Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 63
April 15, 2011
Linkgasm: A Friday Erotic Miscellany
I'm a guest at the Novelists, Inc. blog today, chatting about resting.
On to the links.
New-to-me blog The Pursuit of Harpyness posted "Eclectic Thoughts on Finding [Woman-Empowering] Erotica. It's a great blog, I recommend browsing further that that one post.
Blogger Amazon on Sex, Sexwork, and Pornography, "a jumping-off point to talk about social perceptions of sexwork and sexworkers."
Alison Tyler notes there's a new review of her anthology Frenzy: 60 Stories of Sudden Sex, in which ...
April 14, 2011
Mary Balogh's TANGLED
At Heroes and Heartbreakers, I analyzed Mary Balogh's Tangled as an erotic romance.
I focused on the first two sections of the novel, and how the marriage of the two main characters develops and changes through their sexual relationship.
April 13, 2011
Building Setting: Inherent Conflict
When creating a setting for a novel, it needs to provide opportunities for conflict.
For example, in a Regency Romance, the conflict is generally between the characters and the social mores of that time and place. For one reason or another, the characters must rebel against what's expected.
Another example is setting a story in the middle of a war. The characters' conflicts can be set against the larger conflict and either mirror or oppose it. The characters might be on opposing...
April 11, 2011
Active Settings
I had a note to myself that I should blog about "active settings." I didn't remember exactly why I'd written that phrase down, but ideas began to spill into my mind, as if the phrase was a cue.
Thinking of setting as active could be a useful concept for both historical and speculative fiction. After all, setting in where and when characters move, where they act. Setting can say things about character, and character can say things about setting. Our perception of a setting can change c...
April 10, 2011
"The One-Legged Man," Siegfried Sassoon
The One-Legged Man
Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald;
Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls;
A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stalked field,
And sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls.
And he'd come home again to find it more
Desirable than ever it was before.
How right it seemed that he should reach the span
Of comfortable years allowed to man!
Splendid to eat and sleep and choose a wife,
Safe with his wound, a citizen of life.
He hobbled blithely through the garden g...
April 8, 2011
Digital Publishing Linkgasm
There have been some interesting and very substantial articles recently that go deeper into issues of digital publishing and how it's affecting and possibly might affect the print publishing market.
Romance author Stephanie Laurens wrote a 7-part, very thoughtful commentary on recent changes in publishing, from the point of view of a bestselling author of print genre fiction.
Authors Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath, both of whom do extremely well publishing digitally, discuss "the history a...
April 7, 2011
If You Build It, They Will Come: Worldbuilding in Urban Fantasy
If you missed it on Wednesday, I have a new post on Heroes and Heartbreakers: "If You Build It, They Will Come: Worldbuilding in Urban Fantasy."
April 6, 2011
Paranormal Allegories
I have a post on Heroes and Heartbreakers today: "If You Build It, They Will Come: Worldbuilding in Urban Fantasy."
Now, on to today's post!
What do the paranormal creatures in Paranormal Romance represent? Are they allegories?
You could say, sometimes a gorgon is just a gorgon. I think, though, it's valuable to think about paranormal creatures in fiction as allegories, symbolic representations of things from our own society that we want to examine or critique. I think that writers...
April 4, 2011
Fun With Rhetoric
As I mentioned a while ago, I've been slowly working my way through a book on rhetoric by James Phelan, Experiencing Fiction: Judgments, Progression, and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative.
I'm taking great joy in reading this book and letting the concepts sink into my mind. It's helping me to understand what happens in my mind when I read, and also giving me ideas of how that might help my writing.
Here's a bit of what it's all about:
"Although the theory behind the reading practice...
April 3, 2011
"Arms and the Man," Siegfried Sassoon
Arms and the Man
Young Croesus went to pay his call
On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall:
And, though his wound was healed and mended,
He hoped he'd get his leave extended.
The waiting-room was dark and bare.
He eyed a neat-framed notice there
Above the fireplace hung to show
Disabled heroes where to go
For arms and legs; with scale of price,
And words of dignified advice
How officers could get them free.
Elbow or shoulder, hip or knee,
Two arms, two legs, though all were lost,
They'd be...
