Characters I could happily never see again

One of the more interesting things about romance these days is that the bar has widened for heroes and heroines. They can have greater flaws, be, sometimes, unlikeable, even do bad things.

Some of the best recent examples, the wonderful heroine from Private Arrangements, who is far from perfect and whose character flaws drive a lot of the conflict. I’m reading a Kresley Cole book where the heroine, was (now she’s a ghost) slightly promiscuous, an exhibitionist, and a thief when she was alive, and as a ghost. The heroine makes this book a keeper. Everything else is pretty standard Paranormal, down to the tortured hero and the assortment of vampire type creatures.

I think there’s a real opportunity right now to take chances with our characters, makes them less than the standard heroic, but more interesting, more flawed, and I do believe if we do it well, readers will love it.

But back to the point of the post.

Here are the characters I never want to see again.

The all-giving, saintly, will give up her virginity to save her reckless father/brother/dog, heroine. The heroine that seemed to be a fixture in too many of the regency historical romances published in the last ten years. She’s become a cliché and I find this heroine boring.
Give me a heroine who’ll let her stupid father/brother/dog go to jail, or at least have her come up with a plan that doesn’t include prostitution.

The I’m tortured because my mother/dead wife/ imaginary girlfriend abandoned me hero. Seriously, I just want to yell ‘get over it’ at the book. I know as authors we need to create internal conflict, but this one’s been done to death. Although if an author could come up with a new way to do this and keep me enthralled, I’m probably be hers forever.

Anybody who spies, be it hero or heroine. So many authors are trying to convince me young, upstanding, cultured lovely women and titled men turned to spying for shits and giggles. Even if I bought it, and I don’t, so many of these characters think and act like normal people. Joanna Bourne not included because her spy heroine thought and acted like I believe a spy would have.

The vampire who struggles against drinking blood. Do I really need to explain this? Anne Rice did it first and a very long time ago.

The obscenely rich, handsome, bored playboy/ceo/sultan/mime who falls in love with his mousy secretary because gorgeous women get boring, but mousy lasts forever. I know this is a pretty appealing fantasy and truly this is the one I’d probably be convinced to for go given the right book. And ten million Harlequin Presents can’t be wrong.

That’s it. That’s all my tired brain can come up with. I didn’t mention the chick lit, heroine who shops too much cliché, because I’m ready to read a light, amusing chick lit again, even with a heroine who shops too much.

Anyone else have any characters that bug them?

Writing to Entertain

Okay, this is a subject I've touched on before, and both Molly and Sinead always smack me in the head for coming back to it, but a few things I've heard and read lately got me thinking about it once again. I keep coming back to this, and my fellow drunk writers keep smacking me about it, because we all know that I once was someone who looked down on books written for entertainment. But that was before I started learning about the publishing industry and thinking about what kind of books I really wanted to write. Boy was I wrong-headed.

And here are some of my perpetually never answered questions...

• Why is it considered a bad thing, or at best an embarrassing leisure pursuit, to read books purely for entertainment?
• Why is writing books, with the primary goal of entertaining readers, considered "beneath" many writers?
• Why does the publishing establishment belittle the popular books (that make the bulk of their money and therefore allow them to publish other more "worthy" books) by using words like "trash" or "fluff" or "bodice ripper", or by likening them to the adult film industry, or by diminishing their authors by calling them "chicks"? (Or damned scribbling women.)
  

I admit this kind of semi-snobbish dichotomy exists in other disciplines in the arts. Graphic art/vs fine art. Opera vs pop music. Ballet vs Hip Hop. David Mamet vs Andrew Lloyd Webber. Hollywood vs independent films.

But I would argue that no other group of creative people try so hard to belittle other creative people than literary authors and critics do to genre authors.

Romance bestseller, Jo Beverley, talked about this in her keynote luncheon speech at the Ottawa Romance Writers conference a couple of weeks ago, with lots of references to other periods in time, when it appears no such distinction was made, and she wondered when it all changed. Her great speech raised my indignation about this issue again... She called on all romance writers to stop using the words "just" and "only" when describing what we do. "It's only a romance novel." "I'm just a romance writer." And she's so right. Romance authors say things like that ALL THE TIME. It's unconscious. And often we're just beating others to the punch to avoid confrontation. I'm sure it's partly because we're mostly women, but why do we diminish our hard work like that??? Work that so many people love and admire and want to pay good money for? Work we sacrifice so much to create??? Crazy.

Then my indignation leapt up again after Donald Maass made his much read The Career Novelist, available for a free download. I'm not criticizing his book. I think it offers tons of great advice and have read it. But him posting it online prompted me to open it and skim parts of it quickly again. One of his chapters, titled "The Bottom Line: Story Telling" is subtitled: "Why Trash Sells". ACK! So if even Donald Maass, who earns his very good living from representing (and writing) books that emphasize good story telling, is calling such books trash.

Why? I suppose because he wanted to sell lots of copies of his non-fiction book (and the subtitle's provocative) and he probably also wanted to maintain some credibility with the literati who seem to think all books that entertain must defacto be trash. And to be fair to Mr. Maass... I agree with much of what he says in that chapter. He talks about how certain bestselling books are not well written, in that they may have clunky prose or too many cliches, repetitive words etc... And he admits that these flaws didn't matter to him as a reader. He couldn't put these books down, because of the story telling. (He mentions Sidney Sheldon whose books I remember devouring as a teen. My list right now would include Dan Brown. Anyone who's studied the craft of writing knows that little Da Vinci book of his was not technically well written... and yet, it was highly readable and entertaining.) But I maintain that applying the label of "trash" to such books, implies that story telling, in and of itself, has no value, and that's sad and just wrong headed. How can it possibly be trash, i.e. worthless, if so many people spent their good money to get their hands on a copy and read it? And why would writers, who spend their time crafting great stories, working on the turning points and reversals and pacing, so that readers won't want to put their books down, let their work be so easily diminished?

Short aside: I also wish the great hosts of the Smart Bitches blog didn't use the word trashy. I think it only exacerbates the problem. But it is provocative and perhaps the name draws people to the site who might not otherwise go to a romance novel review site... Who knows. I admit, if I were them, I might have done it, too...

But the final thing that prompted me to make this post, was a segment I heard on CBC radio yesterday morning, discussing a recent quote from one of the current Nobel prize jury members on why so few American writers have been considered for, or won, the Nobel prize for literature. Part of the jury member's answer? Because American writers try too hard to entertain. Oh, what a crime. Writing books that people want to read. For shame.

During the same segment I learned that the records of the Nobel prize jury discussions regarding Ernest Hemmingway have recently been made public, and turns out he was considered and rejected several times over the 10-15 years before they finally awarded him the prize. Some of the reasons for rejecting him in the earlier years were things like: he jumps right into the story; he just draws the reader in with little set up. Those are criticisms???? Those are requirements of any novel, literary or otherwise these days.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Stephen King, or JK Rowling, or Norah Roberts should necessarily be up for a Nobel Prize in literature. I don't think the big literary prizes should be popularity contests and/or mirror the bestseller charts. I think it's good that such prizes exist to support the writers of less commercially viable novels and champion the writers who pour tons of philosophy or psychology other such fields of study into their work to create thought provoking fiction that might even forward or change the way societies look at the world. That's all great. (Not that popular fiction isn't capable of doing that, too... It's just not typically the primary objective.)

But reserving some prizes and awards, for books that most readers might never discover without those prizes, doesn't make books written to entertain readers, or written with a more determined goal of appealing to a lot of readers, deserve labels like trash or fluff. Not in my opinion. (Says the unpublished writer of trashy fluff.)

Rant over.

Fall TV and how I’m coping.

It’s that time of the year again. New shows are coming on air, old shows are returning and I’m trying to figure out what I can watch.
Realistically, I have an hour of TV viewing a night. Some nights I can stretch it to two, but that’s rare.
Usually I figure out what makes the one show a night cut based on what languishes on my DVR. Right now True Blood, House and Life are stuck there.
I haven’t really come to love True blood yet, and so I’m not really excited about the next episode. House and Life seem too repetitive from episode to episode so my enthusiasm for them is winding down pretty quickly.
And then there is Dexter. I sort of loved the first episode of this season. It reminded me of the very first episode. The writers have taken the series back to the very beginning, with Dexter in control, feeling great, and really comfortable in his relationships.

Which of course makes me think they are going to devastate him this season. And now I’m thinking of all the ways they are going to do so. First and foremost being the great ending to the first episode of this season.

Because this show is at it’s best when the writers focus on the character first and the writers, aside from the occasional blip, really seem to know this. It’s smart, and surprises me and what more could I ask.

Well, I could ask for Direct TV, so I could watch Friday Night Lights, but I’ll wait till NBC airs it, even though I’m itching to see it.. so much I may have to re-watch season 1.

Between that and Mad Men, which I plan to start watching soon, and the Wire which has been on my radar forever, I think I will be watching a lot of great TV.

The ORWA Sweet Spicy Conference

I love the Ottawa conference. It's focused, it's small, it's always run well and the people are great. I truly like all the women I've met from that chapter and alot of Toronto writers head up and it's always fun to spend the weekend with the friends I have in TRW. They also draw from Canadian writers for their speakers and it's always amazing to see the big caliber writers who live in the area. Jo Beverly and Kelley Armstrong were this years heavy hitters and they were fantastic -- accessible and friendly!

For anyone looking for a small conference to go to - I highly recommend this one.

I went this year with my newborn daughter and my folks, which sadly meant I couldn't see all the speakers I wanted to, but I did get a chance to see Opal Carew talk about how she schedules her time in order to write 2 100,000 word books a year. I also got to see some of Sharon Page's talk on how she outlines.

And I think what Maureen and I both walked away with is how much time these authors build into the pre-writing stage. Previous to this conference, I planned most of my time for writing followed by a good chunk for editing - with some built in "iIreally screwed this up" time in the tail end for good measure. But both Opal and Sharon take upwards of four weeks to outline, plan and work on the books. Before writing. BEFORE WRITING!!

FOUR WEEKS!!! It seems outrageous. Ludicrous. Even though we've all been talking about doing more work up front instead of trying to fix everything at the end -- it still seems like so much time. But their arguments were sound and looking at the number of books both of them have been able to push out in the last two years and how their popularity has grown -- well, the case is pretty much made.

Now, I don't know if I can do four weeks - but as I am coming up on contract again, I need to think of what I can do, because I think it's smart and I think it's advice I am going to take.

Repitition, otherwise known as the dumbing down of my entertainment choices

Been noticing a really annoying trend lately. Characters in shows spouting the most inane dialogue in an attempt to recap what’s been happening. The most recent case was Fringe where a main character basically recapped the highlights of the previous two episodes and the shows focus so a viewer just tuning in would be very clear on what’s happening.

Which is great for that viewer, but as someone who has been watching, really annoying and on top of that it was poorly interjected into dialogue flow.

The guy that created Fringe also created Lost and I guess he took some criticism for Lost being impossible to follow, so he decided to make Fringe really easy to follow. Too easy to follow..

The same happens in reality TV, where each moment is recapped three times for us, so twenty minutes of actual events becomes an hour long show.. (sadly, I still watch… I’m a weak person)

I’m even noticing it in a book I’m reading, it’s a contemp, sort of chick lit and the heroine has an interesting job, but the author keeps telling us. And reminds us again, and again, and how she got into it, and how it’s a secret from her family and friends.
And then in case the reader missed it, reminds us again..

And I’m just about ready to throw the book against the wall.

I’d rather not understand enough than be hit against the head with explanations.

I am ready for a great contemporary read, or a chick lit. I’m all paranormaled out.. Any suggestions?

A Writing Lesson from Woody Allen

And it's not the kind of lesson you're probably expecting. It was a lesson in what not to do.

I used to be a big fan of Woody Allen, and Crimes and Misdemeanors is still one of my favourite films (note to self, must watch it again to see if it still holds up), but lately none of this films have really worked for me. I think I liked Match Point more than most people did, and I found last year's Cassandra's Dream kind of interesting, if only for him casting Colin Farrell against type, but based on the reviews I checked out on rotten tomatoes, I certainly liked Vicky Cristina Barcelona less than most critics. Why did so many people think this film was so great?

To me, this film was a lesson in why as writers we should show and not tell. It was supposed to be a film about love, exploring many kinds of love and questioning conventional ideas about love, but it seemed intent on pulling the audience as far away from the characters and possibly getting emotionally involved as possible. While the story was interesting and some of the performances were excellent, overall, the storytelling didn't work for me.

I think the biggest problem was the decision to use a voice over narration. Always a risky idea. But I've seen a few films in the past few years with narrations that I think really worked. Little Children, The Assassination of Jesse James... and Into the Wild are three recent ones that come to mind. In all of those, the narration added to the films and made the story telling more interesting. (While I didn't love Jesse James -- too long, too unfocussed -- it wasn't the narration that was the problem.)

But in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the narrator tells us things we can clearly see. It's like Woody didn't trust his actors, or his own choices in staging the scenes, to convey what we needed to know. For example... picture a scene with Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz sitting on a blanket in a pastoral setting eating and drinking and laughing with each other. Do we really need a voice over telling us they went on a picnic and that the initial tension felt between the three had ended??? There were constant examples of this. Even much of the dialogue was the characters expressing emotions that were already clear to us from their performances.

I'm not sure if I missed some great symbolism in this use of narration, or what... but while I was entertained by the film it mostly disappointed me. On the positive side, Penelope Cruz was amazing and Javier Bardem was astoundingly sexy. I also loved the idea of a couple who love each other but need the ingredient of a third person to smooth out the edges so that they can actually be around each other... And Rebecca Hall (who played Vicky) was great. Scarlett Johanssen felt a little flat.. but then her character was supposed to be a little lost and scattered and unsure of what she wanted, so perhaps that was acting???

Anyone else see it?

The Emmys got it right!

For the most part, I thought. 30 Rock, John Adams and Mad Men -- seems about right to me. It's time to cut loose Two and Half Men - there's nothing about that show that deserves an Emmy, seriously. A nomination for Jon Cryer? Really? For Penis jokes? Is that where we're at?

It seems like the shows that everyone loved two, three years ago have fallen off the map -- House, Desperate Housewives, My Name is Earl. I think, in large part because they didn't hold on to what made them so exciting, or they didn't change enough to keep what was so exciting fresh. How many times can we watch House be an ass? And My Name is Earl -- one of the best concepts - but it's fallen apart. Makes you think of those shows like book series -- first season is all premise and if your premise is good -- you get the viewers. Think Lost. But after the first season there has to be a plan. A big plan, if you want to keep those viewers. Think Dexter. Which, was I think the only place the Emmys fell down on the job.

Just listening to the caliber of guests on 30 Rock is an indication that the show has some serious magnetism - and it's Tina Fey. Funny ha ha, mixed with absurd, mixed with heart - I love it. I want to be Tina Fey when I grow up.

The Hurt Locker

It's official, my brain is broken. At least the part of my brain that I use for writing/revising my manuscripts and for thinking of topics for this blog. If it's not broken, it's certainly on strike.

So, I thought I'd talk about one of the films I saw at the TIFF. I saw some really good films this year, although none of them totally blew me away. This year I didn't come out of the fest babbling about any films in particular. Seems like there were a lot of mob films and films based on true stories and films about war.

One of the good war ones was The Hurt Locker, about a team of bomb defusal experts in Iraq. I think the best part of this film was the performance of the lead actor, Jeremy Renner, whom I've seen before, but never really paid much attention to. If this film is any indication, he could have a real career ahead of him. As I type this, I'm half-watching Renner in The Assassination of Jesse James.... which I saw at the fest last year, but didn't recognize him from that until I looked him up. Oooo his character in Jesse James just got shot in the head. Oooo. He just got dumped naked into a snowy hole. Damn, if that's really his body, he's got a great butt.

But The Hurt Locker has more going for it than the performances (and great butts). I found it interesting from a storytelling perspective, too because, at least based on my cursory first viewing in the middle of a marathon week of films, it doesn't really have a standard screenplay structure. No clear hero with a goal, no clear character arc, no escalating narrative, no single evil bomber they're trying to stop, no explicit turning points. At least not in a typically obvious way. Yet it worked for me.

The screenplay is based on events witnessed by a journalist who was embedded with the troops in Iraq so by nature it's episodic, but what the filmmaker, Kathryn Bigelow, did that was smart was to add a ticking clock type of structure to the film, which essentially gives all the characters the identifiable goal of: survive x more days. At the beginning of each vignette, we're told how many more days until the end of the company's tour, so it becomes about surviving until then, with each dangerous situation having the potential to either kill them or take them one day closer to going home. Seems to me a ticking clock plot device is a smart one to use for a film about defusing bombs.

I don't want to spoil it, so I won't say how, but the ending uses the ticking clock, too, in a way that was clever and true to the character, if not in a very Hollywood ending kind of way. This film won't be for everyone -- certainly not as commercial as some of this filmmaker's other films like Point Break, but I for one was riveted from beginning to end and was really taken by the performances.

The Joys of Fall Television

The last few weeks of television, after the Olympics, have been so bad. They've been so bad that I've had to come face to face with my television addiction. I'm watching bad reruns of House. I am considering taking on a CSI franchise. I'm even watching Prison Break. However, last night...light at the end of the tunnel. Entourage - which I love, I mean really love. Jeremy Piven, so incredible, so totally captivating and entertaining. And frankly, it's a show about hedonism and watching those boys stress about weed and scripts and parties makes me forget just for a few minutes that I'm a Mommy. And with the added benefit of a Mark Whalberg cameo -- what a hunk.

And then, after Entourage -- True Blood. Anyone watch this? What a freaking opener! The show opens with the Anna Paquin character getting viciously, viciously attacked and then saved by some paranormal force. At the same time her brother is being questioned for the murder of a local woman and is forced to watch the video tape he and the woman made of them having sex. But, not average sex, which would be interesting. No, he's chocking her to death while having sex with her. Which is really nuts.

This is the first five minutes. Then there are a bunch of you know Bob conversations, but there are enough character reveals and twists - the gay gangster? to make me come back for more. But again, I'm easy.

It's not nearly as elegant as Dexter or subtle as Mad Men, in fact it's about as elegant and subtle as a jackhammer -- but I'm in. For the time being anyway.

Trends, historical romance and Lust, Caution.

Before I begin, I write historical romance, so if you note any bias in this post, you’re probably right.

Hearing a little on the loops, and in some of the industry blogs, about the return of Historical romance. Now the smarter people out there will tell you, historicals didn’t go anywhere. Sales have remained strong over the past few years, especially for established authors and new authors did get bought, just not in the quantities they had five years ago.

But we’ve had some amazing historical authors hit the scene with some fantastic books and all of a sudden, historicals are being talked about again.
What does this mean, well for those of us who write historicals, perhaps a historical query has a better chance of getting interest, if well written.
Which is great, but then the book has to deliver. And give the standards that Elizabeth Hoyt, Joanna Bourne and Sherry Thomas have set, that’s no small task.
So is it easier to get a historical published, I’d say, probably not. Perhaps just easier to get one read by an agent or editor.

At least, I’m hoping..

And on a completely different topic, but still talking about a historical romance. I finally got around to seeing Lust, Caution. A movie set in early 1940’s Shanghai.
Amazing.
Without giving away spoilers, the director made a choice to start the movie with a scene from the middle, that gave away nothing and everything. A fairly simple scene, where nothing seems to happen, but the heroine shares a look with a man in the scene that, to me, spoke so much about their relationship.
And from there I was riveted to find out what had happened prior to that look and what would happen after, which is exactly how the movie is structured.
It’s fairly graphic, mostly in terms of the sexuality portrayed, and slow at times, and subtitled, but really brilliant.
And a movie portrayed almost entirely in the heroine’s POV. A really interesting choice, because as a viewer we never completely understand the hero(?), at least not his motivations, but the glimpses we’re shown through the heroine are fascinating, conflicting and perplexing.
In many ways it reminded me of a gothic romance, where the hero is at times both compelling and terrifying.

It started me thinking about the use of POV. Romance used to be two or three POV’s in a book. Now that number has increased, which is great, but being in all our character’s heads can often mean we know them all too well. It can remove the mystery of that character.
I’m going to try to create more mystery with my characters. JR Ward did this really well with Zadist in those first two Brotherhood books. She showed up glimpses of a compelling, angry, dangerous character, and never explained why. At least until his book.
Something I need to remember, as I keep working on the current WIP, book 1 in a series of what I hope will be 5 books.

Beginnings vs. Endings

Busy week for the drunk writers. Molly is (hopefully) going to give birth any day now and Maureen (I’m a lot jealous) is at the film festival.

Me, I’ve been reading some good and not so good romance novels. I’m about to re-read JR Ward, because I need a fix.

The book I just finished; the beginning was amazing. Really gripping, intense, both the romance plot and the suspense plot. At half way through it fell off the rails. Lost focus on the suspense, which had been driving the romance and the whole book.

This was a first book for this author and I know she’s gone one to write better books. A great beginning and some interesting writing sold this book, I think. I usually pick up a book based on the first few pages, but I buy that author again based on the ending.

Because endings are hard. You can sort of luck into a great first three chapters, but keeping that momentum going, all the balls in the air, answering the questions raised while still keeping your reader completely enthralled.
Total magic and complete skill.

I’ve leaned in the past year to give my endings more thought than the beginning. And hope somehow I keep the book on the rails all the way through.

On another note, so excited about the new Tv season. I am really hopeful that something new in there will really excite, give me a reason to turn on the TV, because I’m dangerously close to watching another season of Next Top Model.

Mama Mia

My mom is in town to clean my ceiling fans, stuff my freezer full of casseroles and take care of me and the new baby that won't come. And since I only have so many ceiling fans and one can really only make so meatloafs and because the DAMN BABY WON'T COME!!! We've had some free time and so mom took me to see Mama Mia. Yes. The all singing, all dancing Stellan Skarsgard. He sang. He danced. I cringed.

The real stars of this movie -- that yes, is lots of fun. And yes, is the first sign of the apocalypse -- is the set design and Meryl Streep. The set design is so utterly charming, from Meryl Streep's Greek fisherman pants, to the jam jars strung with butterflies, to the vintage tablecloths that nearly had my mother passing out with envy - the set is amazing. And authentic.

And for crying out loud Meryl Streep -- this woman was in Sophie's Choice and when, in Mama Mia she sang the Abba hit - Winner Takes It All to Peirce Brosnan - it was so freaking moving. It was heartbreaking and sad and sweet and beautiful -- and it was ABBA!!! There is nothing that woman can't do and I think so much of it goes back to Sinead's post about committing. She commits. It's just the way it is. However, Peirce Brosnan committed too -- when he sang SOS. He really really threw himself at it -- but sadly, I laughed. I laughed because the whole ludicrous notion of this movie was brought home when 007 sang SOS. And I think it's because while he did throw himself at the role and the song and the concept -- he's no Meryl Streep.

The best part is at the end when the cast comes out in ludicrous ABBA style costumes and sings and dances on a huge light stage and it just lets you know that oscar winners, Mr. Darcy, independent film stars, and 007 - have senses of humor about themselves and their art and deciding to not take everything so seriously.

I can not believe I went to go see this movie. The things you do for your mother.

But it's true!

I got an e-mail from a contestant, for one of the contests I'm coordinating, who was very upset and wanted to draw my attention to what she felt was some bad judging. In a nutshell, her judges questioned the events in her story and the motivations/actions of her protagonist. In her mind, the judges were wrong to question these elements because they were true. In fact, she'd lived them herself.

This reminded me of a few reactions I've had to critiques in the past, particularly on my first novel. Someone would question my heroine's actions/reactions and I'd respond: But I know people like that. Or I know someone who's done that.

I soon came to realize that whether or not it's "true" doesn't really matter, or at least it isn't enough. Our job as fiction writers is to convince readers that the actions/reactions made by our characters might happen and that the external plot points could also happen. BUT even if we know someone who's done the exact same thing in the exact same circumstances in real life, or was the victim of the same set of circumstances, it isn't enough. We need to ensure readers understand and believe our characters' motivations and/or believe the circumstances would happen. And this is a tricky balance because we don't want to do too much "telling", nor do we want to spoon feed readers to the point they find our writing/storytelling sophomoric or repetitive.

Now, certainly every reader is going to have a different reaction to a story and no matter how wonderful a job we do as writers, we won't please every reader... But in this case, 3 out of 3 judges offered this woman the same opinion: that the basic premise of her story was implausible, and she e-mailed me to say, "They're wrong. I know they are wrong, because I lived it."

I just politely responded saying I was sorry she didn't find the comments more helpful, but what I really wanted to tell her was that if 3 out of 3 judges held the same opinion, she wasn't doing her job as a writer to convince readers that these events might happen (even if she knows they're possible.)

Whether plot points are plausible is a tough one in judging contests. But ultimately, all contest judges can do is express their honest opinions based on their particular experience as writers/readers/people on this planet.

And the contestants can choose to learn from it or not...

Mind Fu?? or Best Book of The Year?

I'm writing this with the most swollen fingers ever seen on a pregnant woman. Why isn't this baby here yet? My fingers can't take much more of this...

Anywho, while waiting for stubborn baby I finished reading the fantastic Amanda Eyre Ward's latest - Forgive Me. Amazing freaking book. She's an amazing freaking writer. But, with all of her books she has a "device." A clever, stylized something that ends up being something different than you thought it was when first introduced. I love it. I loved it in How To Be Lost and I loved it in Forgive Me -- I don't want to tell you more in fear of spoiling it. But, it reminds me of McKee and one of his tirades about "mind fu??'s" In his opinion The Sixth Sense was just a film student's mind game and he hated it. Another example is the great book Water For Elephants and the prologue that ends up being something other than what you think at the beginning. By leaving out a few pronouns and descriptions - the author paints a totally different picture than the reality -- but at the end of that book I shrieked with delight. McKee would have called it a mind-game - a trick.

But I love devices. I love that little wink to the reader - I think if an author is clever enough to think of it and good enough to carry it off -- brilliant.

Poor M.Night, though, he really only had one device up his sleeve. Not so however with Amanda Eyre Ward -- she just gets more and more clever. Forgive Me is a great book - check it out.

Heroes

Like a lot of people out there, I’ve been following the Olympics when time permits.

So many amazing stories have come out of it. Stories of dedication rewarded. Michael Phelps winning a gazzilion gold medals. Wins driven from years of daily training, early mornings and complete devotion and focus.

Definitely hero potential. Here is someone who has known what he wants for a long time and worked ridiculously hard to get it.

But the hero of the games for me, and the one who’ll somehow end up as inspiration for a character, is Eric Lamaze, the Canadian show jumper who won gold. He was banned from the Olympics for at least eight years for testing positive for cocaine. He admits to using frequently, to being a total screw up.

His beginnings were hard. His mother was a drug user, he never knew his father, he was a street kid for a while and no where ever close to rich, and yet, through a deep affinity for horses found his way into show jumping.

And screwed it all up for at least twelve years. And was written off.

And then got his head together, found his focus, his dedication and won the gold.

Love it and to me, far more interesting than the kid who always had that dedication, and focus.

Now I have to go back to watching the Olympics.

When does support become bullying?

Recently, a writer friend told me a long-time writer on one of her loops had announced she was throwing in the towel, or the keyboard, or whatever it is we writers throw in when we decide it's just not worth it anymore. From the sounds of it, this particular writer realized that she'd let her writing and struggle to get published eat up a couple of decades of her life and the decision to let it go was a huge relief. (This is all hearsay, so let's just say it's a hypothetical situation.)

The response to this hypothetical former writer's post was an on-loop outpouring of "don't give up on your dreams" and "it could be just around the corner" and other such offerings of cyber-support.

Support like this is sometimes exactly what a writer needs to hear... But sometimes it isn't. Sometimes those people offering support really didn't "listen" (read carefully) and are offering a knee-jerk reaction, transferring their own current state of mind onto the person they're trying to help.

So it got me thinking... When does group-support become group-bullying? Are writers' loops and communities so awash with group-think that the collective can't see that continuing the pursuit isn't the right answer for everyone? Do some writers keep going merely because of the peer pressure imposed by these loops and communities?

The decision to stop chasing after something that's not working, to stop (in some cases) obsessing over a possibly unattainable dream, to stop doing something you no longer enjoy and have continued primarily because you know how much persistence counts in this business is, I imagine, a very, very difficult decision to make.

Not everyone who wants to write a book (or even does write several books) is cut out to be an author. Either they simply aren't good enough, or don't enjoy it enough, or aren't telling stories enough other people want to read, or they aren't cut out to deal with the constant rejection and stress that come with the publishing side, or even the isolation, and angst and soul-searching that come with the writing side.

And I say that's fine. Each of us is different. Each of us is "on our own path" to use a new-agey phrase. Each of us has to decide what's right for us.

I think it's great that there are so many on-line writers' communities that reach out and give virtual hugs when someone's down. Often the stories of encouragement posted pull writers out of their slumps and they go on to achieve whatever dream it is that they have.

But I think those of us on these cyber-communities have to support any decision a member makes, even if it's quitting. Even if it's a decision that scares the cr*p out of us, because their decision represents our greatest fear -- that we'll some day realize we don't have what it takes, or just as bad, hang up our keyboard when success was inches away.

ouch.. my brain hurts

My brain hurts… and not because I’ve been writing, but because real life got in the way of the writing.

Really got in the way. In the past two weeks, I’ve maybe managed 200 words and the rest of the time, I’ve been sleeping, or working, or comatose.
As I wait for my life to calm down, and it will, just a few more weeks, I realized that I hate not writing.
Really hate it. I’m itching for time to get going on my current WIP. Got a whole bunch of new ideas.
One of which, is to make my hero more heroic, at least in the traditional sense, figured out a great way of doing so that also helps the story.
All good. And then I realized, that my secondary characters,(who may someday have books of their own if the first book sells… I like to think positive at this part of the process), don’t have to be heroic.
They can be bastards, not evil, but callous perhaps, cold, indifferent, too boyish, too volatile, and they don’t need a substantial reason.
At least not in this book.

They’re more interesting to me this way.

But that’s all my fried brain’s been able to process. Sad, because I haven’t even been reading, or watching movies..

But I have a seven hour flight coming up in about a week, and that time will be spent plotting and writing…

Seven hours stuck on an airplane..

Bliss..

The Dark Knight and Delicious or subplots are the new black

I feel like the real difference between books I read three years ago and the books I'm reading now are the explosion of subplots and POV's. Books just seem bigger, don't they? These romances I'm reading and not just the paranormals or the historicals are using characters and subplots to build worlds - opening up a book is like falling into a new world. Which is freaking awesome!!!

I just finished Sherry Thomas' Delicious, which I loved more than Private Arrangements. And I also saw The Dark Knight, which I loved more than most things. And both of them were just made better with the incredibly detailed and exciting subplots that made the main plot all that much stronger.

And what I really loved about the Dark Knight is that the subplots were fully formed - with heros and villians in each of them. Aaron Eckhardt's Two-face, stole the show for me -- the way that plot line was dealt with and meshed with Bruce Wayne/Batman ultimately blowing up the end of the movie for the third installment -- amazing. So, amazing. The writers took thier time, finding exciting ways to tie the two plots lines together -- they loved the same woman, they tried to save the same woman, they are fighting for the same cause, but then switch places and then they both become the Dark Knight in thier own story lines. Eckhardt pretends to be Batman for a few scenes, Bruce Wayne does some fund raising for Eckhardt and ALL of this runs beneath the subplots between Bruce Wayne and the love interest and Bruce Wayne and The Joker and Bruce Wayne wanting to stop being the Batman.

Setting up the villian for the next movie like this -- brilliant.

For me, the takeaway is that in romancenovel land, we're still spending way too much time telling things the reader should know. We talk to much about lust and we talk to much about anguish and we talk to much about how they can't be together --when if we just showed this stuff we could take all that word count, all those pages and really start to build our worlds. We can create fully-formed villians. Fully-formed themes. Fully-formed subplots.

Which sort of made me think of Delicious - people aren't going to totally buy into the premise of this book. She uses a couple of devices 1. this couple fell in love one night ten years ago and haven't seen each other since. 2. she hides her identity by wearing masks and lurking in shadows and despite his lust and the fact that she is a servent - he doesn't force her to show him her face. Now, you either buy this or you don't. I think she wrote the crap out of the scenes that show thier motives. I believed it, or suspended my disbelief enough to get swept up in the romance of it.


But good romance writing depends on making the reader believe a few key scenes and either we 1. don't think we've accomplished it or 2. don't trust the reader and so we follow up that scene with a bunch of long contemplative scenes telling the reader what that initial scene should have accomplished.

If I could just boil my writing down to those scenes and really understand them - really get what's at stake and how all those characters change in those big scenes and how it is always the small things that pack the biggest punch - I think I'd be able to build these worlds that are so captivating - create these subplots that are so exciting.

No reservations

And no, not talking about booking a table at a restaurant. I watched the season finale of So You Think You Can Dance and saw some of the best routines of the season and something kind of hit me.
The best dancers on the show could throw themselves wholeheartedly into the routine, whether it was taking on a character, or learning a new style of ballroom dance.
It’s the wholeheartedly thing that got me. I think it’s very much all or nothing. Because you could see when the dancers didn’t do this, the routines just looked a little silly. A factor which got a lot of the early dancers voted off.
I think the same goes for writing. Especially in that first draft. As writers we have to be prepared to write the stuff that might read as a little ridiculous. Maybe too over the top, maybe too flighty, maybe too sexy, purple, crazy, zany, dark, violent, whatever. Because in the maybe over the top moments, we also find the brilliance some times, the flashes of something completely different.
And we need different. I just finished reading a whole pile of contest entries, and to be honest, 80% of them were not different. Too similar to everything else out there. Give me a book with parts that are brilliant and other parts not good, than a book that is uniformly just fine.
I think it’s how I’m going to interpret the advice of shutting off our internal editors. I’m going to give myself complete permission to write the most awful crap because I’m hoping in there I might find some semblance of brilliance, even a sentence would do.

Copyright infringement and plagiarism at RWA

What if they gave a talk on theft of creative property at the RWA National Conference and nobody came?

Okay, I'm exaggerating, but Nora Roberts was one of the panelists, as well as Jane Litte from Dear Author and Sarah from Smart Bitches, so I went early, expecting the room to be overflowing. I figured given the topic, the recent Cassie Edwards plagiarism scandal, and the fact that Sarah and Jane were bound to be amusing, intelligent and forthright, it would be packed. Not so much. (Except for the amusing, intelligent and forthright parts.) The conference organizers booked one of the large meeting rooms and I'd say it was less than a quarter filled. Perhaps only 10% filled.

The more I think about this lack of attendance, the more appalling it is. Okay, there were other talks opposite it and everyone has trade-offs to make re which workshop to attend, but I think the fact it was so poorly attended speaks to one of the main issues I took away from the panel: unless the culture and attitude toward plagiarism changes in the publishing industry, people will continue to do it, because there are few, if any, consequences.

In the romance genre there have been two high profile instances of plagiarism, so you'd think there would've been more interest in the panel. First when Janet Daily plagiarized Nora Roberts' work and more recently when Cassie Edwards plagiarized her research sources. Read about it here.)

Janet's and Cassie's books are still on the shelves. The writers still have careers. Are still earning money. The general public doesn't have a clue what they did-- have no idea they are supporting writers who stole from other writers.

Stepping back for a sec, to clarify something, I want to use a short example that Jane (a very impressive woman, BTW) used to explain the difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism, because I've heard people blurring the two, or using copyright laws to defend plagiarism, etc. (I've probably done it myself.)

Jane's example:
If I make a copy of a Nora Roberts book, (keeping her name on it, because she's famous, so why wouldn't I?), whether on paper or electronically, and give it away for free or sell it, I am violating her copyright. This is against the law. She could sue me. (But based on Nora's very passionate talk, I'd be dead, probably with a hammer in my head, before we ever got to court.)
On the other hand, Jane Austen's work is now in the public domain. There is no longer any copyright on her work. I can make as many copies of Pride & Prejudice as I want and distribute them to anyone without breaking any laws.* If, however, I put my name on it instead of Jane's, and try to pass it off as my own novel, or if I lift sections from it to put in another book, I am plagiarizing. But this isn't against the law, it's just WRONG. Plagiarism is a matter of ethics, while copyright infringement is a matter of law, so using: "it's in the public domain", or "it's fair use" to defend plagiarism doesn't work, because those points of law relate to copyright infringement. At least this is how I understood what Jane said. I plan to listen to the talk again when my conference CD's arrive. **

As with any matter of ethics, there's a gray area. For example, I've read books (can't think of the titles right now) that start with the first line of P&P or the first line of Tale of Two Cities or some slight variation of these famous lines. To some this is clever, a wink to the reader, to others it's plagiarism. (I'm on the clever side of that fence, BTW.) Another example: we often hear writers say, "Oh, as long as I list my research sources in my acknowledgments, it's okay if I've copied or loosely paraphrased my research sources. Again. Not okay. Not from where I sit, anyway, especially without permission. The way the non-fiction writer expressed the information is that writer's creative property. The facts and/or ideas aren't, just the way they were expressed.

Bottom line, this panel discussion bounced me right off the fence about this issue. Not that I ever thought that plagiarism was acceptable, (and I already had my legs hanging over one side, perhaps one foot on the ground), but I have to admit I was one of those people who thought in the Cassie situation it was more about laziness and bad writing, than about plagiarism. (Now I think it's all of the above.)

But I realize now how wrong headed my opinion was. I mean, if novelists don't respect the creative expression (words) of non-fiction writers, (research sources), then why should we expect anyone to respect our rights to our own creative expression? In other words -- our novels, our work, our art, our livelihoods. Imagine if a bunch of thriller writers were told by their editors to include more sex scenes in their books and being uncomfortable writing "that icky sex stuff" thriller writers started lifting love scenes from romance novels and substituting their own character names and/or slightly paraphrasing? After all, it's just from a romance novel and they're all alike, anyway, aren't they? (That's the plagiarizing thriller writer talking there, in case it wasn't clear. ;-) ) I think it's pretty obvious why that example is not okay, but that's exactly what Edwards did to the writers of her research sources.

And what consequences have there been? From what I understand, while one of her publishers dropped her (as I understand it) the others have not and she's still on the shelves in the bookstores and people are buying her books and she's earning royalties. Really, other than what I'm sure was tons of stress and humiliation and embarrassment, she has suffered few consequences, compared to what an academic would have for the same offense. Same with Janet Daily. Still publishing away. Still hitting lists, I think. (According to her website, which I am so not linking to, she's still hitting lists.)

It really is time for RWA, and the publishing industry in general, (publishers, writers and booksellers), to get serious about plagiarism. As was said in the panel: in the academic world, there are dire consequences for plagiarism (expulsion for students, and loss of job/reputation for professors), but in the publishing industry, we act so afraid of the word plagiarism that we want to pretend it never happens.

When we started the Drunk Writer Talk blog, we decided we wanted to avoid controversial industry topics, but I decided to do this post anyway, because really... to me this should not be controversial, and I think (hope) if more authors were better informed about the issues, it would be a no-brainer. Sure, it's terrifying to think that something we've read might have crept into our brains and back out onto our own pages... but using a metaphor or a twist of phrase another author has used doesn't necessarily mean plagiarism. Especially if it isn't done repeatedly or systematically. But doing that many times in the same book, or copying sections and only slightly paraphrasing, like Kaavya Viswanathan did... Or like Cassie Edwards and Janet Daily did. That's plagiarism. At least Viswanathan had her book canceled, although it's not clear she had to pay her huge advance back... Does anyone know?


---------------------------
* I'm not sure, but I figure there are probably copyrights on the cover and book designs of newer additions of P&P... So maybe I'd have to retype the text and re-print any Jane Austen novels to avoid copyright issues. But there is no copyright on the actual writing and story.
** Also, it is possible to do both. If you plagiarize writing that is still under copyright protection, (i.e. if I copied Nora's books and put my name on it, like Janet Daily did, I'd be both violating her copyright AND plagiarizing.)

Introducing...Mary Sullivan!!

Incredibly exciting times here in Drunk Writer Land. One of our critique group members FINALLY GOT THE CALL!!

Many of you out there know Mary as Mary Bray. I'm going to let her tell her incredible story from start to finish and I hope you all find her perseverance as inspiring as I do. Take it away Mary:



I was originally going to post this on my own web page, but, well, I don’t have one yet, and I can’t hold in my excitement.

My wonderful critique partner, Molly, graciously invited me here to tell my story about receiving The Call last week, so here I am. Woooooooooohooooooooooooo!!!

Okay, now that that’s out of my system, I’m ready to answer Molly’s questions.

MOLLY: Tell us the story about getting the call.

ME: I was home when my agent, Pamela Hopkins, called. She told me that Wanda Ottewell, at Harlequin Superromance, wanted to buy my novel, WHITE STETSONS. It was my 2005 Golden Heart finaling entry called, at that time, SHELTERING ARMS. I can honestly say that I wasn’t very articulate for the first few minutes of the phone call. My thoughts sounded something like, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” Serious chills and goose bumps. To a certain extent, I’m still in shock.

I had this really weird thought after I hung up. I thought, “Well, I guess that was inevitable.” After some analysis, I realized that, in other words, as long as I had continued to grow as a writer and didn’t give up, I was going to obtain my goal to get published.

Never, at any point, up until The Call, did I believe it was inevitable, though. I had all of the doubts of any writer. I had those moments when I wondered why I was stilling banging my head against that publishing wall.

The Call became more real when Wanda phoned to talk about the book and expectations Harlequin would have of me. Wanda was warm, gracious, and so intelligent. I guess I was most relieved when she mentioned that any revisions that needed to be done on WHITE STETSONS would be minor. She stressed ‘minor’. Thank heavens.

My revision story along the journey to publication has been a novel in itself with this particular manuscript.

It started just before I found out the novel had finaled in the Golden Heart. I had sent the manuscript to an editor at Superromance (not Wanda) who had asked for revisions. I did those revisions, but the editor still didn’t want it.

At that point, Pam agreed to be my agent. We decided that we could target American Romance, because the setting was already so strong. I just had to change it from Alberta to just across the border in Montana. I had created a fictitious town, and northern Montana doesn’t differ too much from southern Alberta in topography in the one area I used.

American Romance is a slightly shorter line. I cut out scenes, researched Montana and then increased the sense of place even more, made sure it was seamless and then sent it to Pam.

She, in turn, sent it to Wanda, who edits some of Pam’s authors who write for American Romance. Pam has a good relationship with Wanda. So, even though Wanda edited for Superromance, she did agree to take a look at the manuscript in its American Romance incarnation.

She sent back a four-page revision letter and agreed to take another look at it. I agreed to do those revisions because they made sense to me, but also because I think Wanda has a really solid understanding of story.

Then, Wanda became the Senior Editor of Superromance, which was wonderful for her, but not so great for me, because she would no longer have the time to look at an author who was writing American Romance. I really didn’t want to start over with another editor, though, and had really wanted to be published in Superromance. As well, I wanted to work with Wanda.

Pam went back to Wanda asking whether she would take another look at the manuscript if I now rewrote it as a Superromance. Wanda agreed. So...yet another set of revisions to do, which were a lot more work than just sending out the old copy of the manuscript. In the four years since I had started to write this novel, I had learned a lot about writing. It is my belief that it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been writing, you never stop learning as a writer.

I rewrote older scenes that were no longer as good as newer scenes. I used all of Wanda’s wonderful suggestions. In a book I already considered to be emotional, I had to write with even more emotion. Superromance was about to take a slightly different direction and Wanda told Pam that it is all about romance. Romance, romance, romance.

So, I beefed up the romance. I think it was because of this that I didn’t lose the spark in the book after so many revisions. I had to find new ways to showcase the romance between my hero and heroine and, in doing so, came to fall in love with my characters again.

Wanda loved the revisions, Pam got The Call, and then passed it along to me.

I know there were people who thought I should have thrown in the towel and moved on to another book, but there were a couple of reasons why I didn’t give up on WHITE STETSONS. First, my agent liked the story and believed it could sell. Second, I loved the story. No matter how many times I rewrote it, even when I feared I was so immersed I could no longer ‘see’ the story, I still loved my characters and the basic premise.

My hero, Hank, is even more ‘Hank’ than when I started the book four years ago.

Besides, I did continue to work on other novels.

I have strong opinions about those revisions I made .

I have learned that there is a time to stick to my guns, and a time to listen to others.

If only a handful of people were ‘getting’ what I was trying to say, maybe it was time to change what I was saying, or the way I was saying it.

Agreeing to revisions that made sense was taking responsibility for selling my own work. So, if the reader/editor/agent couldn’t see what I wanted them to see, how could I change the writing to make them see the story I saw?

Changing the manuscript to target American Romance was a strategic career move on my part. Changing it back to Superromance, with the editor’s permission, was also a career ploy. Using the editor’s requested revisions was just plain smart writing and resulted in a better book in the end. However, there was never a guarantee that she would like it or buy it. I will admit that, if she hadn’t, there was nowhere else for WHITE STETSONS to go. It is most definitely a category novel.

I should stress here that, since Superromance had already rejected it as a Super, it really shouldn’t have gone to another editor to be considered for Super. This only happened because Wanda first saw it as an American Romance and then, circumstances changed. I got lucky...and I have a good agent.

I was a basket case while waiting for Wanda’s response. I’m so glad she bought it in the end.

MOLLY: How long have you been writing?

ME: Twelve years. I lost of couple of those to health and family issues. Life does seem to get in the way of the writing.

What was I doing all of those years? Either writing manuscripts, or doing research for those stories, or attending seminars, workshops or conferences, or writing short stories, or refining pitches and query letters, or entering contests, or reading excellent authors--always trying to improve my craft--and, once a week, working with a great critique group that includes Molly, Maureen and Sinead who you know here on their great blog. Also, Teresa, Michele and Jude, great writers and amazing critiquers.

Thank you, you lovely, smart, savvy ladies for all of your support!


MOLLY: Looking back on your journey to this point - what do you think are the most important things you’ve done to get here? What do you wish you’d done differently? If anything?

ME: Most important things I’ve done? Learned to write well and then continued to study writing and story, joined TRW, found a supportive critique group.

What do I wish I’d done differently? Joined TRW and met other writers a lot sooner than I did. Writing is such a solitary pursuit and the romance novel writing community is wonderfully supportive.

Red, horned heroes and freeing my imagination

Seriously, how do you follow up Maureen’s post on dark heroes as throrougly explained by examples using Mad Men?

You don’t.

So instead of discussing writing, I’m going to talk about why I loved Hellboy 2. It works on a lot of levels, and fails on some as well. But like a lot of Del Toro’s movies, it has this tremendous dark visual style that seems be uniquely him.
And it had some lovely little touches that were really imaginative. For example, a canary can terrify a scary troll. The hellboy character is wonderful, has some lovely quirks, is far from perfect, and as prophesied in both hellboy movies may someday destroy the world.

What I really took away from this movie was the sheer imagination involved. It got me thinking, how much of what I use in my books is influenced by what I’ve read before and what I expect to find in the genre. And I keep trying to think of ways to break my imagination free and really think of original ideas, original details, original characters.

And I think we start by forgetting everything we’ve ever read in the romance genre.

But when I try this, I just think of one eyed weird looking witches, straight out of the last Del Toro movie, so I figure I need to forget Hellboy 2 as well.

And back to our weekly obsession with SYTYCD.. Will? I’m so sad, but I’m not sure there is a guy left it wouldn’t have hurt me to see leave. And I have to admit, I love Twitch, as much for his personality as his dancing. The girls.. meh! Take ‘em or leave ‘em.
Let’s have a four guy finale…

Dark Heroes and Mad Men

I've been thinking a lot about Sinead's post on Friday, and a dilemma I know she's having with one of her WIP's, and also thinking about some workshops I've attended, where the topic was making the protagonist sympathetic or emotionally identifiable in the opening scenes. While I usually think of that in terms of romance heroines, I'm starting to think this is the key to making readers accept dark heroes, too. That the "make your hero sympathetic or relatable rule" isn't just for the nice guys. It's for the bad guys, too. Let's face it, every well-rounded character's got two sides, but maybe the darker the hero the more important it is to show the positive traits early.

The thing is, it's hard to do this with a dark character, because you're trying to characterize him/her as dark at the same time. And I agree that it can be cowardly or a cop out for writers to soften the dark stuff too much. Also hard not to fall into a clichés like having them pet a puppy (or literally save a cat as in the title of Blake Snyder's screen writing book). But while challenging, it's not impossible and it doesn't mean you need to have the hero regret his/her bad choices right from the start, or otherwise soften whatever it is that makes them dark. Rather you can show something positive as well, or show him/her experiencing something the reader can relate to/empathize with. I'm going to have to pull out Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Ain't She Sweet again. Actually, I think I borrowed Sinead's copy. Need to get one of my own. But I'm quite sure SEP did this masterfully with her anti-heroine in Ain't She Sweet.

And another writer who's done it masterfully is Matthew Weiner, the writer/creator of Mad Men. AMC showed the first season of Mad Men back-to-back on Sunday, in anticipation of the second season starting next week. (Can't wait!) And I watched the opening scenes from the pilot episode about 5 times.


Okay, Don Draper might not be what many of us think of when we think "dark hero", but let's face it, he's a pretty dark guy, with some very dark secrets, who has done and does a lot of bad things. Yet, he is the protagonist of the series. (Peggy being the secondary protagonist and I'm going to have to go back and think about her introduction, too...)

So, how does the writer introduce Don Draper, dark hero...

First scene: Noisy, crowded bar. Everyone's drinking and smoking and chatting in groups. Having fun. But not Don. He's alone. Concentrating. Working. Writing ideas on a napkin.

In less than 5 seconds of the pilot episode we know Don is hard worker. Has a strong work ethic. Positive traits.

Then he asks a busboy (older black man) for a light and tries to engage him in conversation. The waiter (white) misinterprets the situation, tries to intercede and insults the busboy. Don brushes the waiter off, making it clear he wants to talk to the busboy. So, now we're maybe 15 seconds into this series and we know: Don is nice to people with low-paying jobs. Don is nice to a black person in 1960, when most white people weren't. Don respects the "little guy", cares about underdogs. More positive traits.

Then the conversation continues and he's asking the busboy about his brand of cigarettes and why he smokes them and what Don could say to convince him to switch brands. In a 20 or 30 second conversation we see more of Don respecting this man, valuing his opinion and Don being insightful and smart about his job. Look at that: Good at his job. Another positive trait. He respects others' opinions. Another one.

Oh, and the actor playing Don is very good looking, dresses well, has a great smile. Not trivial details. Good looking. Another positive trait.

Scene is over. Less than a minute. And we already like and respect Don, think he's a good guy. He's dedicated. A hard worker. Nice to underdogs. Good at his job. Good looking. At least five positive traits in maybe 40 seconds.

Second scene: Don goes to visit a woman in her apartment. It's late at night. He's not expected, but she's clearly glad to see him, but no push-over either, and she's attractive. And witty. Hmmmm. An attractive, witty woman likes Don. Wants to have sex with him. And she does the seducing/makes the first move. Another clue to him having positive traits. Others like him so he must be likable. And his lover is a bohemian, an independent woman. An artist. Plus, she has more than one lover. Interesting. His lover is a woman who is very rebellious given the time period. Earns her own living. She's interesting. That he's her lover makes him more interesting. And he talks with her about a problem he's having at work. Makes us think he respects women, respects her opinion. Because of this and the way he treats his new secretary in a later scene, we believe Don respects women more than most men of his time. We're proved wrong later in the episode. But the point is, we believe it now, as we're getting to know Don and it helps us become emotionally attached.

But back to the second scene. In addition to this scene cementing our impression that this guy is fairly liberal for his time--asking for opinions from a black man and now a woman!--it does something even more important. In discussing his work issues, we learn that he's vulnerable. Scared in fact. Scared that he won't come up with an idea for his cigarette manufacturer client, scared to go to work tomorrow, scared that one of the young execs will steal his job, scared that everyone at work will discover he's a fraud. Now, if you watch the series, you'll know that this last fear is a loaded one for Don. But we don't know that it's foreshadowing at this point. All we know is he has insecurities about his job and his biggest fear is that some day everyone will discover he's a fraud. These are fears and emotions almost everyone can relate to. The writer has made him emotionally identifiable, by putting him in this vulnerable situation we can relate to.

So, at this point, we're maybe 90 seconds into a series with an anti-hero and already the writer has given us five or six reasons to like and respect Don. To identify with him emotionally. Connect with him.

Next scene. Wakes up in bed with his lover. Says, "We should get married. ... You have your own business ... What size Cadillac do you take?" She replies: "You know the rules. I don't make plans and I don't make breakfast." Hands him his watch as a signal he should get up and get out.

Now we're wondering if Don might be a romantic. If she'd agree to it, he'd marry this woman. On top of that, he's fine with women in business. in 1960. Cool. All these assumptions turn out to be false, but Don wasn't lying in this scene, he was being ironic. Seeing it again, knowing all we know about Don after the first season, I think when he says "we should get married," to Midge, he isn't being romantic at all, but a making a wish for a different life because of the unhappiness and emptiness caused by living a lie. Midge is an escape. He doesn't have to feel badly that she knows nothing about him, because she doesn't want to know much about him. But -- big but -- at this point, we don't know any of this, so the writer is giving us more reasons to empathize with Don. Poor guy is in love with a woman who won't commit and has other lovers. And he's generous. He offered her a Cadillac, even if it was jokingly.

We're thinking Don's a pretty good guy. And we're maybe only 3 minutes into the series.

Then we start to meet the other characters and learn what pigs most of the men are and how badly they treat the women and Don starts to look even better by comparison. (Even the clearly closeted gay man does his best to sexually harass and insult the women. But Don mostly abstains and actually defends Peggy.)

After all this, by the time the negative stuff starts to come out about Don's character, we're already pretty invested in him and willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. When he makes anti-semitic remarks we think, "Yes, but it's a sign of the times, plus he was nice to the black man and respects women." Two out of three ain't bad. ;-)
Then he insults a woman when she dares to question him, and says: "I'm not going to let a woman talk to me like this," before storming out on a female client. We're shocked, sure, but since we'd already decided he was a good guy in the first 2-3 minutes of the episode, we see these negative traits as complexities, not reasons to think he's a villain rather than a hero. When we learn he's a total cynic about love, we wonder, "Why does he feel that way? How was he hurt?" instead of hating him for it and thinking he's a jerk. When he's clearly sad when describing how advertising is all about happiness, we care and are curious about what's causing him pain.

And then, at the end of the episode... he goes home to his wife. Big reveal. He's married. A big-time cheater. But then even this blow is softened, because he loves his kids. And he loves his wife. And his wife loves him. And he's a good provider. We see all that in a tender 30 second scene when he gets home. (In future episodes, when we get to know his wife better, we realize everything wasn't as rosy as it seemed in that scene... but the writer is smart about that. Paints a pretty picture of his home life to start with.)

Do we hate him at the end of this first episode? Hard to say. Some people will. I didn't.
But I also think that, love him or hate him, most people by the end of this first episode are captivated by Don Draper. Fascinated. Drawn in to a complex character who just gets more and more complex as the series continues.

Stellar writing. Stellar acting. I see more in this opening episode each time I watch it. And I'm starting to think it's a master class in introducing dark heroes.

Is Don a dark hero, as in a murderer or rapist? Well no. (At least based on what we know in the first season.) But he is -- without giving any spoilers, for those of you who need to catch up and watch season one -- a bit of a scum bucket. Okay, maybe not a scum bucket. Just deeply wounded. See? I'm so invested I can't even call him a bad name.

I was totally drawn into his story. I think a good part of this is because of those masterful first scenes, those two minutes of screen time that made him emotionally identifiable to me and showed me his positive traits before revealing all the bad stuff.

(Now I want to go back and rewrite the first scene of my new book for the 60th time...)

How bad can you make your hero?

Most readers, and we at Drunk Writers, all love a dark hero. And when you consider the success of JR Ward, the darker, the better.

But how dark?

Can your hero be a thief, a murderer?

I remember a novel, (the author, well known and with amazing sales,) made the villain from one of her previous novels the hero, even though in the previous novel he’d raped a woman.

I write dark heroes, and really the question on my mind a lot, is how dark before the book becomes unmarketable.

I think in the end, it comes down to motivations. You have the hero do a lot, (pedophiles, and rape aside) and if you give them sufficient motivation, the reader will buy them as a hero.

Genre also plays a part. I think we accept a murderer for a hero in paranormal if he’s a vampire and trying to protect his race, rather than say in contemporary romance where the hero kills people because he’s delusional. (Stupid example, I know, but I haven’t had coffee yet, and my brain isn’t working, and I should have done this blog yesterday.)

Motivation is a tricky thing, because a majority of readers have to buy into it. It’s a thin line, because if the motivation is too safe, like for example, your hero is kicking dogs to save a bunch of orphans, then well, he’s not really too dark.
His motivations still have to veer towards dark. If the hero is a true hero at the beginning of the book and well, you don’t have a character arc.

Laura Kinsale is my heroine in terms of the dark hero. Her books are a master class in creating a hero as far as I’m concerned. And her heroes, for the most part, are selfish creatures, not acting out of heroic motivations at the beginning of her books, and have a really satisfying arc at the end.

And the darker the hero, the more complex his motivations become. And something I always have a problem with. They are something I don’t get right during the first draft, or the second..

On a different note.. let’s move on to SYTYCD… loving this season and it’s all because of the guys.. seriously, those solos… wow!

Follow Through and Third Acts

In the ten days since I finished (finally) a polished enough draft of my latest opus to send it off to my agent, I've seen about 6 movies. Perhaps more. An embarrassment of movies really.

So, I figured there had to be some fodder for discussion in those films. Problem is, my brain is broken, or at least badly sprained, such that critical analysis of anything really hurts.

But one of the movies got me thinking about a workshop I attended recently on high concept. The author who gave the workshop made a comment at some point that it doesn't matter if your actual book/story is that high concept, just that the pitch is, implying that it's more important to sell the concept to editors and/or Hollywood than it is to please the eventual readers. Now, to be fair to said author, I'm sure this isn't really what she meant. Or I hope it wasn't. But I wasn't the only one who heard her say this...

But I think the people involved in the film Hancock might have gone to her workshop, too.

Hancock has an amazing concept. Stellar. The first time I saw a trailer I immediately wanted to see the film, nearly rubbing my hands together with glee.

What a high concept. Alcoholic super-hero creates as many problems as he solves. Okay, I'm not good at pitch lines. And that was my first crack at it. But it's an amazing idea. You could even bring in the very funny Jason Bateman character to make it his story... PR man tries to improve the image of an alcoholic super-hero who creates as many problems as he solves. Or add the Theron character to that: PR man tries to improve the image of an alcoholic super-hero who crates as many problems as he solves, only to discover his wife and the super-hero have a secret past.

Okay, that includes a spoiler, but it's foreshadowed in the film out the wazoo, so I'm not really ruining it. BUT. I am ruining the point of this post. As usual, I've gotten off track.

What I meant to say was that the movie never really fully delivers on this fabulous high concept premise. They set us up with all this amazing potential for heart-wrenching conflict between the three main characters, but then resort to blowing things up instead of ensuring the audience fully understands and appreciates that conflict that never really gets resolved properly. And the result is a mediocre film that could have been AMAZING.

The third act didn't even make that much sense to me... If they can't be around each other, how come that only starts being a problem after the audience is told they can't be around each other? Why wasn't it a problem before that? And why did Theron all of a sudden start to wear black eye-liner once it's revealed she's a god????

Sad thing for me was this film was directed by Peter Berg, of Friday Night Lights fame (not to mention being Dr. Kronk of Chicago Hope) . But Berg didn't write it... and it's hard to know whether or not to blame the writers, since so much happens by committee in Hollywood movies. Although I did notice that the two writers have mostly TV-writing credits. And as much as there is amazing writing happening on TV these days... TV is different. You have an entire series to develop characters and tell a story, with each episode being like a big chapter or something. In a movie, especially a genre movie, you need a great, tight, story structure with a strong third act, and Hancock was all high concept pitch, and lack of follow through.

Getting Myself Out of The Way...

Much harder to do these days what with the fetus.... but, not quite what I was just thinking about.

I love love love So You Think You Can Dance. There is nothing for me not to love about that show -- even Mary Murphy who is so annoying it's unbelievable she has a job, but she does and I even love that about the show -- they employ really annoying people. This year is better than last year, which was better than the year before that which was so addictive I probably watched it twice. This year I'm loving the Tabitha and Napoleon numbers -- not that I have any valid opinion about hip hop - but it seems to me that they do really good hip hop. I also loved Mia Micheal's bed routine. Mostly because Twitch's chest is a stupid stupid stupid thing of beauty. Good God, in my next life I'm coming back as a breakdancer.

But I am really enjoying the saga of Will and his partner (who is so overshadowed by Will I've forgotten her name). Now, every time Will dances the judges can't stop fawning - and maybe he is the greatest thing since sliced cheese - I like him. I like him a lot. But it's Jessica (that's her name, right?) that's teaching me lots of lessons. All the judges remind her that when she gets over herself, she's incredible and I believe that. The shirt number was amazing and so was last weeks incredible Tyce number/art installation. But, man, it must be so hard to get over herself when every week it seems like all the judges can't stop waxing poetic about Will - and she's constantly being compared to the guy, because they are dancing together!!! She needs him, she hates him. She wants to be as good as him, she resents him. She's learning from him, she's not as good as him. It's awesome. It's a little sad to watch, but I can't stop watching.

I also think that the last week and maybe the last month and a bit - the Drunk Writers - have been unable to get over ourselves. We're not writing, we're analyzing and comparing and hating and resenting all the stuff we need to learn. I am. Oh, I am. It's like I'm dancing with Susan Elizabeth Phillips every damn week - and it's great - but come on!!! Give me Gev or someone more realistic!

Anyway - I am going to force myself to snap out of this. I've turned in all my projects, I've eaten all the Frosted Mini Wheats a woman should eat, I'm off on vacation next weekend with three great books and I've got a new proposal to work on. Life is good.

Theme for the week -

So apparently this week is all about procrastination and working through not wanting to work.
Something all three drunk writers seem to be fighting this week.
And the more books I write, the worse it gets. I’m occasionally paralyzed by the idea of writing the book the way it should be written, not the way I would write it. I agonize over whether my scenes are doing what they should be doing.
Gone are the days of carefree first drafts, because in my process right now, crazy as my process is, it’s really, really hard for me to re-imagine a book once I’ve written it.
So I know to take more time with set-up and plotting in the beginning.
Basically, writing has just gotten harder, even though I know I’ve gotten better and even though I know I’m far more capable of recognizing and fixing my mistakes.
And too often lately I’ve sat and thought about writing more than I have actually sat and written. My current WIP is going at a snail’s pace. And I wish I could rekindle the excitement and enthusiasm of my earlier days while keeping the knowledge I’ve gained.

But then I read a great book and my imagination gets fired up, and I start to think about my own book and all of a sudden my enthusiasm returns. Or I watch a great movie, or a TV show and I figure out a way to fix a plot complication.

Because in the end I really do still love it.

But I’m in the same boat as Maureen. What would really give me inspiration right now is to sell a bloody book.

Losing and finding the spark....

I read Molly's post on Monday with a lot of empathy and nodding.

And what people might not know about Molly is that she has those days where she'd rather procrastinate than write... but somehow she still finishes all her books months before her deadlines, which is why she keeps getting bumped up in schedules and her editor trusts her to deliver. Total pro. Me? Not so much.

Now... I'm not a big fan of oh-woe-is-me blog posts. Nor do I believe in whining in public, but I still feel like whining tonight. I think I'm just burned out. I hope that's all it is. I've got 3 shoppable, totally publishable (if I do say so myself) projects completed right now. And I'm about 90% sure at least 2 of the 3 will go out on submission after the summer publishing slowdown... But right now I'm feeling like if one of these 3 doesn't hit it, that's it for me. I'm done.

Now, I'm sure I'll take that back at some point. I hope so. (No, I don't... I hope one of them will sell so I won't be in a position to have to take it back...)

Have you ever lost your spark? What did you do to reignite it?

When the Going Gets Tough...

I read JR Ward and watch a lot of tv and eat cereal by the box full.

It's true. You know that little "rule" about creating characters: that your character is what they do - not what you say they are. And when characters are put into conflict - how they behave tells the reader everything they need to know about that character.

And if the same is true for people, which I think it is, the last two weeks have shown that I, 1. Know how to procrastinate. 2. Know how to rationalize. 3. Shouldn't buy boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats in times of stress. 4. Married a good guy.

I had a conversation a few days ago with my editor - the fantastic Wanda Ottewell. We've worked together for a long time and have developed a nice little short hand when it comes to talking edits. So, we're discussing a book that I really had a terrible time with and she has moved up in the schedule so that the rewrites are due oh...now. And her edits are things like..."I just don't love the heroine." Which I know means - she's boring and bland and needs to be fixed in the first 5 chapters. And "I'm not crazy about the black moment...it seems familiar." Which means, it's exactly the same as the last book you wrote -- who are you trying to kid? So, fix heroine. Fix black moment. Got it.

I'm also trying to finish a novella that's due on the same day my baby is due and Wanda asks me about what I am working on next. I tell her my idea for a four book proposal and her response is "oh no... we're doing a 60th Anniversary Continuity with basically the EXACT SAME PLOT. Can you think of something new?"

Of course. Of course. Because I have all the time in the world and ideas are growing on the weed trees in my backyard. So, I hang up the phone and freak out. And by freak out I mean eat everything that has sugar content in my freezer. And then, because it's not like I'm on three deadlines I lie down and read the latest JR Ward. Which depresses me. Not because it's a bad book, or I'm disappointed as so many people have been. Sure, the romance is weak and Phury's angst wears thin - but because Ward proves in this book how brave she is, and how freaking talented.

Tell me, who on their fifth book (6th?) has the courage to totally destroy their world, possibly piss off their legions of romance fans with a weak romance all so they can set up the next five books to be even better than the first five? It's so freaking risky. And she goes so far out there sometimes - albino scorpions? Really? But because I am so sucked in - I go, too.

In the end, taking that day to read and to process all that I have to do - was a wise move. And I say that not just because I am the Queen of Rationalization...well, maybe. But I feel all shaken up, inspired and anxious to get my hands on something new and different of my own.

On a similar note - Rolling Stone Magazine is the WORST for spoilers. In reading about the new season of Madmen, I found out about every cliffhanger from season one. Every. Cliffhanger. Infuriating. They did the same thing to me with Battlestar. Rolling Stone is on my list. But the show is still amazing AND so is the HBO series John Adams. Anyone else watching this? Holy Holy Frack. The inoculation scene? The tar and feathering scene? Paul Giamatti? Laura Linney? Amazing.

How dark do you like your romance?

My immediate answer to that questions is very dark. I write dark romance, where bad things happen, sometimes good people die, but in the end I guarantee mostly a happy ending.
And not just because of romance conventions, but because that’s my own preference.

And I love other dark romances, the JR Ward books are certainly that way, the Marjorie M. Liu books are packed with action and dead bodies.

But there is a limit for me. And I sort of realized that limit when I read the Meredith Duran book, the Duke of Shadows.
It’s a good book, the first half is straight out terrific, with an amazing location and lots of external and internal conflict. But, and I’m not giving much away, its set during the uprising against British rule in India in the 1850’s.

And there are some unsettling scenes, not many, and the author does a really nice job of not being too descriptive, while really getting across some realities of what happened during the fighting, but I found it injected a sense of realism that took me out of the story.

I like my romances a shade more fantasy.

And I’m not even sure where fantasy ends and realism begins. I love romantic suspense, have no problems with a body count.
I do know if the violence involves children, I’m probably out of the story. Can’t help it.

And I know everyone has their own uncomfortable point, which is why some people avoid suspense altogether.

It was interesting for me to learn, but it is something I’m going to have to be careful of in my own writing, as the body count piles up.

Hello, My Name is Maureen and I am a plot driven writer

The reason I wrote that like an AA introduction, isn't because I think I should change... Or that it's something to be ashamed of... It's more because it's a very recent realization about myself as a writer and my process. Especially since I'd totally deluded myself into thinking I was more character driven. I actually slapped my head the night I realized this. (Sinead may have witnessed this head slap.) Here I was, thinking the opposite for at least five years.

Not that I think it's a black or white question. Nothing ever is. And clearly great stories need both character and plot, but even when I think about my women's fiction projects, as Sinead would say, "A lot of sh*t happens" in those books. So I think at heart, maybe I'm a plot driven writer. My storytelling instincts tell me to keep making sh*t happen, adding more plot elements to make things more difficult for my characters and keep the pace of the book fast.

Some readers of this blog know I'm trying something very different for me right now... A book in a completely different genre than I've written in before, that I hope will be the first in a series. And it's a very plot driven book... Very complicated and suspense driven.

And I found I had to get the major sequence of events down on paper, before I had all of the character motivations figured out. Particularly in regard to the romance plot. In fact, I had to go back and layer in a lot of that after writing the first draft. It wasn't like I had zero idea about my characters going in, and I do think I stayed true to them in the end and didn't make the characters do anything just to serve my plot, without giving them motivation, but all the main turning points in the character arcs come out of plot more than "reflection" if you know what I mean... And I must admit, in places, it was more like I knew what had to happen and I had to figure out what the frack was going on with my character to make him/her do that... Rather than the other way around. Which felt backwards to me in a way, but in the end, I'm wondering if it isn't just part of my process...

Again... not black and white... It just really surprised me that my approach for this book was so different -- or maybe more that I realized something about my process that had been there all along, but I'd been denying...

The three of us have been talking a lot over the past while about knowing our strengths and weaknesses and also knowing what we want from our careers. And I'm still so confused about this at times. But maybe this revelation will help me to figure it out. (Selling one of my fracking books, would help, too...)