Lucienne Diver's Blog: Lucienne Diver's Drivel, page 35

Quick things

First, a quick but HUGE congratulations to Vicky Dreiling on being a triple RITA Award nominee for HOW TO MARRY A DUKE (x2) and HOW TO SEDUCE A SCOUNDREL.  So awesome and well-deserved!

Another HUGE congrats to give out, this one to David Mack for making the Top Ten Tie-Ins ballot on Unreality SF for his Star Trek novel RISE LIKE LIONS.  You can click here to vote for your favorite story on the shortlist.

Also, the agents of The Knight Agency are doing a Twitter chat tomorrow, Tuesday March 27th at 12 p.m. ET.  We'd love you to join us!  Use the #knightagency hashtag.  Talk with you then!

Round-up

Things are a bit crazy this week, since I'm only in the office for two days before running off to chaperone my son's class trip to St. Augustine.  Many sixth graders, one bus.  Wish me luck!  Before I run off, some congratulations are in order:

To Rob Thurman for hitting #21 on the New York Times paperback list last week with her latest hard-hitting Cal Leandros novel, DOUBLETAKE. (See excerpt and video.)

To Amy Christine Parker, whose debut novel and subsequent book, we've sold to Random House Children's at auction (see Publishers Weekly report).  THE SILO is tentatively set for release in Fall 2012.  It's truly not to be missed!

To Kira Sinclair for the release of her latest Island Nights novel, RUB IT IN, just out today!

To Faith Hunter, whose Jane Yellowrock novel RAVEN CURSED is an Audible All-Star, Top 20 Book for the season.

Other news:

I'm over at Magical Words today talking about creating characters.

My events for the next couple months:

this Saturday, March 24 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Third Annual Local Author Fair, Land O Lakes Library, FL

April 6-8 Marcon 47 in Columbus, OH

April 11-15 Romantic Times Convention, Chicago, IL

May 19-20 DFW Writers Conference

Lotsa Sandboxes by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Today on my blog, the superlative…wait, no…the stupendous…no, no, that's not quite it either…the, well THE Keith R.A. DeCandido, author of everything from the Serenity novelization to tie-ins for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, Resident Evil, Spider-Man, etc. to original fiction, like his newly released SCPD: The Case of the Claw.  He's talking today about collaborative fiction and inspiration from working with other authors.  Enjoy!  (And, hey, give him a shout out, if you're so inclined.)

Lotsa Sandboxes
by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Traditionally writing is considered a solitary activity, but there are ways to make it a collaborative medium while still maintaining your own voice.

One method I've mined pretty well is to work on tie-in fiction. While many tie-in lines go the standalone route—where each novel is just an independent story that takes place in the same universe as the TV show, movie, game, or comic book that it spins off of—others have encouraged a more collaborative method. The most obvious example is the Star Wars novel, which even has the rather cool title of "Expanded Universe." I myself have participated in such in the Marvel novels of the 1990s (which was actually administrated by me as the line's editor) and the Star Trek novels, which went from being traditionally standalone to becoming more integrated in the 21st century. Getting to jam with other authors on such sub-series as the Starfleet Corps of Engineers and the post-finale Deep Space Nine fiction and the A Time to… series of Next Generation novels was just great fun. Getting to bounce ideas off fellow authors and inspire each other is a creative jolt that just can't be beat.

More recently, I've gotten to do that in settings that aren't corporately owned.

Aaron Rosenberg and David Niall Wilson invited me to be part of a science fiction shared world concept called "The Scattered Earth." The basic setting is a far future where humanity has died out—but slivers of the human race have been re-seeded on other planets by powerful beings once worshipped as gods. My own corner of it has people who derived from the people of West Africa, and who have conquered their entire star system under the rule of the Olodumare Hegemony. My first Scattered Earth novel Guilt in Innocence reveals the ugly secret behind the Hegemony's dominance—upcoming novels and stories will start to bring the threads together as the different bits of humanity (seen so far in Aaron's The Birth of the Dread Remora and David's The Second Veil, among other places) will start to come together.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Maberry has started up a shared world of his own, in which vampires are real—but not the ones you know from the film, television, or literature. No, a virus activates people's "junk DNA," and they become the vampires of their ethnic heritage's folklore. A Chinese guy turns into a hopping ghost, a Haitian man turns into a loup garou (that's in my story, "The Ballad of Big Charlie"), and so on. The first batch of stories by me, Jonathan, and bunch of other cool folks will be in IDW's V Wars this spring.

And Steven Savile created a little thriller series called Viral, wherein the same series of events—in this case, a CIA operation that uses Third World immunization programs to further the agenda of the war on terror—from a variety of angles. In my case, what interested me was something Steve said about a journalist who is confronted with this intelligence, and has to decide whether or not to report it—a decision made more complicated by the CIA strike team trying to kill him. That story is told in the first novella of the four in Viral, my own -30-.

In each case, it was so much fun to take ideas from other writers and incorporate them (with permission, obviously) to add texture. It was a true collaboration, but still my own story each time.

Of course, there's a lot to be said for making your own damn sandbox. Right now I've got two fantastical police procedurals going—one in a high fantasy setting (Dragon Precinct and its sequels Unicorn Precinct and the forthcoming Goblin Precinct), the other in a city filled with superheroes (SCPD: The Case of the Claw). Both take place in fictional cities—Cliff's End in the fantasy world of Flingaria in which elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings live in something like peace, Super City, which is in our world in much the same way Metropolis and Gotham City are—and part of the joy is in creating the feel of those cities. The neighborhoods, the people, the tone of each one, the pulse of the mass transit system in Super City, the differences in the precincts in Cliff's End. It becomes a real place, with real people.

Sure, writing is a solitary profession. But there are lots of folks around to give you a hand, you just have to know where to find them.

Keith R.A. DeCandido is, as you may have guessed, a writer. If you go to his web site at www.DeCandido.net, you can find links to his blog, his Facebook page, and his Twitter feed, to purchase his most recent books, to his editorial service KRADitorial (serving both personal and corporate clients), and to his podcasts: Dead Kitchen Radio: The Keith R.A. DeCandido Podcast, The Chronic Rift, and the Parsec Award-winning audio drama HG World (for which he does the voice of Todd Rage), among other cool things. Oh, and look for his Leverage novel in the near-ish future, as well as all that cool stuff he talked about above. You'll be glad you did.

Fun Fridays

It's been awhile, I think, since I've done a Fun Friday post, but it doesn't get much more fun than this: Sh*t Writers Say.

 

Also (fun for me, anyway), I have to post this wonderful review from Booklist for my latest Vamped novel FANGTASTIC.  My hero is strutting around in my head at his "hunky" designation, and my heroine has decided that she can totally live with "feisty."

Plus, if books run like films in your head, I'd love to see who you think should play the various roles in my books.  Story Casting now has them posted and available for dream casting.  It's like fantasy football without all the stats.

Don't forget that you can view the Vamped series music video and download the MP3 for free on my website if you're interested.  And hey, if you've read and loved the series…or liked it…or whatever, I'd love you to rate it on Goodreads or post reviews to Barnes & Noble.com or Amazon.com or wherever you'd like.  Thank you!

Strange Days Indeed

First, I want to wish you all a happy International Women's Day.  I'm tempted to ask, "Wait, does our Congress know about this?"  But no, no, I'm beyond such things.

Anyway, it's been the day for news of all sorts.  The Wall Street Journal reports more on the Justice Department's investigation into potential collusion on e-book pricing, which, if you ask me, was not that but instead companies recognizing the path that had to be taken to ensure competition rather than end it.  (To halt Amazon.com's push for complete market domination.)

Reports that Dorchester Publishing's backer is foreclosing on the company's interests.

An alert from AAR that as of April the price for acquiring foreign certification forms will rise from $35 for 20 forms to $85 no matter how many are needed, proving (to me anyway) that our government is once again thinking about corporations rather than individuals and the burden placed on them.

Hmm, apparently, I'm feeling disgruntled today.  I trace it back to Jessica Winter's very thought-provoking article for Time Ideas earlier this week.

Strange days indeed.

Crazy week and congrats

It's been a crazy week, which is why it's been so quiet here on the blog.  All good, just busy, busy, busy.  However, I had to take some time out to blog because some congratulations are very definitely in order.

First, huge congrats to Tammy Kaehler, whose debut mystery DEAD MAN'S SWITCH is up for the Eureka Award from Left Coast Crime.  And check out this great quote for the book from Agatha, Anthony and Macavity-award-winning author Harley Jane Kozak, "Dead Man's Switch is a great read whether you're a NASCAR fan who never reads mysteries or a mystery fan who knows nothing about racing. And if you love both cars and crime fiction, it's a must-read. Kate Reilly is smart and tough and engaging—and she sure can drive. And Tammy Kaehler sure can write."

Next, HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY to Rob Thurman, whose latest Cal Leandros novel, DOUBLETAKE, hit shelves yesterday.  Here's a great review from SF Revu.  And I quote: "In a series that constantly finds new ways to explore the bonds of brotherhood and friendship, this book takes those emotions to a whole new level. And the book is stronger for it."

In other around the blog-o-sphere news, the awesome Paige Crutcher spotlights author-me and my Vamped series on Examiner.com.

Lynn Flewelling's leading man Seregil is currently in a cage match with Patrick Rothfuss's character Bast.  Today is the last day to get your votes in.  Who will win?

 

 

N.K. Jemisin received a very well-deserved starred review from Publishers Weekly on her upcoming novel THE KILLING MOON (trade paperback from Orbit, coming May 1, 2012).

Christina Henry shared her playlist for her most recent Black Wings novel, BLACK HOWL with Ace and Roc Books.

Carol Berg is racking up great praise for the conclusion to her Collegia Magica series (THE SPIRIT LENS, THE SOUL MIRROR and THE DAEMON PRISM), including this four and a half star review from Romantic Times.

Action Distraction

I wrote this guest blog last year for Babes in Bookland (hey, all!).  Since it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, having just turned in the second book in my Latter-Day Olympians series, I thought I'd reprise it here.  Hope you enjoy!

Action Distraction

I don't know about you all, but I dread action scenes.  I approach the writing of them with all the excitement of facing a root canal without pain meds.  Why?  Abject terror.  Yes, that's right—the big bad literary agent and novelist is inclined to run screaming into the night at the first sign of an approaching fight scene.

As you can probably tell, such scenes don't come easily to me.  The first mistake I always used to make was using waffle words and observations rather than just rolling out the action.  See how I used "just" right there?  It's a waffle word.  I'm a huge overuser of the word "just" and find that I have to take out a good number of them in revisions.  As far as observations, the reader doesn't need the cues "she thought," "he heard," "she saw," etc.  Whether you're writing in first or third person, a scene will be told from a particular character's point of view, thus if the reader is reading something, it's understood that the hero, heroine, villain or whoever is thinking, hearing, seeing or smelling the subject of the sentence.

My second problem is that I always have difficulty balancing the need for description so that the reader can visualize the scene with the momentum of the action.  I don't want to slow things down by describing something while my heroine is in mid-swing.  On the other hand, even in the split second it takes a blow to fall, a person is processing a ton of information, some of which can reasonably be put down in print.  Generally, my first draft of a scene is a whirl of this action and that reaction with the reader left in the dust as to who is actually doing what to whom and where.  That's something I go back and forth over several times—adding, subtracting, making sure my antecedents are clear (for example, which bad guy has the glass jaw).  My action scenes probably receive twice the tinkering of any others.

Third, you have to write the action scenes in voice!  Wow, that's a lot to expect of one little scene.  That's yet another revision or six.  I find that in my effort to show the action and make it all clear, the voice will fade in and out, and I have to really focus on keeping it in and consistent in my later passes over the manuscript.  So, generally I get it down, then get it right.  In fact, if you can take any lesson away from this post, it's that: "get it down, then get it right."  You have to give yourself permission to be imperfect, permission to fail, in order sometimes to get the words onto the page.  Your critique partners, agent, editor, copyeditor, etc. are there to keep you from falling on your face.

Now you all know my dirty little secret.  The funny thing is that I write novels with lots of action.  I think I must be a masochist.

Ditto

Author Cat Valente has a post over on Charles Stross's blog about "Work Is Never Over: On Publishing and Its Many Faces."  Since it is both a) wonderful and b) says everything I feel about the biz, I'm sending you over there today with a great big, "Ditto!" from me.

How to Talk to Agents

I'm going to let a couple of my clients talk today instead of me: Vicky Dreiling and Amy Christine Parker.  As Vicky will tell you in her "How I Got My Agent" post, she and I met several years ago at a conference – not at a pitch session, but at a meal after the conference was over, during which I asked her about her work, fell in love with her tagline, asked to see her partial, fell in love with that, requested the rest, harassed her for it when we passed each other on escalators at a subsequent conference….  Well, heck, I'll let her tell it.  Amy Christine Parker and I have a somewhat similar story.  She and I met when I spoke with her local writer's group and ended up keeping in touch.  When she sent me her YA novel set within a cult…well, I fell hard.  Here she gives some very good advice on how to talk to agents.  I present these because I think they illustrate some very wonderful points that every aspiring writer who wonders how to approach editors and agents at conferences, etc., should hear.  Enjoy!

Interview

Today I'm interviewed over on Martha J. Ramirez's blog as both author and agent.