnight Moon Cafe

I'm a guest today over at Midnight Moon Cafe, on "Making the Paranormal Real - Boundaries and Consequences."