Barbara Eberhard's Blog, page 7
February 11, 2023
Story Arcs
When I start to write a new novel, I write down an overall outline on 3x5 cards. I number each one, and each has a note or two about what's going to happen at that stage of the plot. All together, they tell the arc of the novel.
But, within each chapter, you should also create an arc. Each chapter should have a purpose - something that it does to push the story forward.
And that means having a mini story within the chapter.
At least, that's how I write.
The chapter title and the basics of what should happen in the chapter from the 3x5 card tell me the parameters under which I'm working. But how I get whatever has to happen to happen - well, that's up to me on a given day. And it's usually where the "magic" happens. Where a character may take a turn that's different from what I had planned. Or a conversation happens that ultimately changes one of the other plot points - and makes me have to update or develop a new 3x5 card.
Each chapter should have a beginning. Just as it's important for the novel to have a catchy first line or paragraph, so too, should each chapter. Why is this chapter important? What will the reader learn? Why is this chapter needed in the plot?
By the same token, the chapter should wrap up with something intriguing. Maybe it's the first part of a story that will play out in the next chapter. Maybe it's a lesson learned. Maybe it's a major change in direction for the reader - something the author intends, but hopes the reader doesn't see until he or she gets to that point in the novel.
And what comes in between should have an arc. Not necessarily following the course of time - the start of the chapter to the end of the chapter doesn't have to be sequential. But the ideas, the plot points, the characters' development - those should have an arc.
Through the story arc of the chapter. Through the story arc from chapter to chapter. And from the beginning to the end of the novel's story arc.
But, within each chapter, you should also create an arc. Each chapter should have a purpose - something that it does to push the story forward.
And that means having a mini story within the chapter.
At least, that's how I write.
The chapter title and the basics of what should happen in the chapter from the 3x5 card tell me the parameters under which I'm working. But how I get whatever has to happen to happen - well, that's up to me on a given day. And it's usually where the "magic" happens. Where a character may take a turn that's different from what I had planned. Or a conversation happens that ultimately changes one of the other plot points - and makes me have to update or develop a new 3x5 card.
Each chapter should have a beginning. Just as it's important for the novel to have a catchy first line or paragraph, so too, should each chapter. Why is this chapter important? What will the reader learn? Why is this chapter needed in the plot?
By the same token, the chapter should wrap up with something intriguing. Maybe it's the first part of a story that will play out in the next chapter. Maybe it's a lesson learned. Maybe it's a major change in direction for the reader - something the author intends, but hopes the reader doesn't see until he or she gets to that point in the novel.
And what comes in between should have an arc. Not necessarily following the course of time - the start of the chapter to the end of the chapter doesn't have to be sequential. But the ideas, the plot points, the characters' development - those should have an arc.
Through the story arc of the chapter. Through the story arc from chapter to chapter. And from the beginning to the end of the novel's story arc.
February 5, 2023
Halfway - Sort Of
As of today, I've written Dad's biography through 1972. He was born in 1927. Which means I've written about 45 of his 93 years. Almost halfway through his life.
Except that his working life was only part of those 93 years. Granted, Dad worked until he was well into his 80s; the last consulting he did was for the Brain Institute in 2010.
Still, I think it's a pretty significant accomplishment to have covered so much of Dad's life. The early chapters, about his childhood, are solely from Dad. He talks about growing up in Louisville and the time he spent on Long Island as a child. He mentions two significant women: his mother and his Aunt Minnie. These two strong women had a profound influence on Dad. His mother, who was a working nurse, nursed Dad through two bouts of rhematic fever as a child. After one of them, Dad had to learn to walk again, having been laid up in bed for months. Aunt Minnie was his refuge, I think, from the complexities of his family, with the seven children and his father, the pastor. Dad lived with Aunt Minnie and her husband, George, during his recovery and "loved her more than life itself".
After his childhood, the rest of the chapters are a combination of what Dad had written in his autobiographical notes and his book "Extraordinary Events in My Life". Interestingly, the stories in each are similar, but not quite the same. I've added my own research, as well, of course. And am including articles, obituaries, and interviews, as well.
So, as of today, the biography covers Dad's career through his tenure as the first-ever dean of architecture at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
But I have to use the term "sort of" because the years from 1972 through 2010 are many and include several more of Dad's "careers" - from the American Institute of Architects Research Corporation to the Brain Institute.
Importantly, I see the thread of Dad's career, not only in terms of being a research architect and pushing always for the science and art of architecture to get better. But also in terms of his desire for "evidence-based design" and ways to measure the built environment's impact on humankind, which culminated in his fascination with neuroscience as a possible avenue for doing just that.
For those who might be reading these blog entries, I will say that I still haven't read my way through all Dad's papers. I have started to archive the articles I've used, and as a result, can see some progress through the myriad of material in that way.
But I've got a long way to go. Even if I am halfway done - sort of.
Except that his working life was only part of those 93 years. Granted, Dad worked until he was well into his 80s; the last consulting he did was for the Brain Institute in 2010.
Still, I think it's a pretty significant accomplishment to have covered so much of Dad's life. The early chapters, about his childhood, are solely from Dad. He talks about growing up in Louisville and the time he spent on Long Island as a child. He mentions two significant women: his mother and his Aunt Minnie. These two strong women had a profound influence on Dad. His mother, who was a working nurse, nursed Dad through two bouts of rhematic fever as a child. After one of them, Dad had to learn to walk again, having been laid up in bed for months. Aunt Minnie was his refuge, I think, from the complexities of his family, with the seven children and his father, the pastor. Dad lived with Aunt Minnie and her husband, George, during his recovery and "loved her more than life itself".
After his childhood, the rest of the chapters are a combination of what Dad had written in his autobiographical notes and his book "Extraordinary Events in My Life". Interestingly, the stories in each are similar, but not quite the same. I've added my own research, as well, of course. And am including articles, obituaries, and interviews, as well.
So, as of today, the biography covers Dad's career through his tenure as the first-ever dean of architecture at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
But I have to use the term "sort of" because the years from 1972 through 2010 are many and include several more of Dad's "careers" - from the American Institute of Architects Research Corporation to the Brain Institute.
Importantly, I see the thread of Dad's career, not only in terms of being a research architect and pushing always for the science and art of architecture to get better. But also in terms of his desire for "evidence-based design" and ways to measure the built environment's impact on humankind, which culminated in his fascination with neuroscience as a possible avenue for doing just that.
For those who might be reading these blog entries, I will say that I still haven't read my way through all Dad's papers. I have started to archive the articles I've used, and as a result, can see some progress through the myriad of material in that way.
But I've got a long way to go. Even if I am halfway done - sort of.
February 4, 2023
Finding Errors / Making Errors
As I've shared before, I'm working on a biography of my father.
In the wake of his death in 2020, I wrote an obituary using some materials he'd left behind, including his "autobiography", Extraordinary Events in My Life. That obituary became the first draft of a Wikipedia article I finally got through the Wiki-wickets in 2021.
But it also got "picked up" by others writing obituaries about Dad or articles about his passing.
As I'm writing his biography, I've copied or bookmarked all those articles, and I've found quiet a few errors in what they added to what I had written.
One says Dad helped create the National Conference of Building Codes and Standards (NCSBCS) in the 1980s. Dad had actually done it in the late 1960s, when he was at the National Bureau of Standards / Institute for Applied Technology. In the 1980s, Dad was back in DC (after a stint in Buffalo), but no longer at NBS. From other research I've done, NCSBCS came into being in 1967. It wasn't that hard to figure that out, and it's a little annoying to me that the reporter who wrote about Dad having been instrumental in bringing NCSBCS together didn't do at least a little background check to make sure the dates were correct.
Likewise, today I read another article about Dad that talked about the first faculty at the School of Architecture & Environmental Design at the State University of New York at Buffalo meeting at our house at 30 Voorhees Avenue in Buffalo. A quick Google search reveals that there is, in fact, no 30 Voorhees Avenue. And having searched my memory for the actual address (I was 6 when we moved there), I know it was 35 Voorhees Avenue, which I confirmed with a street view from Google Earth.
Now, I'm not perfect. And I'm sure I'm also making errors in my writing of Dad's biography. I only hope that the folks I send the draft to do a better job of fact-checking me than the fact checkers at either of the above publications.
In the wake of his death in 2020, I wrote an obituary using some materials he'd left behind, including his "autobiography", Extraordinary Events in My Life. That obituary became the first draft of a Wikipedia article I finally got through the Wiki-wickets in 2021.
But it also got "picked up" by others writing obituaries about Dad or articles about his passing.
As I'm writing his biography, I've copied or bookmarked all those articles, and I've found quiet a few errors in what they added to what I had written.
One says Dad helped create the National Conference of Building Codes and Standards (NCSBCS) in the 1980s. Dad had actually done it in the late 1960s, when he was at the National Bureau of Standards / Institute for Applied Technology. In the 1980s, Dad was back in DC (after a stint in Buffalo), but no longer at NBS. From other research I've done, NCSBCS came into being in 1967. It wasn't that hard to figure that out, and it's a little annoying to me that the reporter who wrote about Dad having been instrumental in bringing NCSBCS together didn't do at least a little background check to make sure the dates were correct.
Likewise, today I read another article about Dad that talked about the first faculty at the School of Architecture & Environmental Design at the State University of New York at Buffalo meeting at our house at 30 Voorhees Avenue in Buffalo. A quick Google search reveals that there is, in fact, no 30 Voorhees Avenue. And having searched my memory for the actual address (I was 6 when we moved there), I know it was 35 Voorhees Avenue, which I confirmed with a street view from Google Earth.
Now, I'm not perfect. And I'm sure I'm also making errors in my writing of Dad's biography. I only hope that the folks I send the draft to do a better job of fact-checking me than the fact checkers at either of the above publications.
January 29, 2023
The Things You Don't Know
My fictional biographies are usually populated with people that I can imagine. I mean, I was 20 or 30 once. I remember a lot of what happened in those times. And I know a fair amount about what it's like to be that age today, through colleagues and family.
But there are definitely some things I don't know about when I'm writing. For example, when I first started writing fantasy, I needed to know how far you could ride a horse in a day, as most fantasy involves riding horses, not cars or other modes of transportation. At least on the world I'd invented.
Some of the people in my fictional biographies have had jobs similar to jobs I've had. In my early career, I worked for a bunch of different kinds of companies. And some parts of businesses are fairly universal.
But this current novel is set on a cattle ranch. Do you know how many acres you need for a cattle ranch? Neither did I. Do you know where in the U.S. there are cattle ranches? Neither did I. Do you know how many cattle you can fit on a ranch of a certain size? Neither did I. Do you know how many people it takes to run a ranch of a certain size. Neither did I.
Fortunately, I have all the statistics in the world at my fingertips courtesy of Google. Now, you do have to be a little careful about what links you trust to have the correct information. And I usually try more than one to make sure the information is reasonably the same.
But it must have been challenging to write novels in the days before the Internet. You would have had to either write about things you'd experienced - or your friends or family had experienced. Or spend months or years researching. Or make it up, and hope you were close to the truth. Or not care if the reader called you out for the things you don't know.
But there are definitely some things I don't know about when I'm writing. For example, when I first started writing fantasy, I needed to know how far you could ride a horse in a day, as most fantasy involves riding horses, not cars or other modes of transportation. At least on the world I'd invented.
Some of the people in my fictional biographies have had jobs similar to jobs I've had. In my early career, I worked for a bunch of different kinds of companies. And some parts of businesses are fairly universal.
But this current novel is set on a cattle ranch. Do you know how many acres you need for a cattle ranch? Neither did I. Do you know where in the U.S. there are cattle ranches? Neither did I. Do you know how many cattle you can fit on a ranch of a certain size? Neither did I. Do you know how many people it takes to run a ranch of a certain size. Neither did I.
Fortunately, I have all the statistics in the world at my fingertips courtesy of Google. Now, you do have to be a little careful about what links you trust to have the correct information. And I usually try more than one to make sure the information is reasonably the same.
But it must have been challenging to write novels in the days before the Internet. You would have had to either write about things you'd experienced - or your friends or family had experienced. Or spend months or years researching. Or make it up, and hope you were close to the truth. Or not care if the reader called you out for the things you don't know.
January 28, 2023
Familial Relationships
I'm writing my next fictional book this weekend. It's been an intense week, and I needed a little more escapism than writing Dad's biography allows.
But...writing about a daughter-mother relationship has its own challenges. Not the least of which is that I lost my mom a few years ago.
But Anna and Jennifer have a very different dynamic than my mother and I did. Jennifer, as I've written her, had Anna when she was just a teenager. And while she loves her daughter, the resentment of years lost and experiences she never had and never will colors their relationship.
Likewise, Anna loves her mother, but can't help but be tainted by those feelings from Jennifer. She noticed, at a young age, that her mother was much younger than the other mothers of her classmates. And she learned the truth of Jennifer's experiences - being kicked out by her parents, being abandoned by Anna's father, and being "rescued" by Anna's aunt. The pain of Jennifer's experiences can't help but filter into Anna's life, as well.
Still, they have a good relationship, even if they are very different in their interactions with the world. Jennifer is more practical, some might say cold. She is her own woman now, and she's not one to pull punches. Even with her daughter.
Anna, on the other, writes about romance for a living. She's longing for that kind of connection - one she's yet to experience.
But also longing for the warmth of a mother. And so, as Anna experiences the pain of her life being turned upside down, she runs back to the place where she felt that kind of love from a mother figure - the ranch on which she grew up and the woman who fed the household, including Anna.
Anna is much more of a soft-hearted character. Which is why her being exposed as a famous author and philanthropist, when she'd been hiding behind her nom de plume, hurts so much.
Anna needs a little more Jennifer. Jennifer could use a little Anna.
Perhaps by the end of the book, they will.
But...writing about a daughter-mother relationship has its own challenges. Not the least of which is that I lost my mom a few years ago.
But Anna and Jennifer have a very different dynamic than my mother and I did. Jennifer, as I've written her, had Anna when she was just a teenager. And while she loves her daughter, the resentment of years lost and experiences she never had and never will colors their relationship.
Likewise, Anna loves her mother, but can't help but be tainted by those feelings from Jennifer. She noticed, at a young age, that her mother was much younger than the other mothers of her classmates. And she learned the truth of Jennifer's experiences - being kicked out by her parents, being abandoned by Anna's father, and being "rescued" by Anna's aunt. The pain of Jennifer's experiences can't help but filter into Anna's life, as well.
Still, they have a good relationship, even if they are very different in their interactions with the world. Jennifer is more practical, some might say cold. She is her own woman now, and she's not one to pull punches. Even with her daughter.
Anna, on the other, writes about romance for a living. She's longing for that kind of connection - one she's yet to experience.
But also longing for the warmth of a mother. And so, as Anna experiences the pain of her life being turned upside down, she runs back to the place where she felt that kind of love from a mother figure - the ranch on which she grew up and the woman who fed the household, including Anna.
Anna is much more of a soft-hearted character. Which is why her being exposed as a famous author and philanthropist, when she'd been hiding behind her nom de plume, hurts so much.
Anna needs a little more Jennifer. Jennifer could use a little Anna.
Perhaps by the end of the book, they will.
January 21, 2023
Dad's Lifelong Passion
Today, I again found new things about my dad. Well, not new in his ideas, but new in his professional life, which I'm writing about in my biography of him.
In 1969, Dad testified to the following in front of a Senate subcommittee: "The final point I made in my testimony which I submitted for the record and which I would like to repeat because I think it was not stressed enough today, is that when we begin any of these processes of regulating the processes of building homes, we ought not to just measure whether or not materials are adequate and whether or not buildings are structurally sound but we ought to measure whether or not these buildings meet man's need, whether or not the people who are going to live in them have their physiological, psychological, and sociological needs being met. Mr. Chairman, we are abundantly ignorant about how to do that. We really don't know how to measure man's needs in that sense."
Dad, from the time he started at the National Bureau of Standards, and possibly before that, was a proponent of "performance-based building standards". I knew this about him, because it's one of the things that a lot of the people I've talked to about Dad talk about. Because it made Dad something of a pariah in the building industry.
You see, most building codes prescribe the size of things. They are engineering based. Dad advocated for performance-based standards; that is, not prescribing how things should be done with the size of things but rather with what we are trying to accomplish with the things. Moving toward these kinds of standards was a change in thinking. It's part of what made Dad a maverick.
But what I didn't realize until now is that Dad's push for performance-based standards was an early indication of his desire to measure how the built environment works for the people who use it. Not just to make buildings better by measuring the outcomes of their use, because that makes more sense than prescribing the walls have to be so thick, etc. But to produce better outcomes for the people using those buildings, whether they are homes (as in the case of his testimony here) or churches or schools or hospitals.
This passion, as science progressed, was what he was trying to accomplish with his last career move - the Academy for Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA). To use this new science, neuroscience, to measure human's interactions with architecture, to improve the built environment for human's use.
Maverick indeed.
In 1969, Dad testified to the following in front of a Senate subcommittee: "The final point I made in my testimony which I submitted for the record and which I would like to repeat because I think it was not stressed enough today, is that when we begin any of these processes of regulating the processes of building homes, we ought not to just measure whether or not materials are adequate and whether or not buildings are structurally sound but we ought to measure whether or not these buildings meet man's need, whether or not the people who are going to live in them have their physiological, psychological, and sociological needs being met. Mr. Chairman, we are abundantly ignorant about how to do that. We really don't know how to measure man's needs in that sense."
Dad, from the time he started at the National Bureau of Standards, and possibly before that, was a proponent of "performance-based building standards". I knew this about him, because it's one of the things that a lot of the people I've talked to about Dad talk about. Because it made Dad something of a pariah in the building industry.
You see, most building codes prescribe the size of things. They are engineering based. Dad advocated for performance-based standards; that is, not prescribing how things should be done with the size of things but rather with what we are trying to accomplish with the things. Moving toward these kinds of standards was a change in thinking. It's part of what made Dad a maverick.
But what I didn't realize until now is that Dad's push for performance-based standards was an early indication of his desire to measure how the built environment works for the people who use it. Not just to make buildings better by measuring the outcomes of their use, because that makes more sense than prescribing the walls have to be so thick, etc. But to produce better outcomes for the people using those buildings, whether they are homes (as in the case of his testimony here) or churches or schools or hospitals.
This passion, as science progressed, was what he was trying to accomplish with his last career move - the Academy for Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA). To use this new science, neuroscience, to measure human's interactions with architecture, to improve the built environment for human's use.
Maverick indeed.
January 16, 2023
Timelines and Fiction
As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, I write contemporary fiction. My books are usually set in the same timeline as me, with occasional deviations into the past and, in one case, into the future.
So you'd think that would be easy, right? I mean, I'm living in today's America. My books are set in today's America. Easy.
And yet, I spend a remarkable amount of time Googling things.
For example, my current fictional biography is currently happening in New York City. That's where my female protagonist, whose a famous, yet anonymous, author lives. Because, of course she does.
But I don't really know New York. I've been there, of course. But not often. Certainly not often enough to know neighborhoods and where a famous, yet anonymous, author might live. I didn't want her to be living the high life in NYC. She's trying to be anonymous by using a pseudonym for her writing. But she's still got money, so she's not living in squalor either.
She's 35 when the book takes place. Which makes her born in 1986. Her mother is a teenager when she's born. Which makes her mother having been born when?
And this is why I have a spreadsheet of years and characters. It starts with Anna's mother and the year in which she was born, which is 1969. An interesting time in America to have been born. I'm sure that will come into play at some point.
Jennifer, Anna's mother, graduates from high school and then college, bringing along her infant daughter - with help from family. When she graduates, she goes to work...
What year is that? Doing what? She's going to end up on a ranch in Colorado. That's key to the plot. But where in Colorado? Where is ranching in Colorado? Are there still cattle ranches in Colorado?
This is what Google helps with. And people who publish the history of the Great Plains, so I can understand when and how cattle ranching started in Colorado, since the ranch will have been around for generations, of course.
Jennifer graduates in 1991. Do you know what else happened in 1991? Apple put out their first laptops for regular people, the PowerBook, at the cost of $2k+. I remember 1991. I remember how early it was in the world of IT. This should be a fun thing to incorporate into the story.
Just like the history of the Great Plains.
Spreadsheets and Google. An author's friends.
So you'd think that would be easy, right? I mean, I'm living in today's America. My books are set in today's America. Easy.
And yet, I spend a remarkable amount of time Googling things.
For example, my current fictional biography is currently happening in New York City. That's where my female protagonist, whose a famous, yet anonymous, author lives. Because, of course she does.
But I don't really know New York. I've been there, of course. But not often. Certainly not often enough to know neighborhoods and where a famous, yet anonymous, author might live. I didn't want her to be living the high life in NYC. She's trying to be anonymous by using a pseudonym for her writing. But she's still got money, so she's not living in squalor either.
She's 35 when the book takes place. Which makes her born in 1986. Her mother is a teenager when she's born. Which makes her mother having been born when?
And this is why I have a spreadsheet of years and characters. It starts with Anna's mother and the year in which she was born, which is 1969. An interesting time in America to have been born. I'm sure that will come into play at some point.
Jennifer, Anna's mother, graduates from high school and then college, bringing along her infant daughter - with help from family. When she graduates, she goes to work...
What year is that? Doing what? She's going to end up on a ranch in Colorado. That's key to the plot. But where in Colorado? Where is ranching in Colorado? Are there still cattle ranches in Colorado?
This is what Google helps with. And people who publish the history of the Great Plains, so I can understand when and how cattle ranching started in Colorado, since the ranch will have been around for generations, of course.
Jennifer graduates in 1991. Do you know what else happened in 1991? Apple put out their first laptops for regular people, the PowerBook, at the cost of $2k+. I remember 1991. I remember how early it was in the world of IT. This should be a fun thing to incorporate into the story.
Just like the history of the Great Plains.
Spreadsheets and Google. An author's friends.
January 15, 2023
Fictional Biography?
Today I spent writing fiction again. I plan to write fiction again tomorrow.
It was an interesting change of pace after weeks of focusing on non-fiction.
I wrote the first chapter in what should be my next fiction book, a return to the fictional biography genre of my first book and all the non-fantasy books since then. As I've written before, I call this work fictional biography because the books are written in first-person narrative. And they tell the story - albeit not a full life - of a woman finding love.
I could call them romances, I suppose. Perhaps that would be more fruitful in terms of Amazon searches. In KDP, I chose the categories of fiction/contemporary women and romance/contemporary.
But I don't really think of these books as romances. There's almost no sex in them, for one thing. So, readers of romance novels, myself included, who enjoy the romping of the main characters would be woefully disappointed in my fictional biographies.
When I first started writing, before I wrote Life Reimagined, I tried writing a romance novel. I couldn't do it. I couldn't write a sex scene. I've read literally hundreds of them. But I couldn't write one. And in those days, when my parents were still alive, I was embarrassed to think my parents would be reading a sex scene, and think about me in that position. Beyond embarrassing!
Another thing I don't check on KDP is that there is something that people under 18 shouldn't read in my books. And a real sex scene would, probably, be something one should check the other box for - to presumably have some kind of warning on Amazon for younger readers.
Of course, I started reading romance novels - with very explicit sex scenes in them - long before I was 18. But that's neither here nor there, apparently.
At any rate, I don't want to have to check that box. I don't want to have to narrow my readership in any way. And the few scenes when my main characters may wander into a bedroom are usually mentioned but not described in detail. They may get to the point of kissing passionately and disrobing. But not beyond that. I leave that to the readers' imagination.
Anyway, picking from the fairly limited list of options in terms of genre on KDP, I pick fiction/contemporary women as the primary genre. And then, romance/contemporary as the secondary genre. Because my books are about love after all.
It was an interesting change of pace after weeks of focusing on non-fiction.
I wrote the first chapter in what should be my next fiction book, a return to the fictional biography genre of my first book and all the non-fantasy books since then. As I've written before, I call this work fictional biography because the books are written in first-person narrative. And they tell the story - albeit not a full life - of a woman finding love.
I could call them romances, I suppose. Perhaps that would be more fruitful in terms of Amazon searches. In KDP, I chose the categories of fiction/contemporary women and romance/contemporary.
But I don't really think of these books as romances. There's almost no sex in them, for one thing. So, readers of romance novels, myself included, who enjoy the romping of the main characters would be woefully disappointed in my fictional biographies.
When I first started writing, before I wrote Life Reimagined, I tried writing a romance novel. I couldn't do it. I couldn't write a sex scene. I've read literally hundreds of them. But I couldn't write one. And in those days, when my parents were still alive, I was embarrassed to think my parents would be reading a sex scene, and think about me in that position. Beyond embarrassing!
Another thing I don't check on KDP is that there is something that people under 18 shouldn't read in my books. And a real sex scene would, probably, be something one should check the other box for - to presumably have some kind of warning on Amazon for younger readers.
Of course, I started reading romance novels - with very explicit sex scenes in them - long before I was 18. But that's neither here nor there, apparently.
At any rate, I don't want to have to check that box. I don't want to have to narrow my readership in any way. And the few scenes when my main characters may wander into a bedroom are usually mentioned but not described in detail. They may get to the point of kissing passionately and disrobing. But not beyond that. I leave that to the readers' imagination.
Anyway, picking from the fairly limited list of options in terms of genre on KDP, I pick fiction/contemporary women as the primary genre. And then, romance/contemporary as the secondary genre. Because my books are about love after all.
January 14, 2023
Cover Design
I spent most of today on cover design for both my dad's biography and for my next fiction book. Needless to say, the cover designs are quite different.
The fiction book, tentatively titled "Rich People Problems: The Story of Raggedy Ann and Andy", was easier to create. Fortunately, Raggedy Ann is no longer copyrighted. So, I found an image of a "rag doll" on iStock for $12, and she serves as the primary image for the cover. I have made the titles for my non-fantasy books the same font: Eagle Lake. I did change the style of the cover overall from the design I had been using, getting away from having the non-fantasy and fantasy covers look the same. I also set up the paperback and hard cover covers to be the same, which is not the case for my previous non-fantasy books. The Kindle version is simpler, having no back cover. But similar enough that it's obvious they are the same book.
One of the challenges of using KDP to produce the covers, as opposed to some other software or hiring a graphic designer, is that there are only a limited number of designs. However, within each design, there are a number of layouts - including an author photo and biography, or not, and varying the placement of all the parts of the design - the title, the subtitle, the author's name, etc. I have rarely used the author photo - I'm not a fan of my picture in general. And I usually replace the author bio with reviews of my books, to hopefully convince readers that I write compelling books. There is also a selection of sets of colors to use, and then once you've set the colors, you can also vary them manually if you choose to. Same with the fonts. Each design comes with a default set of fonts. But you can manually change them if you choose to - like changing the font on the cover for my next non-fantasy book to match the styles of the others.
I found it much more challenging to make the cover for Dad's biography. For one thing, I wanted the look to be completely different than any of my other books. I wanted to incorporate a piece or two of Dad's artwork as well - though I only have high resolution images for some of them. The back cover description is not really a description of the book itself - as it has been for my fiction books - as much as an argument for the project and for Dad's being a maverick. Likewise, I've replaced the review section with some of the tributes that have been published about Dad, which again are part of the impetus for why I'm writing the biography in the first place.
Overall, though the two layouts ended up very different, I am happy with both. Subject to change as the books progress, of course.
The fiction book, tentatively titled "Rich People Problems: The Story of Raggedy Ann and Andy", was easier to create. Fortunately, Raggedy Ann is no longer copyrighted. So, I found an image of a "rag doll" on iStock for $12, and she serves as the primary image for the cover. I have made the titles for my non-fantasy books the same font: Eagle Lake. I did change the style of the cover overall from the design I had been using, getting away from having the non-fantasy and fantasy covers look the same. I also set up the paperback and hard cover covers to be the same, which is not the case for my previous non-fantasy books. The Kindle version is simpler, having no back cover. But similar enough that it's obvious they are the same book.
One of the challenges of using KDP to produce the covers, as opposed to some other software or hiring a graphic designer, is that there are only a limited number of designs. However, within each design, there are a number of layouts - including an author photo and biography, or not, and varying the placement of all the parts of the design - the title, the subtitle, the author's name, etc. I have rarely used the author photo - I'm not a fan of my picture in general. And I usually replace the author bio with reviews of my books, to hopefully convince readers that I write compelling books. There is also a selection of sets of colors to use, and then once you've set the colors, you can also vary them manually if you choose to. Same with the fonts. Each design comes with a default set of fonts. But you can manually change them if you choose to - like changing the font on the cover for my next non-fantasy book to match the styles of the others.
I found it much more challenging to make the cover for Dad's biography. For one thing, I wanted the look to be completely different than any of my other books. I wanted to incorporate a piece or two of Dad's artwork as well - though I only have high resolution images for some of them. The back cover description is not really a description of the book itself - as it has been for my fiction books - as much as an argument for the project and for Dad's being a maverick. Likewise, I've replaced the review section with some of the tributes that have been published about Dad, which again are part of the impetus for why I'm writing the biography in the first place.
Overall, though the two layouts ended up very different, I am happy with both. Subject to change as the books progress, of course.
January 8, 2023
So Much Source Material!
I suppose every biographer has this challenge, or wants to have this challenge, but I feel like I have so much source material for Dad's biography, it's hard to keep track of it all.
Today, I spent part of the day working in the biography file and part of the day reading what I have of Dad's thesis from graduate school (I'm missing a lot of it - it may be in another file somewhere).
As I've mentioned before, I have some materials that Dad wrote himself about his various jobs. I also have his book, Extraordinary Events in My Life, which I've used extensively throughout the biography. I also have his professional files (or at least a lot of them) in a very large plastic bin. Dad had organized most of the files by his work life, but I found some "extras" in another box the other day, so I've added more to this box of professional papers. Officially, his professional papers have gone to an archive at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. So what I have are either duplicates or papers Dad found later and didn't send along. Along, with these professional papers, I have an entire file cabinet's worth of personal papers. I also have my parents' "loose" photographs and albums of photographs, including a couple of albums from before they met and their wedding photographs. Finally, I have an entire case of Dad's drawings - about 200 drawings and lots of other papers (like trip reports Mom put together to describe what they did, along with photos of places they went and Dad's drawings) and correspondence.
I have two files of tributes to Dad - one from ANFA and one from his colleagues at AIARC - in soft copy, making it easy to incorporate them into the biography. I've also searched on Google any references to Dad, including a bunch of obituaries that were written after Dad's death, most of which included some parts of the obituary I had written. And I have the obituary I wrote of Dad and the original Wikipedia article I tried to get published, which is based on the obituary.
Plus, other materials on some of the people mentioned in the biography, like Don Schon and others.
It's a lot of material.
What's in the biography as of right now are Dad's autobiographical notes from the many flash drives I inherited from him, as well as retyping of many of the sections of Extraordinary Events. Then I've folded in some of the pieces from the tributes and obituaries, particularly where they made sense with regard to certain jobs. For example, there is a wonderful obituary from SUNYAB that includes some of the history of how Dad got that job, which makes for very useful information for the biography. I've put in some of tributes in their own format, so it's obvious they are tributes.
I've been working my way through Dad's career, and thought I had done most of the work for his early work at Creative Buildings, Inc. and Sheraton Corporation. This would take me through 1963 (shortly after I was actually born). But I've only made it through about a half dozen of the files of professional papers - meaning there are probably two or three dozen more to look through. I haven't read all the papers I've downloaded that Dad managed the publishing of at both AIARC and BRB, which I'm sure will need to be folded into the biography. And I haven't even begun to look at the personal papers, which I'm sure will add some "color" to his working life, as well as adding in Mom and other important people in Dad's life. The artwork is starting to get into the biography in bits and pieces. I'm sure the photos are making the file substantial in size.
At this point, I only have about 120 pages of biography "written", most of which is notes and pieces of articles from 1963 onward. I keep trying to figure out how to "track" what I've used and what I haven't. And it's still mostly a jumbled mess at this point. Particularly challenging are the hard-copy files; I think I'm going to have to have some kind of divider in the bin for what I've looked at and what I haven't. And someday I have to start looking at the personal files.
And I still have a lot of reading to do!
Today, I spent part of the day working in the biography file and part of the day reading what I have of Dad's thesis from graduate school (I'm missing a lot of it - it may be in another file somewhere).
As I've mentioned before, I have some materials that Dad wrote himself about his various jobs. I also have his book, Extraordinary Events in My Life, which I've used extensively throughout the biography. I also have his professional files (or at least a lot of them) in a very large plastic bin. Dad had organized most of the files by his work life, but I found some "extras" in another box the other day, so I've added more to this box of professional papers. Officially, his professional papers have gone to an archive at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. So what I have are either duplicates or papers Dad found later and didn't send along. Along, with these professional papers, I have an entire file cabinet's worth of personal papers. I also have my parents' "loose" photographs and albums of photographs, including a couple of albums from before they met and their wedding photographs. Finally, I have an entire case of Dad's drawings - about 200 drawings and lots of other papers (like trip reports Mom put together to describe what they did, along with photos of places they went and Dad's drawings) and correspondence.
I have two files of tributes to Dad - one from ANFA and one from his colleagues at AIARC - in soft copy, making it easy to incorporate them into the biography. I've also searched on Google any references to Dad, including a bunch of obituaries that were written after Dad's death, most of which included some parts of the obituary I had written. And I have the obituary I wrote of Dad and the original Wikipedia article I tried to get published, which is based on the obituary.
Plus, other materials on some of the people mentioned in the biography, like Don Schon and others.
It's a lot of material.
What's in the biography as of right now are Dad's autobiographical notes from the many flash drives I inherited from him, as well as retyping of many of the sections of Extraordinary Events. Then I've folded in some of the pieces from the tributes and obituaries, particularly where they made sense with regard to certain jobs. For example, there is a wonderful obituary from SUNYAB that includes some of the history of how Dad got that job, which makes for very useful information for the biography. I've put in some of tributes in their own format, so it's obvious they are tributes.
I've been working my way through Dad's career, and thought I had done most of the work for his early work at Creative Buildings, Inc. and Sheraton Corporation. This would take me through 1963 (shortly after I was actually born). But I've only made it through about a half dozen of the files of professional papers - meaning there are probably two or three dozen more to look through. I haven't read all the papers I've downloaded that Dad managed the publishing of at both AIARC and BRB, which I'm sure will need to be folded into the biography. And I haven't even begun to look at the personal papers, which I'm sure will add some "color" to his working life, as well as adding in Mom and other important people in Dad's life. The artwork is starting to get into the biography in bits and pieces. I'm sure the photos are making the file substantial in size.
At this point, I only have about 120 pages of biography "written", most of which is notes and pieces of articles from 1963 onward. I keep trying to figure out how to "track" what I've used and what I haven't. And it's still mostly a jumbled mess at this point. Particularly challenging are the hard-copy files; I think I'm going to have to have some kind of divider in the bin for what I've looked at and what I haven't. And someday I have to start looking at the personal files.
And I still have a lot of reading to do!
