Florence Witkop's Blog, page 79

Unicorn Bait by S.A.Hunter

My second book review.  Unicorn Bait by S.A.Hunter.  Hey, I like fun fantasy stories!

This is such a story and the title is the most fun thing of all but I won’t tell you what the unicorn bait is because that would be a spoiler.  But I’ll say this much.  It made reading the book worth it in spite of the fact that, to me at least, the book was a little longer than necessary.  A bit wordy.  And not exactly high English but definitely readable.

It’s a familiar tale with a twist.  Modern day woman inherits a joke unicorn horn from her father that turns out to be the real thing and when she dusts it off she’s whisked away to a magical kingdom where unicorns and magic are commonplace.  Since her only wish is to return to her home and since she’s smart enough to figure out that it was the unicorn horn that got her there, she figures that she needs another one to whisk her back. The rest of the book is the search for a unicorn and a virgin (which she isn’t) to use as bait because, as everyone knows, unicorns only communicate with virgins.  And, of course, in the process she falls in love with the prince of the kingdom who starts out being nasty and ends up being nice even though he remains a little rough around the edges.  Much better than Prince Charming, to my way of thinking.

So there you have it.  I’m discovering that I actually enjoy writing reviews though I’ll never write a bad review.  If I don’t like a book (and I’ve started many books I didn’t like)  I don’t review it at all.  I just put it down without finishing it.

Review: Unicorn Bait

My second book review.  Unicorn Bait by S.A.Hunter.  Hey, I like fun fantasy stories!

This is such a story and the title is the most fun thing of all but I won’t tell you what the unicorn bait is because that would be a spoiler.  But I’ll say this much.  It made reading the book worth it in spite of the fact that, to me at least, the book was a little longer than necessary.  A bit wordy.  And not exactly high English but definitely readable.

It’s a familiar tale with a twist.  Modern day woman inherits a joke unicorn horn from her father that turns out to be the real thing and when she dusts it off she’s whisked away to a magical kingdom where unicorns and magic are commonplace.  Since her only wish is to return to her home and since she’s smart enough to figure out that it was the unicorn horn that got her there, she figures that she needs another one to whisk her back. The rest of the book is the search for a unicorn and a virgin (which she isn’t) to use as bait because, as everyone knows, unicorns only communicate with virgins.  And, of course, in the process she falls in love with the prince of the kingdom who starts out being nasty and ends up being nice even though he remains a little rough around the edges.  Much better than Prince Charming, to my way of thinking.

So there you have it.  I’m discovering that I actually enjoy writing reviews though I’ll never write a bad review.  If I don’t like a book (and I’ve started many books I didn’t like)  I don’t review it at all.  I just put it down without finishing it.

 

The Literary Genre Part 2

When I taught first grade, a family of refugees straight from the jungles of Laos came to our town and our school.  We teachers who would have a student from this family were given a crash course in south-east Asian culture so we’d be better able to deal with any every-day situations that might arise.  Thus I learned that in south-east Asia, the worst insult one person can give another is to touch them on the top of the head.  It’s like giving someone the finger in the US.  Or throwing a shoe at them in the Middle East.

After this crash course, we met the family.  The father was the only one who could speak English.  He said he was watching American TV and reading American literature as a way to learn our culture.  As he said this, a memory popped into my mind of a literary story I’d read recently.

An abbreviated version of the story is this:  A young boy spends the summer with his grandparents.  He and his grandfather don’t get along except when fishing in the creek that runs through the grandparents’ property, trying for the legendary trout that lives there.  At the end of the summer, as the boy’s parents come to pick him up, the boy hooks the trout, puts up a heroic battle that seems to last forever… and loses it.  As the grandfather and the boy pack up their gear and head to the house, the grandfather removes the boy’s cap and pats him on his head.  And that’s the end of the story.

I know what the author intended the reader to understand.  I know the point he was trying to make with the story. That the grandfather loved the boy unconditionally whether he caught the trout or not.  But if that father from south-east Asia read that story, given the meaning his culture gives to a pat on the head, I’m not so sure he got the writer’s meaning.  In fact, he might well have gotten the exact opposite message.

So the fact that literary fiction does not tell a story directly may be why it doesn’t pay as well as commercial fiction.  Because the readership is limited to those readers who share the same culture as the writer.  Who understand the writer’s innuendos, segues, descriptions and other devices he uses to tell a story indirectly.  Unfortunately, that’s a much smaller pool of potential readers than commercial fiction requires to be  financially successful.

Though, with the advent of e-publishing, there are enough potential readers of similar backgrounds out there for any literary writer to publish electronically and see what happens.  It just might work!

The Literary Genre, Part 1

For a long time I thought there was a war between people who write literary fiction and those who write for the commercial market.  I’ve grown past that childish belief but I belong to a literary writers’ group so I’m sensitive to the differences between the two and have given that difference a lot of thought.  This post is the beginning of an explanation of those differences as I see them.

The difference is all about the reader.  But it isn’t what you might think.

A friend who writes in the literary genre once defined the act of writing literary fiction as ‘writing around the story’.  There is a story in what may appear to be nothing more than pages of description in which nothing happens.  But there is a story!  There is!  But, since it’s not clearly laid out, the reader must find the story for him or herself.

That’s where things get wonky.  Literary writers tell stories through references, allusions, indirect descriptions and anything else they can think of that will nudge the reader towards the actual story without directly telling the reader much of anything.

Think about it.  Literary writers carefully choose words that they hope will give the reader the same mental pictures that are in the writer’s head.  They hope the reader will then form those same mental pictures and make an intuitive leap into the story the writer is actually writing.

Problem is, every writer’s arsenal of words is limited to words from their own world.  Their own background. Those words work fine for readers from a similar background.  From their world.

But readers from a different background might interpret those references, allusions and indirect descriptions … those words they chose so carefully … in a different way.  And end up reading a completely different story.

Think about this as you go about your day.  In my next post, I’ll illustrate what I’m talking about with a concrete example that happened about the time I joined that literary group and began wrestling with the difference between the literary and commercial genres.

Progress by Amy Queau

 

This is the first of what I hope will be many book reviews.  Not of New York’s best-sellers. Of books by both writers I know and those I don’t but like what they are saying.  Some are wonderfully written and awesome.  Others aren’t exceptional in any specific way but give the reader a good read.  So on to Progress by Amy Queau, available on Amazon:

I’m not sure what category Amy was thinking of when she wrote Progress, but it seems to me to fit nicely in the literary genre as well as in a couple of other genres, namely romance and contemporary women’s fiction.  I said literary because of the writing style and the feel of the whole thing.  I always think of fiction in terms of color and the cover Amy chose for Progress is fitting.  Gray, a color that’s is perfect for literary fiction.

There is explicit sex but it’s not your usual romance.  The end isn’t the usual HEA but it’s appropriate for the story.  Still, if you don’t like literary fiction and you do like romance, you might like this story.  The protagonist falls in love with a man she works with. Or she’s addicted to him.  The protagonist sees her affair both ways and is often unsure which it is.  Whichever it is, it starts her on a path to self improvement that eventually causes her to reevaluate her life.

If I told you more, it would be a spoiler but I will reiterate that it’s the right ending for the book. The ending separates it from many works of literary fiction… and from many romances.  I was surprised.  You might be too.

 

When Fiction Imitated Life

I think this post is about writing.  Maybe not.  You be the judge….

I find that, unbidden, animals creep into my work.  Recently they have become psychic because it works for the story but also because psychic animals are fun.  Wolf Legend has a psychic wolf.   Wanted Sharpshooter has a rogue psycho cougar.  But I never thought of psychic animals as being anything other than clever additions to fictional stories.

Until now.  What follows was my life last week:

First I should mention that we have a cat named Smoke.  He’s our first cat ever and we have him because our daughter got him as a kitten to become another barn cat to keep their barn free of mice.   Smoke, however, didn’t want to be a barn cat.  He kept coming to the house and meowing very politely to let her know that he’s a house cat, not a barn cat.

Since our daughter already had three house cats and didn’t need any more, she decided her parents needed a cat.  So we got Smoke.  As soon as he came to our house he knew this was where he wanted to be.  He walked around and inspected his new kingdom and informed us that it was acceptable and climbed onto my lap and started purring and has pretty much been there ever since.  Even though we aren’t cat people.  Or, to be honest, we weren’t cat people until Smoke came into our lives.

Anyway, to get back to what happened in the last few days:

My DH Dick started feeling sick Thursday night. So did Smoke. Didn’t come to get us for bed as usual and was quiet.

Dick got worse Thursday night. So did Smoke. Stayed in one spot on the bed all night. Didn’t move. Didn’t do anything.

Dick was really sick Friday morning. So was Smoke. Managed to crawl onto a shirt that Dick had dropped onto the floor and he stayed on that shirt.  Didn’t move, didn’t do anything.  Was really sick and puking and refused to get off that shirt even though Smoke generally prefers me to Dick.  But that day when I offered him one of my shirts, he refused it and went back to Dick’s shirt, where he stayed.  So I left him there while I took Dick to the ER.

It was acute appendicitis.  Dick had surgery and, as happens after surgery, he felt generally awful for the rest of Friday and all day Saturday.  He came home Saturday evening. Smoke also felt awful during that time, couldn’t even climb onto the bed and, when I lifted him there and touched his stomach, he cried out in pain. So I put him back on Dick’s shirt on the floor, which was where he wanted to be. He lay there without moving.

Sunday both Dick and Smoke felt awful. Both lay around and did nothing, Dick in bed, Smoke on the shirt that he refused to give up.

Monday, Dick felt awful until afternoon, when he began feeling better. Same with Smoke. Didn’t move, stayed on Dick’s shirt and felt awful Monday morning, but Monday afternoon he, too, started feeling better.

Tuesday morning, Smoke felt better still.  He came into the kitchen and let me know that he wanted his morning treat and, when I only gave him half a treat because he’d been sick, he meowed until he got the whole treat. Same with Dick. He wanted a full breakfast and is now feeling pretty good.

Oh yes, when I went into the bedroom later that day to put that shirt in the hamper, Smoke watched me pick it up, accompanied me to the laundry, and watched me drop it in the hamper without interest.  Because whatever had happened during those last few days was over.  Both cat and man were okay.

Coincidence?  Probably.  But maybe not.

Anyway, in the future if I can’t get those psychic or empathetic animals out of my work, instead of mentally excusing their existence because it’s only fiction, I’ll accept the reality that art imitates life more than I’d ever realized until we got a cat named Smoke.

Genre Fiction

I’ve been blogging about the craft of writing fiction for some time now.  I’ve been passing on tips learned from other writers and a few things I figured out on my own.  But I find that now when I sit down to write a post, the ideas no longer crowd each other in their need to be heard and read.  So I’ve decided to widen the scope of my blogs.  But how?  What else to say?

I write genre fiction.  Several genres, actually and often all are in the same book. Romance.  Sci-fi.  Small Town.  Paranormal.  Sweet.  Eco-fiction.  And probably a few more I haven’t heard of.  And I’ve learned that not everyone agrees on what belongs in which genre.  There are some generalities, but once you get beyond those general descriptions, genre fiction seems to be all over the place.

So I’m going to jump in head first and see what happens.  Okay, honesty compels me to admit that anything I jump into will more likely involve a belly-flop than a swan dive.  But you get the idea.

Any thoughts?  What genres do you read?  Which do you write?  Why?  Do you like cross-genre fiction?  What would you like to see done differently in the world of genre fiction?  Which genres would you like to see more of?  Less of?  Let me know and maybe we’ll get something going.

As a former first grade teacher, I know that sometimes when there’s  mud puddle in your path that calls out to you with a mesmerizing siren song, the best thing to do is hold your nose and jump in.  And enjoy the mud.

(Note:  It took me years to develop a tolerance for leeches, and guess where they live?  In the mud.  But that’s another story.)

Spring Is Here

Spring is finally here. Today it's supposed to be almost 70 and water is running in the streets.
And what am I doing? Picking up DH at the hospital where he had his appendix removed. Classic acute appendicitis.
If I feel bad about missing out on this gorgeous weather, I'm sure he feels much worse. His consolation is that he can come home and wrap himself in blankets on the deck and read and watch spring bloom and not feel guilty at all.

I Love My Kindle

Last week our son visited.  Happened to be here on Sunday so he went to church with us.  Before leaving the house, he asked about this particular church.  Whether there were bibles in the pews.  We looked at each other in puzzlement and wanted to know why he’d ask such a question.

There was a good reason.  He wanted to know whether he should bring his own bible or whether there were bibles already in the pews for those people who wanted to look up passages the pastor was referring to.  We didn’t know the answer to that question because we don’t look up passages, we just listen.  (Hey, at least we don’t sleep!)

He’s a Regional Pastor. That’s a Bishop to those of you who understand that term but don’t know what a Regional Pastor is.  (We didn’t, when he got the job he had to explain it to us.) In his job he travels constantly to churches in many states.  When visiting churches he wants to be able to smoothly handle different ways of doing things so if the church doesn’t provide pew bibles,  he wants to have his own.  But carrying several bibles (to have whatever bible that particular church prefers) would add to the weight of his luggage and airlines charge per pound of extra weight.  Several bibles equals several extra pounds and many extra dollars.

So, that Sunday he pulled his Kindle from his suitcase.  All the bibles he could ever need right in that one, small device.  Along with all the reading matter his job requires.  And several novels to choose from when he’s done working.

And here I thought Kindles were only for enjoyment.  Mine takes the place of the library I gave away when we moved into a house too small for all those books.  Doesn’t matter now, I’m quickly gathering a new library.  A more extensive one.  And all in that one, small device  that fits in my purse.

This isn’t a plug for Kindles per se, instead it’s a plug for progress in the form of any electronic device that makes life easier and fuller without adding to the mental and physical clutter that present day life involves.  And Kindles, Nooks and all other electronic readers do just that.

Long live Kindles!

Reading and Writing

I used to read whatever I felt like. Didn't bother what genre it was or whether it was 'my' kind of book. I just read.

Then I became a writer and, unfortunately, my reading changed. It became focused. I read what I write more than other genres.

I'm not sure why this change came about and I'm not sure I like it. Reading should be a restful, recharging thing, not a research endeavor.

I think I'll make a focused effort to once again not put a focused effort into what I read.