Meredith Bond's Blog, page 22

Where do you get your ideas?

It’s the question that is asked the most of any author. Where did you come up with your idea for your book, your story? I teach beginning writers who are terrified of sharing their ideas for fear that someone else will steal them. I have to assure them again and again, that I’m not going to – I’ve got way too many of my own. So, where do they come from?

Many people I know get their ideas from their life or the lives of others they meet. People are a rich source of stories. We live our lives and then want to share what we’ve done with others. Sometimes this is a good idea – if we’ve had a particularly fascinating or difficult life. Sometimes, it’s really not since the basis for any really good story is conflict and, thank goodness, most of us don’t ever experience the sort of conflict which makes for a good novel.

I get my ideas from observing the world around me, from reading, and from listening to others share things that they find interesting. Magic In The Storm was sparked by the back cover of another book – “the seventh child of the seventh child is the most powerful…” Huh. Usually when we read that it’s referring to witches. Witches are usually female. But, my perverse mind said, what happened if that seventh child of the seventh child who was to be all-powerful was a boy? Wouldn’t that just mess everything up in a big way? And so Morgan was born – the child who should have been a girl. My mind spun with the implications and then moved on to create a whole world where the highest achieving people are able to be so amazing not through simple in-born talent, but through magic (because, personally, I’ve always felt it extremely unfair that some people are just born talented. There’s got to be more than just luck, genes and a little bit of hard work – there’s got to be some magic involved somewhere).

When I started writing waaay back, the idea for my very first book came from a title suggested by a friend who played off of my name. She suggested I write a book entitlted The Merry Marquis. I thought it was great. I would have to be a man named Merry, since he’s a marquis, and to put an ironic twist on it, he’d have to be really depressed. The book, and then the series was born. Of course, as soon as it got to the publisher who bought it, they changed the name! Someday I’m going to get the rights to those books back, and you know I’m going to republish them with their original titles.

And finally, what about In A Beginning, my new short story that is officially coming out on the 17th in Tales From The Mist? Where did I get my idea to write about Lilith? Well, you’re going to get a chance to find out on 25th (sorry, it’s a while away, but you can wait). Starting on the 19th, Natalie G. Owens (one of the fabulous authors in Tales From The Mist) will be posting a series of blogs on where everyone got their ideas for the stories they published in the book. Here’s the link to her blog – stop by, you may learn a lot, or even come up with some ideas of your own!

An Amazing Start

I’m sitting here in awe. Awe at my co-authors for their intelligence. For their guts (bravery if you want). I am, of course, talking about the other authors of Tales From The Mist, the anthology I’ve been working on and have just published with eleven other authors. And I’m wondering how I could have been so stupid not to have thought of or done this same thing with my own book’s release?

It is, of course, the pre-hype and reviews and quotes we are getting for the anthology. It’s amazing!! Yes, we wrote an amazing book filled with terrific, creepy to scare-the-pants-right-off-you stories. But, if I may be a little modest just now, Magic In The Storm isn’t a bad book. It’s a fun story, not badly written. I’ve gotten some very good reviews of it – months after I released it. And that’s the kicker. I started asking for reviews when I released it. I should have done so about a month, maybe even two months before hand. That’s what we did with the anthology.

Not only that, but my co-authors, with contacts in the horror genre asked people they hardly knew – other horror writers – for cover quotes. Those quotes carry a lot of weight! Those quotes are like gold! I could have done that for Magic In The Storm. I’m friends with a number of big name historical romance authors. Why didn’t I even think of doing that?

Well, to be honest, even if I had thought of it, I don’t know that I would have had the guts to impose on friends like that. But I should! The worst that can happen is that they’d say no, right? There wouldn’t be any hard feelings on either side. And if they said yes, I’d have amazing quotes with which to promote my book!

Another outcome of asking those horror writers to give quotes, is that not only did they give quotes, but one of them, the very kind and generous TW Brown, is even hosting a number of us on his own blog!  He’s giving us his backing and his fan’s attention. That is invaluable! That is so incredibly generous, I’m pretty astounded. We’ve also gotten a lot of help from Penelope Anne Bartotto at her blog The Library at the End of the Universe (I love that name!! I want that name!) who not only wrote a fantastic review of each one of our stories, but the book as a whole and then will be hosting/interviewing each one of us over the next week (where we will be giving away a free copy of the book each day – my turn is on the 11th, please come by and say ‘hi’).  That sort of support from fellow authors is, again, invaluable in the launching of a book.

So, clearly there are two lessons to be learned here: 1)write a fantastic book; and 2)get the support of other authors before you launch your book. Tales From The Mist isn’t even officially published yet, and we’ve had terrific sales! I can’t wait to see what happens on the 17th when it’s officially published!

What do you write?

I’m beginning to think about this question. Odd for someone who’s been writing for (cough, cough, cough) years and has been published since 2004! But as I’m beginning to pull my marketing weight for the new anthology in which I’ve got a story, I’m thinking about this question.

The anthology, Tales From The Mist, is filled with horror and paranormal stories. It’s loads of fun, a really great read (I can say this because mine is only one of twelve amazing stories). Some of the stories are spooky or a little creepy. None are really horrific, but they’re all amazing in their own way.

Considering that all I’ve ever published and shown to the world are Regency romances, the story I’ve got in Tales From The Mist is really different. I mean, really, really (as Shrek would say – sorry, I’ve been watching that movie too much lately, but that’s another story). My addition to the anthology is the story of Lilith, Adam’s first wife. Could you get any further from Regency romance? Yes, as a matter of fact, you can. It’s written in the first person, from Lilith’s point of view. And she’s got a really strong, different voice, I can tell you. If you’ve read any of my books, you know what my voice sounds like. This sounds nothing like that because Lilith’s got such a strong voice.

This is one reason why I had such a great time writing this story. It just poured out of me. It was so different. So much fun. I got to inhabit (or was inhabited by) this strong, decisive woman who knew her own mind and acted on it. She left Adam! She told him to f*&^ off and left the Garden of Eden (oh, yes, she uses foul language). She moved in with the demon, Samael (ok, she didn’t know he was a demon when she moved in with him, but still…). When I say she’s strong, I mean it – she shows only a few moments of weakness is the whole story. This is not to say that the heroines of my Regencies are weak. They’re not. Some are very strong. But there’s something about Lilith that’s very different. You’re just going to have to read it once it comes out (on October17th).

The point is, although my heart lies in the Regency, I’m more than just a writer of Regency romances. I’ve got a trilogy of young adult stories set in medieval times that I’ve been trying to finish for nearly a year now – the first two are finished, the third is stalled. L But they are, again, not Regency. They’re not even romances, although there is a romantic element in the story, it’s not the focus. They’re young adult fantasy, pure and simple.

So what is this? Why aren’t I sticking with what I know? Why don’t I continue writing what I’ve already proven I can write? Well, for the same reason why I rarely read two books of the same genre right after each other. For the same reason why I don’t eat the same type of food day after day (tonight’s dinner may be Italian, tomorrow Chinese, the night after that Indian). I get bored. I get bored of reading (or eating) the same thing. I crave variety.

And so, too,  with my writing. I write different things. Different genres or different takes on the same – as my last Regency has a paranormal element to it. Am I moving in a definite direction? I don’t know. Maybe. I’m definitely writing more fantasy than history, but then again, I’ve got the sequel to Magic In The Storm brewing in my head and that’s definitely history (although, with the same paranormal twist).  Who knows which way my interest will take me next. I’m curious to find out.

Throwing Acid in Hrithik Roshan’s Face

I can always count on my students to enable me to teach my lessons in class. This past week it was a very sweet woman who has a great love for Hrithik Roshan, the Bollywood movie star. I told her she had to throw acid in his face. She screamed. Literally.

Every semester when I teach my students about character, I have them do a writing exercise where they choose from a number of faces of famous people to create a new character. The worksheet they fill out asks them what the character’s goal is and what is stopping them from reaching this goal. My student chose Hrithik and told the class that he grew up in a family of actors – his father, his brothers were all actors – and so he wanted to be an actor as well. Now I don’t know squat about the real Hrithik, she may have simply been reciting the real man’s real life instead of creating a new character, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and asked her what was stopping him from attaining this goal. The poor woman looked baffled. “Nothing,” she said. “He’s a very famous actor and has starred in many movies.”

“But then, where’s the conflict,” I asked. “What’s stopping him from attaining his goal?”

She still looked confused. So I told her she had to throw acid in his face. (At which point, she screamed.)

The point isn’t to disfigure a beautiful person, or to actually harm anyone (we are talking about fictional characters). The point is that if you have no conflict in your story, if your characters aren’t tested, they’ll never grow and your story will be as interesting as dishwater, only prettier. No one wants to read about perfect people and their perfect lives. We want to read about interesting people, the bad things that happen to them, and how they overcome all obstacles and succeed despite everything.

The really hard part, the part that my student couldn’t let go of, was that she loves Hrithik. She thinks he’s the most beautiful man ever created. Sweet and wonderful as well. (Her only complaint was that in the picture I had of him he was wearing a shirt – she wanted to see his perfect chest and washboard abs. – his fantastic green eyes weren’t enough.) And that’s fine. In fact, it’s great. We, as writers, absolutely should fall in love with our heroes. But then we have to do the most difficult thing and make their life hell. We have to be cruel. We have to put them mortal danger. We have to throw acid in their faces.

If we don’t, we don’t have a good novel.

So, be strong. Love your hero, but give him opportunities to grow and develop. Give him obstacles to overcome. Throw acid in Hrithik Roshan’s face – just not in real life.

Story Structure — which one’s for you?

There are at least five different story structure forms which you can use to format your novel: the basic Freytag’s Pyramid, a three act structure, a four act structure, a “W” structure (similar, but not the same as the four act structure, at least not as defined by Theresa Stevens and Alicia Rasley on one of my favorite blogs, Edittorent), and Michael Hauge’s six-part structure.  So how do you know which one to use for your story?

Well, Freytag’s is the ultimate in basic, simple story structure, so you would probably only use that one if you were writing a simple short story.  The three act structure is pretty basic as well, but, as defined by the ladies of Edittorent, it can get pretty interesting – thinking about the middle of the story as a “Point of No Return” rather than simply as a crisis, and including a climax as well as a black moment (the climax dealing with the internal conflict, the black moment dealing with the external).  So that three-act structure can do it for a lot of novels. It really covers everything.

The four-act structure, again as defined at Edittorent includes an occasion for the protagonist to lose everything and have to start all over again, so that one’s pretty easy to set aside if you don’t have an element along those lines. But the four-part or “W” structure allows for breaking up the story into four parts without that. I happen to love graphing out a story line – it allows me to see all those lovely wiggles which are needed to make a story really interesting. With a graph, I can see if I have enough of those.

And then there is Michael Hauge’s structure which is so rich in detail allowing for nearly two beginnings – you have the set-up, an opportunity, then the new situation and a change of plans. Likewise, the ending is drawn out  with the major set-back followed by a climax. It really allows for a writer to think more thoroughly about all of the components in their story, all of the turning points, big and small.

So, what is a writer to do? How do we chose which structure is right for our story? Easy! Try them all. Plot out your story moving from the most simple structure (Freytag’s) through to the most complicated (Hauge’s). See where your story fits. Do you have all of the components necessary to complete Hauge’s structure? No? Then go with a simpler one. Is the simple one too easy not allowing for as much conflict and all of the twists and turns your protagonist must go through, try graphing it with a “W” structure and see how that fits. The key is in the trial and error, and the best part is that as you work through all of these structures, you’ll get to know your plot and find any problems there might be (holes, not enough conflict, too many needless complications, whatever!). And if you do this before you start writing, you may very well save yourself some time and lots of rewrites.

If you need more detailed information on any of these forms of story structure, of course, it can be found in my book, Chapter One.

Week 12: Next Big Thing

Thank you so much to Natalie Owens for tagging me in The Next Big Thing Blog Hop! Here are my questions, and my tags for the next group on the hop! Here are the rules:

 

***Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (Work In Progress) on your blog
*** Title your blog – Week 12: The Next Big Thing***Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them on 9/19

1. What is the title of your book/WIP?

Storm on the Horizon

2. Where did the idea for the book come from?

It’s the prequel to Magic In The Storm. I wanted to show how my villain got to be the way she is – and why she hates the hero so much – her own son!

3. What genre would your book fall under?

Same as Magic In The Storm – historical fantasy.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Megan Fox would definitely plat Tatiana, and, I think Tom Welling would do well as Vallentyn. I need a good-looking, sweet face to play him.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Tatiana can’t marry just anyone, Christopher Vallentyn will try convince her otherwise, but can he modernize this woman bound by tradition?

6. Is your book published or represented?

It will be self-published very soon (as soon as it’s done!!)

7. How long did it take you to write?

It’s taken way longer than I thought it would. I’ve been working on it all summer, but other things keep forcing me to put it aside.

8. What other books within your genre would you compare it to?

Colleen Gleason’s Regency vampire books would come pretty close, as would Mary Jo Putney’s Regency paranormals. Someone else likened my book to Marissa Doyle’s YA paranormal regencies. There aren’t too many writers writing in this niche.

9. Which authors inspired you to write this book?

I love reading fantasy (Sherrilyn Kenyon, Kerrilyn Sparks, Katie MacAlister), but none of them write Regency or even historical. I also love reading Regencies – Cathy Maxwell, Julia Quinn, Mary Jo Putney.) Magic In The Storm, kind of popped out of my own head (long before I had heard of or read any other historical fantasy novels) and Storm on the Horizon seemed to be a necessary prequel. I’ll also write a sequel – Kat has to have her own book too! But hers will be a full-length novel, promise!

10. Tell us anything else that might pique our interest in your book.

Ever wonder what makes a villain as nasty as they are? How did they get that way? If you’ve read Magic In The Storm, you know that Morgan’s mother is a real bitch. She hates Morgan on sight, from the moment he was born, and has made his life unpleasant ever since. Only her promise to his father has kept her from killing him. But what made her this way? Why does she hate him so? Find out in this short story prequel to Magic In The Storm,  Storm on the Horizon.

Ok, up next on the blog hop has got to be Tamara Ward, Glenda Bodamer, Greg Carrico, Avery Flynn and Amanda Brice. Tag, you’re it!

Anatomy of a Bestseller — Recap

Say goodbye to this guy

Wow, did I have an amazing few days toward the end of last week! My book, Magic In The Storm was featured at “Anatomy of a Bookseller” on Beverly Kendell’s The Season Blog . It’s still there if you want to check it out, but first let me tell you what this is because it’s amazing!

Beverly Kendell posts your book cover, blurb, asking price, buy links and a short excerpt from your book, then asks readers to fill out a short questionnaire about what they’ve read. Starting with “would you be willing to buy a self-published book?” and then going on from there to whether the featured book is one in a genre that the reader reads, and what they think of the book – first impressions. They are asked whether they’ve heard of the author, of the book, what they think of the cover, the title, the blurb – everything that was posted.   And then there is a space for comments. It’s quite thorough.

So, as of today, Sunday, 84 people have filled out the questionnaire. Here’s what they had to say: Most people would buy a self-published book but most haven’t heard of me or my book (clearly I need to do more marketing), most would read historical fantasy romance (that’s good!). First impressions? 55% said they were favorable (yeah!). My cover, on the other hand, they said was “ok, didn’t grab me” (see a little later for the comments on that).  They didn’t find the cover attractive (a naked man in the woods, what’s not attractive!? Oh, well, I guess I’m in the minority who like that sort of thing). The title of the book, they liked overall (yeah!). And a whopping 66% said that they liked the blurb so much they wanted to read a sample (woohoo! I worked hard on that sucker!). Most people were fine with my $3.99 price (that’s good, I thought it was reasonable for a book of 105K words). As for the excerpt, most people said it wasn’t long enough to really form an opinion, but 30% did say that it was very good and they’d like to read more (yes!).

Now, the comments were fascinating. Really, I would love to write to everyone who wrote a comment and thank them personally (hmmm, I wonder if I can do that?).  Their comments were thoughtful and, almost always useful. For the most part, everyone who commented agreed that the cover just didn’t say “Regency” or even “historical”. Many thought it was too contemporary looking. One person suggested that I put on the front cover that I’m an award winning author of Zebra Regencies. That’s a good idea, but since I’m self-publishing, I feel like that would sound conceited. If an independent publisher puts that on your book cover, that’s one thing. If I put it on my own book cover, it just doesn’t sound nice to me. What do you think?

And finally, a couple of writers I saw this weekend at a WRW meeting all had one main thing to say to me – how did I get up the guts to do this, to put myself out there like that? Well, I have only one thing to say – it was worth it! I learned so much (namely that I need a new cover, so I’m already working toward that). And I think I introduced myself to a number of new readers (always a good thing). One person even bought the book! Yeah, it’s only one, but as I think I’ve said before, I celebrate each and every sale because that’s one more person who will have read, and hopefully, enjoyed my book – and that’s why I write.

So, if you want to take the plunge like I did, I strongly recommend you write to Bev and submit your book! It was a great experience!

Checking out the forest

After having my writing interrupted by an emergency formatting job, I got a chance to think about the bigger picture in formatting. It’s so easy to get lost in the details when you’re formatting because it’s really paying attention to the tiniest details which make a book look professionally published.

The book I needed to format wasn’t exactly ready to go when it was given to me, in fact, I’m really sorry to say, it was pretty much a mess. It’s a text book written by someone who doesn’t normally write – anything. He wrote each chapter individually, so each chapter was formatted in whatever way he felt like doing it that day. And, even more unfortunately, he wasn’t even consistent within each chapter – or even each section or paragraph.  Which meant that I had to go through and fix the entire manuscript before it could be anywhere close to being ready for me to convert into HTML. I found it to be a great lesson!

I wish I could say it was the first thing I did, but by the time I was about halfway through the book, I realized that I needed rules. A standard set of rules for formatting the entire book — how sections should be handled, sub-sections, vocabulary words, examples and so forth. This did mean that I had to go back through the first half of the book making sure I followed my own rules throughout the entire book. But having these rules set out clearly made the formatting and cleaning up of the manuscript go so much easier and go faster!

Now, formatting a novel is so very much easier, there isn’t a lot of room for manipulation or the need for hard and fast rules. You need to make sure your styles are formatted in a standard way, and that all of your text is in the correct style (chapter titles in one style, body in another). You need to decide whether you’re going to indent the first paragraph of every chapter or not, and if you want anything fancy there, like a drop cap or the first couple of words in bold.

Non-fiction gives you a lot more leeway for fooling around. You’ve got chapter titles, sections within each chapter for the major topics covered, and usually sub-sections as well. You can have bullet points and numbered lists (there are a gazillion of those in this book I’m formatting now). So, to make sure everything looks professional, and consistent throughout the book, you need those rules. But my lesson, my takeaway from this enormous formatting job is to make those rules first, and then stick to them like superglue.

I can tell you I’ve got a very deep respect for copyeditors right now. So, what about you? Do you have any hang-ups, anything that your struggle with when you’re formatting a book for publication? Or do you just focus in on those details and hope that the forest will take care of itself?

Revision Hell

It’s such a great concept isn’t it? Well, if you were writing a horror story, that is. Which I was trying to do just a few short weeks ago. I failed miserably in the horror/scary department. I turned out a very nice story, though. Doesn’t that just suck, I tried to write something scary and I got a nice story. What would happen if I tried to write a nice story? Would I get something saccharine? The thought is terrifying.

But back to revisions. Who here likes revising, raise your hand? Uh-huh. That’s what I thought. About a third of you raised your hands didn’t you? Yup. There are a number of people who actually like revising. They look at it as part of the “process”. First your write your POS, as Nora Roberts calls it. Jennifer Crusie calls it the “Don’t Look Down” draft. Just write, don’t look down, don’t stop for anything, just vomit the whole story out into your computer, on to your page. When you’re done writing, then you look at what you’ve got and make it pretty.

I can’t do that. I have to edit as I write. Every day when I sit down to work, the first thing I do is reread what I wrote the day before and edit it. Now, does that mean that I don’t have any editing to do after the entire story is done? Nope. Sorry. After the entire story is done, then I go back and do my major edits – adding in all that five senses description, which I never get in there the first time. I highlight my work looking for tension and magic (if it’s a fantasy). I look for those romantic moments or even just romantic thoughts. I highlight them all and then see what I’ve got and where I need to ramp it up, because I always have to ramp it up.

After I’ve edited for craft, I go back and edit for grammar, adverbs, dialogue tags, and garbage words. I take out commas and put more in. I look at my dialogue tags and see if I can’t change them into action tags or get rid of them all together. I do a search for the words “that”, “just” and “and then” – I usually find hundreds! I get rid of all that I can.

Revision hell. It is what hell would be for so many writers. Sitting and revising your own work. Reading it over and over and over again, until you need another cup of coffee or a pot of tea. Working at it, getting the words just right. Oh, and don’t forget about pacing, voice and consistency of character! I’ve got a whole check list. I take a couple of weeks to do it, if I’ve got the time. If I don’t, I try to farm it out to others (critique partners, my family, anybody!) who will see things that I don’t because I wrote it (I know what I meant to say, what do you mean you don’t see it?).

Are you in revision hell? How do you do deal with it? How many times do you read over your own work before calling it finished?

Short Story vs. The Novel

Usually writers begin by writing short stories. People think it’s easier to write a short story. They’re wrong. Sorry. I’ve now written both. Novels are a hell of a lot easier!

In a novel you’ve got tons of space (60K – 100K words+) to develop character, build conflict, have those luscious high points followed by that great low where everything fails miserably, and then you have the time to build back up to the HEA that we romance writers love.  You can manage all of this space through story structure, well plotted and thoroughly developed before you even begin writing. You can develop subplots and work out a romance along with a mystery, internal and external goals and so many other little pieces which will all fit together into the beautiful jigsaw puzzle of your novel.

But in a short story, everything’s got to happen so much faster! And not only that, but you’ve got to have that kick at the end – all good short stories have them. If you just have a happily ever after, well, it’s kinda boring, ordinary. A really good short story (and I’ve read a few to get the hang of it before I started writing one), has something at the end which makes you sit up or say “oh, no!” or some such wonderful concept.  So your story structure, while following a simplified outline (set-up, rising action, climax, falling action, crisis, resolution), might, instead want to forego that nice resolution for a kicker that leaves your reader thinking or wondering.

The time span in a novel can be anywhere from a week to years to decades. In a short story, generally, they cover a much shorter time (although, naturally, I had to break that rule in mine – it spans the entirety of human existence, because when I break rules, I go all the way ).

POV and voice are even more important, I think, in a short story. You don’t spend a lot of time with your POV character, so your reader’s got to get comfortable with this person really quickly. A strong voice will help. In a novel, you can change POV, see the story from more than one pair of eyes. In a short story, you’ve got one set of eyes, any more than that and you’ll really confuse your reader. It’s too short for multiple points of view!

And finally, another big difference in writing a short story versus a novel is show and tell. So often, as a novelist, I’ve been told “show, don’t tell”.  Tell only when what you’re writing about isn’t really important (someone getting up and getting dressed, we really don’t need to see every single little detail), but can be glossed over. Otherwise, everything needs to be shown, spelled out through dialogue, description and emotion. In a short story, however, you’re limited in space and word count. It’s got to be short. Showing requires a lot more words than telling does, so sometimes (quite often, in fact) in a short story, you’re going to do a lot more telling. The key here is to tell with emotion to keep your reader involved and invested while telling your story.

So, what am I missing here? What have you had problems with when going from one medium to the other? These are the few things that really stood out for me as I crafted my short story for an upcoming anthology (that you’re going to be hearing a lot more about the closer we get to publication day).