Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 150
August 4, 2015
Characters, Emotions, and Other Issues
The to-do list was supposed to shrink, not grow! But I remembered stuff I'm supposed to be doing in the next two weeks. And then there are the simple projects that have taken on a life of their own. I had to adjust my plans for the week when I finally looked at the fall ballet schedule, since classes start this week. We've always had class on Tuesday nights, and I assumed that was the case, only to learn it's on Thursday now. I'd planned to go visit my parents on Thursday so I could stay a couple of days with them and come back Saturday in time for a meeting/get-together. So now it looks like I'll either skip the first week of class or go to my parents' house on Friday and come back Sunday morning, skipping the meeting. I like to have at least a whole day to hang out with my parents without having to travel, so I want to spend two nights. It's just a case of figuring out which event to skip.
In the meantime, I'm going into video production mode. My book is part of one of those subscription box things, and they've asked me to make a video for subscribers. I've watched some of the things other authors have done, and it looks like most of them just chat a bit on their webcam. I may escalate it a wee bit. I don't have time to do a full-scale production, but beware the person with a TV news degree and a Macintosh. The last time I made a video, we got the insane safety briefing video for FenCon. I think I'll be myself this time rather than playing a slightly deranged flight attendant.
On another note, I've found a couple of articles that have fit in with thinking I've been doing about characters and the way they're portrayed. First, there's this essay about the recent live-action Cinderella, getting into the concept that what's really radical about it is that it plays the story straight, without deconstructing it or questioning it. I think that explains a lot about why I loved it. Yeah, I like putting twists on familiar tales, but I think even when I'm twisting them, I'm keeping the heart of the original in mind rather than really deconstructing them. I'm not doing anything crazy like making the villains heroes or showing that the heroes are actually the ones to blame.
Then there's this list of stupid characters that now seem to be in every movie (language advisory -- the writer seems to think that profanity makes his point stronger). That would explain why I don't see a lot of movies these days, and especially explains why I didn't bother with the latest Terminator. To quote a passage from the article: "In 1984, Kyle Reese was wiry, desperate, and had PTSD flashbacks thanks to growing up as a feral child in the middle of an irradiated robot apocalypse. In 2015, Kyle Reese is a swole-up supermodel exchanging good-natured jabs with an aged robot dad who represents the waking hell of his entire childhood."
I think a lot of my problem with recent movies -- and even a lot of recent TV -- is that the characters aren't allowed to have normal human reactions to what they go through. Yeah, heroes are supposed to be better and braver than the rest of us, but that doesn't mean they don't have normal emotions. They just don't let those emotions stop them from doing what needs to be done. They still get scared, hurt, and angry. We care more about them if we see them getting scared, hurt, and angry, and we're more concerned about their outcome.
I've also noticed that "kickass female character" trend -- the woman portrayed as awesome and filling out a checklist of "awesome" traits who ends up playing very little role in the actual story. She's kickass window dressing instead of useless window dressing, but she's still more scenery than she is pivotal.
And now I think I need to bring my BluRay of the original Terminator with me to my parents' house to watch on their new big TV. And maybe Aliens. I seem to be in a mood for 80s science fiction action movies all of a sudden.
In the meantime, I'm going into video production mode. My book is part of one of those subscription box things, and they've asked me to make a video for subscribers. I've watched some of the things other authors have done, and it looks like most of them just chat a bit on their webcam. I may escalate it a wee bit. I don't have time to do a full-scale production, but beware the person with a TV news degree and a Macintosh. The last time I made a video, we got the insane safety briefing video for FenCon. I think I'll be myself this time rather than playing a slightly deranged flight attendant.
On another note, I've found a couple of articles that have fit in with thinking I've been doing about characters and the way they're portrayed. First, there's this essay about the recent live-action Cinderella, getting into the concept that what's really radical about it is that it plays the story straight, without deconstructing it or questioning it. I think that explains a lot about why I loved it. Yeah, I like putting twists on familiar tales, but I think even when I'm twisting them, I'm keeping the heart of the original in mind rather than really deconstructing them. I'm not doing anything crazy like making the villains heroes or showing that the heroes are actually the ones to blame.
Then there's this list of stupid characters that now seem to be in every movie (language advisory -- the writer seems to think that profanity makes his point stronger). That would explain why I don't see a lot of movies these days, and especially explains why I didn't bother with the latest Terminator. To quote a passage from the article: "In 1984, Kyle Reese was wiry, desperate, and had PTSD flashbacks thanks to growing up as a feral child in the middle of an irradiated robot apocalypse. In 2015, Kyle Reese is a swole-up supermodel exchanging good-natured jabs with an aged robot dad who represents the waking hell of his entire childhood."
I think a lot of my problem with recent movies -- and even a lot of recent TV -- is that the characters aren't allowed to have normal human reactions to what they go through. Yeah, heroes are supposed to be better and braver than the rest of us, but that doesn't mean they don't have normal emotions. They just don't let those emotions stop them from doing what needs to be done. They still get scared, hurt, and angry. We care more about them if we see them getting scared, hurt, and angry, and we're more concerned about their outcome.
I've also noticed that "kickass female character" trend -- the woman portrayed as awesome and filling out a checklist of "awesome" traits who ends up playing very little role in the actual story. She's kickass window dressing instead of useless window dressing, but she's still more scenery than she is pivotal.
And now I think I need to bring my BluRay of the original Terminator with me to my parents' house to watch on their new big TV. And maybe Aliens. I seem to be in a mood for 80s science fiction action movies all of a sudden.
August 3, 2015
Ghostly Roommates
I finished the book! And then I collapsed. There was brain melting in front of the TV on Friday night, then a lot of lying around on Saturday and a movie night in front of the TV that evening. More lying around on Sunday. Which means today is Get Stuff Done Day. I need to clean the house, catch up on some business stuff like bookkeeping, start coming up with some promotional ideas to give all my books a boost (the new one seems to be vanishing into the ether, which is rather alarming), and start getting ready for WorldCon. Eep.
The towering to-do list just makes me want to curl up in a corner and ignore it all, but I suppose I really must be an adult about it.
Saturday night's movie was The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which I loved on some levels but also found a little frustrating. It started so well, then petered out in the last quarter or so before tacking on an ending that was nice but that seemed to come abruptly out of nowhere because of the petering out. Stan, my ghost, is totally falling down on the job for not dictating guaranteed bestselling books to me (I know the stuff I write can't possibly have been dictated by Stan. It's not his style).
Oh, and in case you're new and don't know about Stan, Stan is my imaginary ghost who gets blamed for anything I can't find. I figure that if something isn't where I expect it to be, someone must have moved it, and since I live alone that must mean I have a ghost. He must be very fond of 80s music because those are the CDs that tend to disappear, and that makes sense because this house was built in 1984, and I have the wallpaper evidence that it was initially a very 80s bachelor pad. The target homeowners for these houses were airline crews, as we're very close to the airport and the floorplan seems designed for roommates, with both bedrooms being "master" suites and two living areas. So I made up this whole backstory of the swinging 80s bachelor airline pilot who died tragically and now haunts this townhouse, moving my stuff around.
But that movie made me want to write some kind of ghost romance. I'm not sure how it would work, though, and it's not like I need more story ideas at the moment, given the number of fictional universes currently running around in my head. Maybe I should just write the chronicles of my life with Stan, which would not be a romance, more like the story of a not entirely peaceful coexistence. How's this for a title: "If You're Going to Mess with My CDs, At Least Alphabetize Them"?
But that's a project for later. I have Stuff To Do today.
The towering to-do list just makes me want to curl up in a corner and ignore it all, but I suppose I really must be an adult about it.
Saturday night's movie was The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which I loved on some levels but also found a little frustrating. It started so well, then petered out in the last quarter or so before tacking on an ending that was nice but that seemed to come abruptly out of nowhere because of the petering out. Stan, my ghost, is totally falling down on the job for not dictating guaranteed bestselling books to me (I know the stuff I write can't possibly have been dictated by Stan. It's not his style).
Oh, and in case you're new and don't know about Stan, Stan is my imaginary ghost who gets blamed for anything I can't find. I figure that if something isn't where I expect it to be, someone must have moved it, and since I live alone that must mean I have a ghost. He must be very fond of 80s music because those are the CDs that tend to disappear, and that makes sense because this house was built in 1984, and I have the wallpaper evidence that it was initially a very 80s bachelor pad. The target homeowners for these houses were airline crews, as we're very close to the airport and the floorplan seems designed for roommates, with both bedrooms being "master" suites and two living areas. So I made up this whole backstory of the swinging 80s bachelor airline pilot who died tragically and now haunts this townhouse, moving my stuff around.
But that movie made me want to write some kind of ghost romance. I'm not sure how it would work, though, and it's not like I need more story ideas at the moment, given the number of fictional universes currently running around in my head. Maybe I should just write the chronicles of my life with Stan, which would not be a romance, more like the story of a not entirely peaceful coexistence. How's this for a title: "If You're Going to Mess with My CDs, At Least Alphabetize Them"?
But that's a project for later. I have Stuff To Do today.
July 31, 2015
Victorian Dime Novels
One of the things I did to prepare for writing Rebel Mechanics was to read as much as possible of the literature of the period. That didn't just mean the classics. I wanted to find the "popular" fiction of the time. I wanted to read period fiction to get a sense of the use of language -- what words were in use and which ones hadn't yet made it into the vocabulary -- as well as the mindset of people living at the time.
I've often defended commercial fiction by pointing out that many of the books we now consider classics were the popular commercial fiction of their time. Dickens's books were the Victorian equivalent of soap operas, since they were published as serials. But after having read some of the less classic literature of the period, the "trashy romance novels" of the time, which mostly survive thanks to Project Gutenberg, I have to amend that. Dickens wrote books that were more the equivalent of the serialized quality dramas on TV, like the sort of thing that HBO does. Because I have now read the equivalent of the soap operas.
To give you an idea of what these books are like, I'll recap an example from 1891, Pretty Madcap Dorothy: How She Won a Lover by Laura Jean Libbey. Since you probably haven't read it, I'll warn that there are spoilers, but although you can get this book on Project Gutenberg, I really wouldn't recommend reading it, unless you want to punish yourself.
Our heroine (to use the term very loosely) is Dorothy, a teenaged girl working in a book bindery in New York. She's pretty, prone to stamping her tiny foot, has tiny white hands and, as we're often reminded, golden blond curls. She's been seeing Jack, who works at the same book bindery -- actually, she's engaged to him, since she's wearing his ring. At least, he thinks so. She has her eye on Harry, a handsome streetcar conductor who's been seeing Nadine, her co-worker and housemate. When Dorothy ditches Jack after work, he then sees her getting in a cab with Harry, and when he can't follow them, he heads to her place to confront them with a gun when they get back (believe it or not, this is our hero). Dorothy's friend Jessie gives an excuse for Dorothy and calms him down. Jessie counsels Dorothy to be careful, but Dorothy says Jack's poor, but Harry isn't just a streetcar conductor. He's actually rich and educated and is only working on a streetcar because he lost a bet, and this was the penalty. But then things get heated when she lies to Jack about her plans for Labor Day, since he'll be working. She says she's going out with friends but goes with Harry to a festival on Staten Island. Jack finishes work early and tries to catch up with Dorothy, only to learn where she really went. With his gun in his pocket (remember, good guy), Jack catches the last ferry to Staten Island and catches Dorothy with Harry when they get on the ferry to come home. Jack shoots and misses, but Harry cries out about being hit as a way of trying to get Jack in trouble, but no one notices because Dorothy faints (she does that a lot) and falls overboard. Harry runs off, but gallant (and violently jealous) Jack dives overboard and rescues her.
The doctor brought to tend her recognizes her as the daughter of a woman he once knew who vanished when her child was a baby (I'm not sure how he recognizes a teenager from an infant), and he instantly decides she has to come home with him and live in luxury on his palatial Westchester estate. Poor (violently jealous) Jack, who was also a bit out of it, has no idea what happened to her, and Dorothy neglects to inform her friends. Then guess who turns out to be the doctor's trainee, who'll be living at the palatial estate? Harry! He begs her not to tell the doctor about the streetcar thing or about him running off on her. She falls more in love with him than ever and acts it out by being wacky and madcap. He's more worried about the fact that his childless mentor now has someone else he could leave his huge fortune to. To test his concerns, he plans to ask his mentor for a loan, and he figures that if he's willing to lend money, that means he still plans to leave him something. But before he can finish asking, his mentor has to go off on a ride. Of course, he then has a tragic accident, is mortally injured, and with his dying breath, he makes Harry promise to ask Dorothy to marry him, but then they can't get married until his will is read six months later.
She's overjoyed with the proposal, while he's less happy, but he figures that if his mentor demanded he marry the girl, either he'll get the money so he can support her or she'll get the money, which he'll get by marrying her. Then tragedy strikes again when they're at a bonfire festival, and a couple of cinders from the fire fly into Dorothy's eyes, blinding her. The housekeeper sends for her orphaned niece to serve as a companion. But the niece, Iris, is a game-playing, man-stealing bitch, the kind who doesn't so much want the men as she wants the thrill of taking them away from other women (I had a frenemy like that in college). She goes after Harry with guns blazing, and poor, blind Dorothy doesn't stand a chance. At a ball, she overhears everyone talking about how Harry seems to be so in love with Iris and flees outside, falls and hits her head. When she wakes up, her eyesight has been restored (yes, she went blind because her eyes were burned, but she gets her sight back from a bump on the head). She heads back inside, comes upon Harry and Iris in the conservatory, hears him declare his love for Iris, and faints. Meanwhile, Nadine (remember her -- Harry's ex he dumped for Dorothy) has tracked him down and has gone rather mad. She's planning to kill Dorothy, but she doesn't get a good look at Iris and tries to stab her, thinking she's Dorothy, and then runs off. Iris's screams wake Dorothy, who comes across the knife Nadine dropped just as Harry sees her, so of course he thinks Dorothy was the one who tried to stab Iris. He sends Dorothy off, then tells Iris it was a falling shard of glass from the conservatory roof that hit her. He then tells Dorothy their engagement is off. Dorothy refuses to end it, and he says either he leaves or she leaves. The next morning, he's surprised to find that both Iris and Dorothy are gone. Iris left a note saying that the doctor who tended to her wound was very wealthy, proposed to her, and insisted they be married right away. Dorothy's just gone. The next day is the reading of the mentor's will, and it turns out that Dorothy gets the whole estate -- but only if she marries Harry within two weeks.
Meanwhile, back in the city, poor (jealously violent) Jack has been in agony about Dorothy's absence. He quits going to work because he's spending all his time searching for her, worried about what might have become of her. He refuses to listen to the people who remind him that the last time he saw her, she was cheating on him, insisting it must have been a misunderstanding. She's his one true love, and he'll never love anyone else, and he says so in many speechy monologues. One day as he's walking along, a sign falls and hits him on the head, and Jessie -- Dorothy's friend -- is on the scene to tend to him, get him home, and nurse him back to health. As she does so, she falls in love with him, but he doesn't notice because he can think of no one but Dorothy. And then Jack suddenly inherits a vast fortune from a distant relative (which happens all the time).
Harry's frantically searching for Dorothy, so he can have his one, true love: the money. He resorts to seeing a psychic -- and would you believe, the psychic is Nadine! Not that he knows this, but she thinks the woman he's seeking is her and that he's looking for her because she killed Dorothy, so she runs away.
And what about Dorothy? She runs away in the night and is considering throwing herself off a cliff into the sea when she sees a man throw in a bundle. She goes down below to see what it is and finds a baby, and it's still alive. She does what anyone would do in that situation: she gets on a train to New York with the baby. Then she has a hard time finding jobs because having the baby around is a liability, until she sees an ad for a companion to an elderly woman, and she's okay with the baby coming along. One problem: she wants a middle-aged woman. Dorothy's landlady used to work in the theater and fixes her up with a wig, glasses and makeup to look older. Then, would you believe, the job is with Jack's mother, in Jack's house! Dorothy starts to realize that she really does love Jack, after all that's happened (I'm sure the vast fortune and Manhattan mansion have nothing to do with that). But Jack is engaged to Jessie. But Jessie is ill, and she refuses to have the doctor sent for. She confesses to Dorothy that she wants to die. She loves Jack, but she knows Jack doesn't really love her and that he's only marrying her because his mother made him promise to after all she's done for them, nursing him through injury and illness and then taking care of his mother through a near-fatal illness. Now that the wedding is approaching, Jessie isn't sure she can go through with it, knowing he doesn't really love her.
She's so ill that Dorothy insists on sending for the doctor. Their family doctor is ill, so his new assistant shows up. Guess who it is? Harry, of course. He says Jessie will need round-the-clock nursing, and his employer has just hired a nurse. Guess who that is? Nadine, naturally. Nadine sees the way Harry cares for Jessie and becomes convinced that he's in love with her, so she devises a plot to gradually poison Jessie. Jessie's near death when the regular doctor returns, gets suspicious, calls in an expert colleague, and the two of them figure out she's being poisoned. They start thinking of who the suspect might be, and the expert sees Dorothy and is like, "Dude, she's wearing a wig and stage makeup." They figure if she's disguising her identity, she's up to no good, and they watch the way she looks at Jack and figure she's eliminating her rival. They gather the household and announce that they've figured out who might want to kill Jessie, and Dorothy, thinking they're going to accuse Jack, confesses, and the doctors then yank her wig off and reveal her identity. She then runs away, completely forgetting the baby.
But outside, Harry catches her, throws her into a carriage, and rushes her off to marry her, since the deadline is coming up. He's driving so fast, he loses control of the carriage and it crashes. When Dorothy wakes up after the crash, a young woman approaches her. She takes Dorothy to her home, and she seems so sad that Dorothy asks what happened. A wicked servant who had been dismissed vowed revenge, kidnapped her baby and said he threw it off a cliff. Dorothy realizes this is the baby she found, and she knows where it is, but she can't go back there because she's suspected of murder. It turns out that this woman's husband is Jack's business partner, so he'll listen if she vouches for Dorothy. They go back to find that Nadine left a note of confession before disappearing, so Dorothy is cleared. Now Dorothy and Jack can marry, and it turns out Harry did fall in love with Jessie while he was tending her, so they marry. Funny, no one mentions what happens to the money since Dorothy didn't marry Harry. So now they all live happily ever after, violently jealous Jack with the girl who cheated on him, and sweet, caring Jessie with the fickle cad.
Now, aren't you glad that while I tried to play on the tone and structure of Victorian dime novels, I didn't draw too much from their plotting and characterization? I'm not even sure airships would have helped this story.
I've often defended commercial fiction by pointing out that many of the books we now consider classics were the popular commercial fiction of their time. Dickens's books were the Victorian equivalent of soap operas, since they were published as serials. But after having read some of the less classic literature of the period, the "trashy romance novels" of the time, which mostly survive thanks to Project Gutenberg, I have to amend that. Dickens wrote books that were more the equivalent of the serialized quality dramas on TV, like the sort of thing that HBO does. Because I have now read the equivalent of the soap operas.
To give you an idea of what these books are like, I'll recap an example from 1891, Pretty Madcap Dorothy: How She Won a Lover by Laura Jean Libbey. Since you probably haven't read it, I'll warn that there are spoilers, but although you can get this book on Project Gutenberg, I really wouldn't recommend reading it, unless you want to punish yourself.
Our heroine (to use the term very loosely) is Dorothy, a teenaged girl working in a book bindery in New York. She's pretty, prone to stamping her tiny foot, has tiny white hands and, as we're often reminded, golden blond curls. She's been seeing Jack, who works at the same book bindery -- actually, she's engaged to him, since she's wearing his ring. At least, he thinks so. She has her eye on Harry, a handsome streetcar conductor who's been seeing Nadine, her co-worker and housemate. When Dorothy ditches Jack after work, he then sees her getting in a cab with Harry, and when he can't follow them, he heads to her place to confront them with a gun when they get back (believe it or not, this is our hero). Dorothy's friend Jessie gives an excuse for Dorothy and calms him down. Jessie counsels Dorothy to be careful, but Dorothy says Jack's poor, but Harry isn't just a streetcar conductor. He's actually rich and educated and is only working on a streetcar because he lost a bet, and this was the penalty. But then things get heated when she lies to Jack about her plans for Labor Day, since he'll be working. She says she's going out with friends but goes with Harry to a festival on Staten Island. Jack finishes work early and tries to catch up with Dorothy, only to learn where she really went. With his gun in his pocket (remember, good guy), Jack catches the last ferry to Staten Island and catches Dorothy with Harry when they get on the ferry to come home. Jack shoots and misses, but Harry cries out about being hit as a way of trying to get Jack in trouble, but no one notices because Dorothy faints (she does that a lot) and falls overboard. Harry runs off, but gallant (and violently jealous) Jack dives overboard and rescues her.
The doctor brought to tend her recognizes her as the daughter of a woman he once knew who vanished when her child was a baby (I'm not sure how he recognizes a teenager from an infant), and he instantly decides she has to come home with him and live in luxury on his palatial Westchester estate. Poor (violently jealous) Jack, who was also a bit out of it, has no idea what happened to her, and Dorothy neglects to inform her friends. Then guess who turns out to be the doctor's trainee, who'll be living at the palatial estate? Harry! He begs her not to tell the doctor about the streetcar thing or about him running off on her. She falls more in love with him than ever and acts it out by being wacky and madcap. He's more worried about the fact that his childless mentor now has someone else he could leave his huge fortune to. To test his concerns, he plans to ask his mentor for a loan, and he figures that if he's willing to lend money, that means he still plans to leave him something. But before he can finish asking, his mentor has to go off on a ride. Of course, he then has a tragic accident, is mortally injured, and with his dying breath, he makes Harry promise to ask Dorothy to marry him, but then they can't get married until his will is read six months later.
She's overjoyed with the proposal, while he's less happy, but he figures that if his mentor demanded he marry the girl, either he'll get the money so he can support her or she'll get the money, which he'll get by marrying her. Then tragedy strikes again when they're at a bonfire festival, and a couple of cinders from the fire fly into Dorothy's eyes, blinding her. The housekeeper sends for her orphaned niece to serve as a companion. But the niece, Iris, is a game-playing, man-stealing bitch, the kind who doesn't so much want the men as she wants the thrill of taking them away from other women (I had a frenemy like that in college). She goes after Harry with guns blazing, and poor, blind Dorothy doesn't stand a chance. At a ball, she overhears everyone talking about how Harry seems to be so in love with Iris and flees outside, falls and hits her head. When she wakes up, her eyesight has been restored (yes, she went blind because her eyes were burned, but she gets her sight back from a bump on the head). She heads back inside, comes upon Harry and Iris in the conservatory, hears him declare his love for Iris, and faints. Meanwhile, Nadine (remember her -- Harry's ex he dumped for Dorothy) has tracked him down and has gone rather mad. She's planning to kill Dorothy, but she doesn't get a good look at Iris and tries to stab her, thinking she's Dorothy, and then runs off. Iris's screams wake Dorothy, who comes across the knife Nadine dropped just as Harry sees her, so of course he thinks Dorothy was the one who tried to stab Iris. He sends Dorothy off, then tells Iris it was a falling shard of glass from the conservatory roof that hit her. He then tells Dorothy their engagement is off. Dorothy refuses to end it, and he says either he leaves or she leaves. The next morning, he's surprised to find that both Iris and Dorothy are gone. Iris left a note saying that the doctor who tended to her wound was very wealthy, proposed to her, and insisted they be married right away. Dorothy's just gone. The next day is the reading of the mentor's will, and it turns out that Dorothy gets the whole estate -- but only if she marries Harry within two weeks.
Meanwhile, back in the city, poor (jealously violent) Jack has been in agony about Dorothy's absence. He quits going to work because he's spending all his time searching for her, worried about what might have become of her. He refuses to listen to the people who remind him that the last time he saw her, she was cheating on him, insisting it must have been a misunderstanding. She's his one true love, and he'll never love anyone else, and he says so in many speechy monologues. One day as he's walking along, a sign falls and hits him on the head, and Jessie -- Dorothy's friend -- is on the scene to tend to him, get him home, and nurse him back to health. As she does so, she falls in love with him, but he doesn't notice because he can think of no one but Dorothy. And then Jack suddenly inherits a vast fortune from a distant relative (which happens all the time).
Harry's frantically searching for Dorothy, so he can have his one, true love: the money. He resorts to seeing a psychic -- and would you believe, the psychic is Nadine! Not that he knows this, but she thinks the woman he's seeking is her and that he's looking for her because she killed Dorothy, so she runs away.
And what about Dorothy? She runs away in the night and is considering throwing herself off a cliff into the sea when she sees a man throw in a bundle. She goes down below to see what it is and finds a baby, and it's still alive. She does what anyone would do in that situation: she gets on a train to New York with the baby. Then she has a hard time finding jobs because having the baby around is a liability, until she sees an ad for a companion to an elderly woman, and she's okay with the baby coming along. One problem: she wants a middle-aged woman. Dorothy's landlady used to work in the theater and fixes her up with a wig, glasses and makeup to look older. Then, would you believe, the job is with Jack's mother, in Jack's house! Dorothy starts to realize that she really does love Jack, after all that's happened (I'm sure the vast fortune and Manhattan mansion have nothing to do with that). But Jack is engaged to Jessie. But Jessie is ill, and she refuses to have the doctor sent for. She confesses to Dorothy that she wants to die. She loves Jack, but she knows Jack doesn't really love her and that he's only marrying her because his mother made him promise to after all she's done for them, nursing him through injury and illness and then taking care of his mother through a near-fatal illness. Now that the wedding is approaching, Jessie isn't sure she can go through with it, knowing he doesn't really love her.
She's so ill that Dorothy insists on sending for the doctor. Their family doctor is ill, so his new assistant shows up. Guess who it is? Harry, of course. He says Jessie will need round-the-clock nursing, and his employer has just hired a nurse. Guess who that is? Nadine, naturally. Nadine sees the way Harry cares for Jessie and becomes convinced that he's in love with her, so she devises a plot to gradually poison Jessie. Jessie's near death when the regular doctor returns, gets suspicious, calls in an expert colleague, and the two of them figure out she's being poisoned. They start thinking of who the suspect might be, and the expert sees Dorothy and is like, "Dude, she's wearing a wig and stage makeup." They figure if she's disguising her identity, she's up to no good, and they watch the way she looks at Jack and figure she's eliminating her rival. They gather the household and announce that they've figured out who might want to kill Jessie, and Dorothy, thinking they're going to accuse Jack, confesses, and the doctors then yank her wig off and reveal her identity. She then runs away, completely forgetting the baby.
But outside, Harry catches her, throws her into a carriage, and rushes her off to marry her, since the deadline is coming up. He's driving so fast, he loses control of the carriage and it crashes. When Dorothy wakes up after the crash, a young woman approaches her. She takes Dorothy to her home, and she seems so sad that Dorothy asks what happened. A wicked servant who had been dismissed vowed revenge, kidnapped her baby and said he threw it off a cliff. Dorothy realizes this is the baby she found, and she knows where it is, but she can't go back there because she's suspected of murder. It turns out that this woman's husband is Jack's business partner, so he'll listen if she vouches for Dorothy. They go back to find that Nadine left a note of confession before disappearing, so Dorothy is cleared. Now Dorothy and Jack can marry, and it turns out Harry did fall in love with Jessie while he was tending her, so they marry. Funny, no one mentions what happens to the money since Dorothy didn't marry Harry. So now they all live happily ever after, violently jealous Jack with the girl who cheated on him, and sweet, caring Jessie with the fickle cad.
Now, aren't you glad that while I tried to play on the tone and structure of Victorian dime novels, I didn't draw too much from their plotting and characterization? I'm not even sure airships would have helped this story.
July 30, 2015
An Ending!
I finished the book last night! Well, sort of. I wrote the ending last night, and it's the ending I want. It needs some adjustments, and I woke up with them in my head, which is good. I'll revise the ending today, then start the final proofreading pass of the whole book, and I'll get it to the copyeditor by August 1 (and she does want it then rather than Monday -- I checked). Then I will likely collapse with my brains dribbling out of my ears, twitching from the high caffeine and sugar levels over the past few days. Then again, I'm fantasizing about cleaning my house because it's starting to get on my nerves and I feel like my life has spiraled out of control.
Plus, I'm supposed to be getting the manuscripts to critique for the WorldCon writers workshop on August 1.
I totally forgot in all the travel frenzy to mention my library event last week. It may have been the biggest book event I've ever been a part of that was in any way about me rather than being an event I happened to be attending. There were a lot of people there, and I didn't even know all of them (though I did know a lot of them because my friends are awesome). There were cupcakes! And jewelry! People wore costumes, including the librarian. I almost felt famous for a little while.
Now I just need to build my career to the point where that kind of thing happens all the time for me.
But first, to finish this book. And then I need to put on the marketing hat and come up with some more ways to push all my books. The response has been good for the new book, but the buzz doesn't seem to be spreading all that much and I'm afraid it's already falling off the radar. I need to think of some ways to give it a good boost.
Plus, I'm supposed to be getting the manuscripts to critique for the WorldCon writers workshop on August 1.
I totally forgot in all the travel frenzy to mention my library event last week. It may have been the biggest book event I've ever been a part of that was in any way about me rather than being an event I happened to be attending. There were a lot of people there, and I didn't even know all of them (though I did know a lot of them because my friends are awesome). There were cupcakes! And jewelry! People wore costumes, including the librarian. I almost felt famous for a little while.
Now I just need to build my career to the point where that kind of thing happens all the time for me.
But first, to finish this book. And then I need to put on the marketing hat and come up with some more ways to push all my books. The response has been good for the new book, but the buzz doesn't seem to be spreading all that much and I'm afraid it's already falling off the radar. I need to think of some ways to give it a good boost.
July 29, 2015
Starting Points
This week's writing post is inspired by a panel from ArmadilloCon on writing mistakes we've seen other writers make. One I brought up was starting the story in the wrong place, and a question from the audience was when a story should start.
The easy answer is at the point of change -- the incident when the protagonist's life or world is changed. If you're looking at it in Hero's Journey terms, it's the "call to adventure." This is when, in traditional fantasy, the wizard shows up at the hero's home/farm/inn and assigns him to go on a quest. It's the moment when the romance heroine meets the hero. It's when the spy or soldier is assigned a secret mission. The change is the reason you're telling this story. If it didn't happen, there would be no story.
There is room to set the stage a little bit and show the hero's ordinary life before things change, but you want to be careful about this because no one wants to read three pages about someone getting up, eating breakfast, getting dressed, etc., before the story starts. You might be able to get away with a paragraph or two, or else you can weave in glimpses of what ordinary life was like after dropping a hint about the change -- there's a clear indication that something might happen, and it's a sharp contrast to the regular day the hero's having. If you're using multiple points of view, you can show the protagonist having an ordinary day while oblivious to the fact that her world is being changed. One of my favorite examples of that is the original Terminator movie, in which we see Sarah having a typical day as a put-upon diner waitress juxtaposed against scenes of a killer robot from the future killing everyone in the phone book with her name. We know her life is about to change, and we're waiting for her to find out.
One of the most common "starting in the wrong place" mistakes that still shows up in published books is the protagonist on a journey to some place where the action of the story will occur, thinking about why she's going. Unless something happens on that journey that affects the plot -- like bandits attacking or the character being kidnapped and never making it to the planned destination -- the journey itself isn't the point of change, so we don't need to see her on the carriage, plane, train, etc. Depending on the story you're telling, whether it's more about the departure and moving away or more about the arrival and going to a new place, the point of change is either the decision to leave and the departure or the arrival at the new place. That's when things start happening.
Waking up is another popular starting point, and is generally to be avoided unless the character wakes to some change -- he's in a different place from where he fell asleep, she has amnesia and doesn't know who she is or how she got where she is, there's a strange person next to her, he's been turned into a cockroach, etc. You really don't want a scene of someone just waking up, getting dressed, etc., before something happens unless you're juxtaposing that ordinariness with some kind of impending crisis the reader has seen, and even then, you want just enough to build suspense without getting boring.
Even professionals sometimes get it wrong and struggle with finding the right starting point. In the version of Star Wars that was released in theaters, we meet our hero Luke when his uncle buys the droids we've been watching escape from the Empire, and very soon afterward he finds the "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" message. That's the point when his life really changes, when he gets the call to adventure. But there was actually an earlier scene written and shot (it's in the tie-in novel, and there are stills out there) in which we first meet Luke as he notices the space battle from the opening and watches it through his binoculars, then rushes into town to tell his friends, who dismiss it as him just wanting adventure. In a sense, the battle he sees is what sets things in motion to change his life, but his life isn't actually changing yet. He hasn't yet been presented with a decision to do anything about it, whereas finding that message presents him with the dilemma of whether he should do something about it. Someone involved in that movie apparently realized somewhere along the way, after the scene was filmed, that the story started in the wrong place.
It's also possible for a story to start too late, after things have already changed, but I find that to be much rarer, especially for beginning authors, unless they've heard advice about cutting the first chapter from a book and took it to heart, and they were the rare case when they actually did start at the right point and didn't need to cut it. You know you started too late when the point of change has already occurred before the story starts.
The easy answer is at the point of change -- the incident when the protagonist's life or world is changed. If you're looking at it in Hero's Journey terms, it's the "call to adventure." This is when, in traditional fantasy, the wizard shows up at the hero's home/farm/inn and assigns him to go on a quest. It's the moment when the romance heroine meets the hero. It's when the spy or soldier is assigned a secret mission. The change is the reason you're telling this story. If it didn't happen, there would be no story.
There is room to set the stage a little bit and show the hero's ordinary life before things change, but you want to be careful about this because no one wants to read three pages about someone getting up, eating breakfast, getting dressed, etc., before the story starts. You might be able to get away with a paragraph or two, or else you can weave in glimpses of what ordinary life was like after dropping a hint about the change -- there's a clear indication that something might happen, and it's a sharp contrast to the regular day the hero's having. If you're using multiple points of view, you can show the protagonist having an ordinary day while oblivious to the fact that her world is being changed. One of my favorite examples of that is the original Terminator movie, in which we see Sarah having a typical day as a put-upon diner waitress juxtaposed against scenes of a killer robot from the future killing everyone in the phone book with her name. We know her life is about to change, and we're waiting for her to find out.
One of the most common "starting in the wrong place" mistakes that still shows up in published books is the protagonist on a journey to some place where the action of the story will occur, thinking about why she's going. Unless something happens on that journey that affects the plot -- like bandits attacking or the character being kidnapped and never making it to the planned destination -- the journey itself isn't the point of change, so we don't need to see her on the carriage, plane, train, etc. Depending on the story you're telling, whether it's more about the departure and moving away or more about the arrival and going to a new place, the point of change is either the decision to leave and the departure or the arrival at the new place. That's when things start happening.
Waking up is another popular starting point, and is generally to be avoided unless the character wakes to some change -- he's in a different place from where he fell asleep, she has amnesia and doesn't know who she is or how she got where she is, there's a strange person next to her, he's been turned into a cockroach, etc. You really don't want a scene of someone just waking up, getting dressed, etc., before something happens unless you're juxtaposing that ordinariness with some kind of impending crisis the reader has seen, and even then, you want just enough to build suspense without getting boring.
Even professionals sometimes get it wrong and struggle with finding the right starting point. In the version of Star Wars that was released in theaters, we meet our hero Luke when his uncle buys the droids we've been watching escape from the Empire, and very soon afterward he finds the "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" message. That's the point when his life really changes, when he gets the call to adventure. But there was actually an earlier scene written and shot (it's in the tie-in novel, and there are stills out there) in which we first meet Luke as he notices the space battle from the opening and watches it through his binoculars, then rushes into town to tell his friends, who dismiss it as him just wanting adventure. In a sense, the battle he sees is what sets things in motion to change his life, but his life isn't actually changing yet. He hasn't yet been presented with a decision to do anything about it, whereas finding that message presents him with the dilemma of whether he should do something about it. Someone involved in that movie apparently realized somewhere along the way, after the scene was filmed, that the story started in the wrong place.
It's also possible for a story to start too late, after things have already changed, but I find that to be much rarer, especially for beginning authors, unless they've heard advice about cutting the first chapter from a book and took it to heart, and they were the rare case when they actually did start at the right point and didn't need to cut it. You know you started too late when the point of change has already occurred before the story starts.
July 28, 2015
Convention Recovery
I'm home from ArmadilloCon, and it was a really good weekend. Having a recent book release makes every convention better. I feel a little less like an impostor, less like I'm toiling away in obscurity (raging insecurities come with the territory of being an author). This is a more serious "literary" convention with a lot of focus on books and writing, so most of my panels were about the business of writing. I did get to moderate panels on the Hobbit book vs. movies and Game of Thrones books vs. TV series, and those were a lot of fun, very lively. The Game of Thrones panel, in particular, could have gone on for hours.
I was moderately social, given that I was trying to get some work done. I got a scene rewritten, with about a thousand new words, and got most of the rest of the book outlined. But I also spent a little time in the con suite, did some chatting in the lobby, hung out at the "meet the pros" reception on Friday evening, and visited some of the Saturday-night parties.
Still, I utterly collapsed when I got home yesterday, barely stirred from the sofa, still went to bed early, and then slept late. But I really must finish the book this week, so today will be a busy work day.
And then three weeks from today, I'm flying to Spokane for Worldcon. Getting the book off my plate this week will give me a chance to get my act together for that trip.
I was moderately social, given that I was trying to get some work done. I got a scene rewritten, with about a thousand new words, and got most of the rest of the book outlined. But I also spent a little time in the con suite, did some chatting in the lobby, hung out at the "meet the pros" reception on Friday evening, and visited some of the Saturday-night parties.
Still, I utterly collapsed when I got home yesterday, barely stirred from the sofa, still went to bed early, and then slept late. But I really must finish the book this week, so today will be a busy work day.
And then three weeks from today, I'm flying to Spokane for Worldcon. Getting the book off my plate this week will give me a chance to get my act together for that trip.
July 23, 2015
Too Crazy for Insanity
It's crazy day again! I have a library event tonight, I leave for a convention tomorrow, and I still need to finish a book that's due in a week. I have a to-do list, and I've struck all the things that aren't entirely necessary and put everything else into a schedule, so I think I'm good, but I'm not sure I'll be able to relax completely until I arrive at the hotel in Austin tomorrow. I hope to get there in time to relax for an hour or so before my first panel so I won't be completely wired and fried when I have to deal with the public, but I'm not in control of travel, so we'll see how that goes.
I have some fun panels for the weekend, but I haven't even started thinking about what I'll say or what discussion prompts to use for the ones I'm moderating.
In short, between convention and book, I have a lot of thinking to do in the next few days. Ack.
Meanwhile, I'm on the new book emotional roller coaster -- UP from someone posting something positive on twitter -- DOWN from seeing Amazon ranking -- UP from good review -- DOWN from seeing Bookscan report (it only covers a fraction of sales, it only covers a fraction of sales) -- UP from increased number of Twitter followers -- DOWN from zero responses to anything I post -- UP from someone responding -- DOWN when seeing what my publisher (or other publisher) is doing for another book that isn't being done for mine -- UP from seeing my books on the shelves in a store -- DOWN from it not being displayed in any of the places someone might actually see it. And so forth.
Is there any wonder why authors are known to drink? And are a little neurotic?
But I don't have time to be insane today because the day is too crazy for insanity.
I have some fun panels for the weekend, but I haven't even started thinking about what I'll say or what discussion prompts to use for the ones I'm moderating.
In short, between convention and book, I have a lot of thinking to do in the next few days. Ack.
Meanwhile, I'm on the new book emotional roller coaster -- UP from someone posting something positive on twitter -- DOWN from seeing Amazon ranking -- UP from good review -- DOWN from seeing Bookscan report (it only covers a fraction of sales, it only covers a fraction of sales) -- UP from increased number of Twitter followers -- DOWN from zero responses to anything I post -- UP from someone responding -- DOWN when seeing what my publisher (or other publisher) is doing for another book that isn't being done for mine -- UP from seeing my books on the shelves in a store -- DOWN from it not being displayed in any of the places someone might actually see it. And so forth.
Is there any wonder why authors are known to drink? And are a little neurotic?
But I don't have time to be insane today because the day is too crazy for insanity.
July 22, 2015
Seeing Clearly
I had an eye exam this morning, and although I felt like my prescription must have changed, it really hasn't. The only difference is that while I have perfect close vision without glasses, my glasses to correct my distance vision keep my close vision from being good. If I got new glasses, they'd be the same as my current ones. So I guess I'll stick with my old glasses, and for activities where contact lenses are better, I have very weak reading glasses. I used to mostly wear contacts and used the glasses as a backup or at home, but now I mostly wear glasses unless I'm doing something active, like dancing, or outdoors where I need sunglasses.
So that's one thing off today's to-do list. I can spend the rest of the day writing. I figured out what to do with this ending, but that required rethinking my villain, and that's requiring another pass through the book to make subtle adjustments.
I suppose all this means I won't get to watch Sharknado 3 tonight. Bummer. I thought the first one was amusing in a ridiculous sort of way but didn't bother with the second. As for the third, it reminds me of something my mother used to say when I was a kid about attention-seeking behavior: "First time is funny, second time is silly, third time is a spanking."
And now I must get to work because tomorrow night there's a big event at the library, a steampunk book party with me, Rachel Caine, and P.N. Elrod. And then I'm going to ArmadilloCon on Friday. Which means I'd really like to finish this pass on the book today, then I can work on the new ending over the weekend and then I'll have a few days for a proofread.
So that's one thing off today's to-do list. I can spend the rest of the day writing. I figured out what to do with this ending, but that required rethinking my villain, and that's requiring another pass through the book to make subtle adjustments.
I suppose all this means I won't get to watch Sharknado 3 tonight. Bummer. I thought the first one was amusing in a ridiculous sort of way but didn't bother with the second. As for the third, it reminds me of something my mother used to say when I was a kid about attention-seeking behavior: "First time is funny, second time is silly, third time is a spanking."
And now I must get to work because tomorrow night there's a big event at the library, a steampunk book party with me, Rachel Caine, and P.N. Elrod. And then I'm going to ArmadilloCon on Friday. Which means I'd really like to finish this pass on the book today, then I can work on the new ending over the weekend and then I'll have a few days for a proofread.
July 21, 2015
Reading Slump
So, I visited my book yesterday, and that always makes me feel awkward. I thought more authors did this sort of thing, but the people at the stores always act surprised when I offer to sign their stock. Then they think I want to do a booksigning right then and start talking about setting up a table. I pointed out that there were five books and I could sign them in just a few minutes right there.
If you don't find the book when you visit the bookstore, ask for it. It took me a while to find my own book in a store where I knew there were copies because someone had tweeted a picture of them. I was looking in Teen Fantasy, and it was in Teen Fiction (flashbacks to the Enchanted, Inc. series being shelved in Fiction instead of in Fantasy).
I'm narrowing in on a solution to my story problem. When in doubt, look to the folklore/mythology. There's probably something that will provide the solution.
I've been in a bit of a reading slump lately, and I've finally decided to give up on the book I've been trying to read for six weeks. It's not that it's a bad book. It's just that it's a little too long and slow for the amount of emotional investment I have in it. I'm intrigued by the premise, but it's paced as epic fantasy, which means events are really spread out, with descriptions of every single meal they eat in between each major event. Seriously, what is the deal with food and epic fantasy? I've noticed that most books in the genre really get into food, even when one of the points is that because of the way things are going, they eat the same thing at almost every meal. There are entire scenes comparing whether the fruit, bread, and cheese at this place is better than the fruit, bread, and cheese at the previous place. I don't care about the food. I want to get to the part where they blow things up with magic. Or even where the main character has anything resembling a relationship with another character -- not necessarily romantic, but something that feels like a connection that makes me care about whether or not it continues or where I know she'll feel some kind of pain if something happens to the other person.
So I'm moving on to rereading a lot of Terry Pratchett before WorldCon, and it counts as work! Right now, I'm rereading Nation, which is a non-Discworld book. But I still love it. When I was a kid, I was very fond of shipwreck/survival type stories where the characters had to fend for themselves for a while in some difficult environment. I love it now, but when I was a kid, I'm sure I would have been utterly obsessed with this book, would have read it over and over again, and would have researched (or tried) some of the stuff in it. I'm afraid I'm a bit too much like the girl characters he tended to write. Then again, I'm planning to be Granny Weatherwax in my old age.
If you don't find the book when you visit the bookstore, ask for it. It took me a while to find my own book in a store where I knew there were copies because someone had tweeted a picture of them. I was looking in Teen Fantasy, and it was in Teen Fiction (flashbacks to the Enchanted, Inc. series being shelved in Fiction instead of in Fantasy).
I'm narrowing in on a solution to my story problem. When in doubt, look to the folklore/mythology. There's probably something that will provide the solution.
I've been in a bit of a reading slump lately, and I've finally decided to give up on the book I've been trying to read for six weeks. It's not that it's a bad book. It's just that it's a little too long and slow for the amount of emotional investment I have in it. I'm intrigued by the premise, but it's paced as epic fantasy, which means events are really spread out, with descriptions of every single meal they eat in between each major event. Seriously, what is the deal with food and epic fantasy? I've noticed that most books in the genre really get into food, even when one of the points is that because of the way things are going, they eat the same thing at almost every meal. There are entire scenes comparing whether the fruit, bread, and cheese at this place is better than the fruit, bread, and cheese at the previous place. I don't care about the food. I want to get to the part where they blow things up with magic. Or even where the main character has anything resembling a relationship with another character -- not necessarily romantic, but something that feels like a connection that makes me care about whether or not it continues or where I know she'll feel some kind of pain if something happens to the other person.
So I'm moving on to rereading a lot of Terry Pratchett before WorldCon, and it counts as work! Right now, I'm rereading Nation, which is a non-Discworld book. But I still love it. When I was a kid, I was very fond of shipwreck/survival type stories where the characters had to fend for themselves for a while in some difficult environment. I love it now, but when I was a kid, I'm sure I would have been utterly obsessed with this book, would have read it over and over again, and would have researched (or tried) some of the stuff in it. I'm afraid I'm a bit too much like the girl characters he tended to write. Then again, I'm planning to be Granny Weatherwax in my old age.
July 20, 2015
Problems without Solutions
I think I've figured out the problem with the book I've been working on. I just don't have a good solution. And I have less than two weeks to figure it out and fix it. During which I have a convention. Eep. So I will be busy. But I think knowing the problem will make it easier to find a solution.
This morning I'm going to go visit my book in the wild. I haven't done any drive-by stock signings, at which I introduce myself to store staff and offer to sign the books they have on hand. It's a great way to get books hand-sold and get booksellers to look at them, but it's also a difficult, draining process for me that requires building up a lot of courage. Plus, there aren't really any convenient bookstores anymore. But I haven't seen my book in any place other than the copy I have, and I know that there's a particular store with copies because my neighborhood librarian tweeted a picture, so I will start there.
One of the frequently asked questions authors get is how the book is doing, and I really have no way of knowing right now. About the only indication I get is Amazon ranking, but even that doesn't directly reflect much because they keep redoing their algorithm, and supposedly they give extra weight to books that are exclusive to them, plus the exclusives that are in the Kindle Unlimited lending program skew things, so there are books with very good Amazon rankings that aren't actually "bestsellers" in the grand scheme of things and books with seemingly poor Amazon rankings that are bestsellers. I just know that I'm getting some enthusiastic response from readers, and there seems to be positive buzz, but I have no way of knowing if that's translating into sales numbers.
I will be working on a proposal for the next book in the series next month, and I've already decided that even if the publisher doesn't want it, it will be published, one way or another.
But first, I must finish this other book to get it to the copyeditor on time. I need a miracle because right now I don't like the ending at all, but I don't know what the ending should be.
This morning I'm going to go visit my book in the wild. I haven't done any drive-by stock signings, at which I introduce myself to store staff and offer to sign the books they have on hand. It's a great way to get books hand-sold and get booksellers to look at them, but it's also a difficult, draining process for me that requires building up a lot of courage. Plus, there aren't really any convenient bookstores anymore. But I haven't seen my book in any place other than the copy I have, and I know that there's a particular store with copies because my neighborhood librarian tweeted a picture, so I will start there.
One of the frequently asked questions authors get is how the book is doing, and I really have no way of knowing right now. About the only indication I get is Amazon ranking, but even that doesn't directly reflect much because they keep redoing their algorithm, and supposedly they give extra weight to books that are exclusive to them, plus the exclusives that are in the Kindle Unlimited lending program skew things, so there are books with very good Amazon rankings that aren't actually "bestsellers" in the grand scheme of things and books with seemingly poor Amazon rankings that are bestsellers. I just know that I'm getting some enthusiastic response from readers, and there seems to be positive buzz, but I have no way of knowing if that's translating into sales numbers.
I will be working on a proposal for the next book in the series next month, and I've already decided that even if the publisher doesn't want it, it will be published, one way or another.
But first, I must finish this other book to get it to the copyeditor on time. I need a miracle because right now I don't like the ending at all, but I don't know what the ending should be.
