Friday, March 28, 2008

Contest Winners

Sorry this took so long, but I'm finally catching up. [laugh/flail] The winners of my chunk of the Pay It Forward contest are:

Shauna and Ello!

Each of you get to pick one of the following prizes:

1. Support New Writers -- two books by new writers. That is, writers whose first commercially published book came out one year or less ago, as of 15 March 2008. Mass market paperbacks or equivalent only, please.

2. Support Electronic Publishing -- a $15 gift certificate to Fictionwise, one of the major sellers of electronic books.

3. Try Something New -- two books from two writers whose work you've never read before. Try to make at least one of them in a genre you've never read before. You're not paying, so experiment! Mass market paperbacks or equivalent only, please.

It's not a first-come, first-served; if you both pick the same one, that's cool.

Then, you each need to run this contest in your own blog. You don't have to do it exactly the same way I did -- you can make people do something different, or just enter by commenting if you want.

Thanks to everyone who entered. :D

Angie

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Awful Weekend

Just wanted to let people know I'm still around and alive, just behind. It's been a really horrible weekend and my other online community exploded in a firestorm.

Remember the plagiarized book that made it to the Eppie finals? It was originally fanfiction, and fandom just found out. BOOM! Proof positive that readers and writers are exactly the same everywhere -- the exact same arguments and defenses and attacks were made here (and are still going on, although it's finally slowed down) as were made in the Cassie Edwards incident. Substitute "fanfic" for "romance" and everything else is the same -- "It's only fanfic, why are you taking it so seriously?!" and "The standards are different in fanfic than they are elsewhere!" and "Hasn't she been through enough?!" and "Why are you being so mean?!" and "You're just jealous!" and "You just want attention!" and cetera.

If anything, I think it's been worse than the Cassie Edwards blow-up. Then, so far as I could tell, the people defending her were just readers, no matter how devoted. But Lucia Logan was a member of our community, many people consider her to be a good friend, and quite a few (myself included) have met her in realspace. That makes it much more personal, and the intensity went up correspondingly.

And also as with the Cassie Edwards case, Lucia Logan's response isn't helping any. :(

Everyone's in shock, there's a pall of anger and resentment and broken friendships -- I've been defriended by several people myself, and I wasn't even one of the main posters -- and I'm exhausted. I have over 200 blog posts piled up in my reader and I'll get to them eventually. I might not go all the way back, so if I miss anything important I apologize in advance. This has just been a completely sucky few days and I'm looking forward to... I don't know, next week? next month? whenever things get back to even a fragile mask of normalcy.

Angie

Friday, March 14, 2008

Drawing Deadline

Tomorrow (15 March, 11:59pm Pacific) is the deadline for entering my version of the Pay it Forward drawing. If you haven't entered yet, pop over and comment with your three goals. (Read the instructions!) There are only a few entries so far, so your chances of winning are pretty good. :)

Angie

Monday, March 10, 2008

New Column

RTB

I just posted a new column on Romancing the Blog. This time I'm talking about the lack of any indication in romances, particularly erotic romances, of just what the sex-to-story ratio is. It makes it tough to know just what you're going to get when you spend your money; just because you like explicit sex doesn't mean you want the books you read to be 80+ percent sex scenes. It's not about limiting what's published or complaining that there's not enough of "my" kind of book out there, but rather about giving readers the info they need to find the books they'll like. Come read, and tell me what you think.

Angie

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Plotting

I've seen some discussions about plot here and there recently, at Romancing the Blog among other places. I've talked about plot before, but usually in support of something else, or on a comment on another blog. So here's my take on what your plot is:

Figure out who your protagonist is. Figure out what she wants. Figure out why she can't have it. Figure out what she does to try to get it anyway. There you go.

The "what she wants" part is your goal.

The "why she can't have it" part is your conflict.

The "trying to get it anyway" part is the meat of your plot, the action, the story, the "what happens" between the beginning and the end.

The climax is when the protag either gets what she wants, or realizes/accepts that she can't have it after all and deals with that.

So:

Protagonist ==> Goal ==> Conflict ==> Trying To Achieve Goal Anyway ==> Climax

This is the bare skeleton of a plot; you can hang whatever flesh you want onto it, add skin, moles, freckles, a tattoo, a sleeve, a belt, etc. But a story has to have a plot or it's not a story, so you need at least the basics, at least one main plotline. (And in a short story, one is usually all you have room for.)

Knowing what your main plotline is gives you a solid baseline while you write. Particularly with longer or more complex stories, where you have two or more intertwining plotlines, and/or a number of subordinate plotlines, they all need to be heading in the same direction ultimately, even if they start out far removed from each other in time and space, each with its own set of characters. They need to come together in the end and support some one storyline, to help (or hinder) the resolution of the main plotline; if they don't, then they don't belong in the same story. (Check out the Niven/Pournelle collaborations for some great examples of how to start out with half a dozen or more far-flung sets of characters and goals, and wind up with everything woven neatly together in the end. Lucifer's Hammer does this brilliantly.)

Even if you're a pantser (which I am), knowing what your main plot is gives your story a strong spine, and gives you as the writer a failsafe ruler to use when you're judging whether this or that subplot or supporting character or gimmick, or conversation or description or chunk of narrative, belongs in the story. Does it ultimately support the main storyline, even if only peripherally? If not, then chuck it.

Another way to think of the main plotline is as a six-lane interstate going from the beginning to the end of your story. You can add other roads -- state highways, frontage roads, meandering surface streets, dirt tracks through abandoned fields, whatever -- but they all need to connect back to the interstate eventually. Anything wandering off completely on its own, unconnected to anything else, doesn't belong on the map of your story.

Note that having a plot doesn't mean your characters can't ever just sit down and talk.

Having a plot doesn't mean your characters can't ever just sit down and contemplate their problems within their own minds.

Having a lot of action does not mean you necessarily have a plot. Random fire-fights or car-chases do not make a plot, while actionless conversation just might. One of the most common misconceptions about plot I see in discussions around the web is the idea that Plot <=> Action, and that if you don't have a physical fight or a mystery to solve or something like that in your story, you don't have a plot. That's not accurate at all.

Plot is about your characters trying to solve one or more problems, trying to get what they want despite obstacles. If that frantic speedboat chase doesn't help your protag get what she wants (part of the solution), or directly prevent her from getting what she wants (part of the obstacle), then it doesn't further your plot. If leaning over the fence and having a conversation with that annoying neighbor helps your character solve his problem (part of the solution), or at least shows him more clearly what the problem is (helping define the obstacle), then that conversation does further the plot.

Goal ==> Obstacle ==> Solution

That's plot. How you flesh it out is up to you.

Angie

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Pay it Forward

All right, I won one of Sarai's prizes and now it's my turn to run the contest. :) I'm making mine a bit more involved, just because I'm that sort of person. [duck]

The Rules:

Comment to this post between now and 15 March and list at least three goals you have. If you're a writer then writing goals would be fine, but anything else will work too. The goals need to be specific, achievable, and have some sort of a time deadline.

"Specific" means that something like "Become a better writer" wouldn't work because it's too vague, but "Learn how to use semicolons" would.

"Achievable" means that the goal has to be doable, and be something you control. Becoming an Olympic athlete isn't something most of us will ever be able to do, for example; it's just not realistic. Winning a writing award is posssible but it isn't within your control; entering the competition, however, is. Getting three stories published isn't within your control, but submitting three stories to at least ten different markets each (or until they sell) is.

The time deadline means that there has to be some sort of timeframe in which you'll do whatever it is. It can be by tomorrow, by the end of next week, by this coming New Year's, by 2012 -- whatever. Long term is fine, but there needs to be some sort of timeframe you can plan around.

You don't have to report back; I'm not interested in checking up on anyone. I just thought it'd be fun and maybe even useful to formulate some specific, achievable goals and a timeframe for getting them accomplished. What you do with them after that is completely up to you.

After the fifteenth, I'll write the name of everyone who commented to participate on a slip of paper and draw two of them out of a bowl or something. This isn't exactly a heavy-traffic blog, so the chances of winning should be pretty good. :)

Winners will pay it forward by running this contest on their own blogs. (Note that you don't have to make people do anything in particular if you don't want to -- letting people enter just by commenting is fine.)

The Prizes:

The winners can select one of the following:

1. Support New Writers -- two books by new writers. That is, writers whose first commercially published book came out one year or less ago, as of 15 March 2008. Mass market paperbacks or equivalent only, please.

2. Support Electronic Publishing -- a $15 gift certificate to Fictionwise, one of the major sellers of electronic books.

3. Try Something New -- two books from two writers whose work you've never read before. Try to make at least one of them in a genre you've never read before. You're not paying, so experiment! Mass market paperbacks or equivalent only, please.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with! :D

Angie