Saturday on the Books She Doesn't Write

Or: There Are A Lot of Voices in My Heads

You're probably all sick of hearing about my revisions and stuff by now so I thought I'd talk about something else.

(Just to recap for those of you who are new around here) I have three books that are written. One has been polished and revised a lot more than the others because it's older. One of the other two is my next/current revising project and one I'm waiting on feedback for because holy heck I don't know what to do with it.

I have two things I'm playing with that might be my next drafting project when I get to that stage. KT posted about new books yesterday and since she's actually writing hers, her post is a lot more exciting them mine where I vaguely mumble about snakebites and circuses and cute boys. (There are always cute boys in my books. And kissing. Even my short stories have kissing. Which says a lot about me considering one of them is about zombies.)

Also I'm kind of superstitious about talking about books that haven't been written. My crit partners only know a little bit about them, really, and I've only let them read one thing mostly because I was sorta shocked I had written it. Books that aren't written yet can change too much too quickly and I'm always afraid talking about them will jinx them. Eventually, though, I'm pretty sure those will get written.

However there are books I don't write. I don't write sequels, to start with, because that road (for me) leads to heartache and pain and so we just don't go there because that is a bad place to go. Bad bad bad bad place. (Trust me. Bad. Heartache. Pain. Five million binders hidden in strange and unusual places that you only remember about when you need a new binder for a WIP and don't want to buy one and then you spend a full day reading the awful awful things you wrote years ago.) (Not that I did that or anything.)

And there are others. Right now... it's my superhero book. Mostly because it's not ready to be written. I think when, eventually, I write it, I will love it lots and it'll be... well, I'm not gonna say awesome because that's just not happening. I think it'll be a challenge. I think I would adore the characters and the world and just about everything in it.

I know that it isn't ready to be written. I adore the pieces of it I've written (hey, this is how I work, run with it) but I know that it isn't ready to be plotted and drafted and, well, written yet. (I also feel like it wouldn't be a very good standalone and, well, see above about the heartache and pain of sequels.) It's a one-day book. For now, that's okay.

So what books do you guys NOT write? What are your reasons?

Peace and cookies,
Laina

Friday Announces SOMETHING

I find it slightly amusing that almost all of us didn't post last week! Oops.

And I'm late to the game, once again. At least it is still Friday this time!

Well, I was going to announce this last Friday, but I wasn't home. So! Here it is!

I AM OFFICIALLY WRITING A NEW BOOK! I'm almost 13k in right now. *dances* If you follow my twitter, you've probably known that for a while now.

So. New book. Kind of scary. It's scary for several reasons. It's a sci fi. I have never written a sci fi. It's also in present tense.  I sometimes write short stories in present tense, but never an entire book. I keep slipping into past, or having trouble making the present tense sound right. But that's what revising is for, right?

A little about the book, then? As I said, it's a sci fi--in this case, a sci fi as in it takes in the future on a spaceship. My protagonist is a seventeen year old girl named Alexandra (Alex for short) who is a boxer and an aspiring pilot. I'm awful at describing my books, so I'm going to leave it at that!

Oh, it's also untitled. Which bothers me. Lots.

In other news, I have a beautiful idea for the book I want to write after this one. And it's based on this song -

Pretty, right?

Thursday Talks about HOT Guys

Now that my title has gotten your attention, have you ever read a book and thought “this guy is a hotness personified, and if he was real, every female scientist in the world would test his DNA to find out how such a perfect specimen could be possible and try to clone him, so everyone can appreciate his hotness”? I know I do.

I was reading a book review that mentioned how hot the guy was, and I started to wonder what makes book guys hot.

If I was Dora the explorer, I would ask backpack to find me all my books with hot guys in it (which is most), but since I’m just me, I had to do it the old fashioned way and look through my bookshelf.

Trends I’ve Noticed in the Truly Hot Guys

THEY AREN’T DESCRIBED AS BEAUTIFUL! I think using "beautiful" to descibe someone is mostly in YA paranormal romance, but this can apply to any genre. Notice how above I said “hot” a lot? That’s because, as a teenager, I don’t stop and go “omg he is beautiful” even with the omg. I would probably think “he is so freaking hot. How am I supposed to concentrate on school when he is here? I got it! I’ll make him the living embodiment of my MC’s love interest, so staring is part of my research ;)”. I actually have once met a guy who seriously looked like my (then current) MC’s love interest. It was weird. SUMMARY: DON’T USE THE WORD BEAUTIFUL (even paranormal book where the guy is *insert beautiful being* don’t do it because it comes off cliché which we all know isn't true since anyone reading this is amazing)

They have confidence: Confidence is attractive. To rephrase Jane Austin for the purposes of this post,

“[he] must possess a certain something in [his] air and manner of walking… or the word will be but half deserved.”

(I found this awesome quote at Austinprose which has a lot of awesome Pride and Prejudice quotes, but I did change the shes to hes and cut a few words to better suit this post). Even though Caroline Bingley was referring to a woman worthy of Mr. Darcy, I think the same can be applied to guys. I’m not saying he should be able to talk to anyone and be super confident. Mr. Darcy himself is shy, and I don’t know anyone (girls at least since guys tend to roll their eyes at him even though they really should take notes on his amazingness well maybe only for the last half of the book) who is like “Mr. Darcy is so unattractive” because he just has that certain something about him. I mean have you seen Matthew Macfadyen in the 2005 movie adaptation? Yeah Mr. Darcy would definitely be one of the book guys I wish were real. Even though he is shy, he has something in his air that makes you smile when you think of him. SUMMARY: Give him something in his air of confidence that FORCES your readers to be like I wanna know more about him


He should have a character arc: Our MC is the readers’ eyes and ears. If your writing is good, we should care about her character arc. Our MC’s love interest should add something to who our character is. They should learn from each other. Together, they should grow as people. Now they don’t have to be interdependent, but they should complete each other. You want your reader to close your book and have no doubt that they complete each other. I think any character is attractive if they not only grow themselves, but they also helps others grow. SUMMARY: Character arc is so important. Even if the love interest or MC don’t start off the best character, together they should grow and learn from each other.

But the most important think to make any character attractive is…
Their personality should shine brighter than any descriptions. Personality is attractive. Use it. Readers should love your characters no matter how you describe their appearance.

What do you find attractive in character (especially love interests)? Do you agree with the traits I listed above? Don’t you think Mr. Darcy is scrumptious?

Wednesday Is Dancing In Her Seat

Hey, guys! Hope you all have been having a lovely week. I'd like to apologize for missing last week. I don't really have a good excuse other than the fact that school hasn't let out yet and I had a TON of work to do. Please accept this video of a guy rapping about NPR as a token of my apology:

And now (drum roll), for your regularly scheduled blog post.

There are many different ways to tell a story, and I happen to think words are one of the best mediums for storytelling. I might be a tiny bit biased, though. I got a lot of work done on my current piece of fiction last weekend, which might be because I was really excited about the writing software I'm trying out called Scrivener. It lets you do fancy stuff like group chapters and create plot outlines and research all in one program. I may have geeked out a little. As I was writing (and rewriting), I was thinking about the ways my characters tell each other stories. Many of them are word people who love language, so that is their method of communication. But I also have several characters who are very musical and tell their stories through their instruments. The diverse ways characters tell stories also applies to other mediums of art or storytelling.

One example of not quite-so-literal storytelling is dance. I'm still sounding pretty biased here, considering the fact that I'm a dancer, but I have a point. I think. In the show Riverdance, a combination of modernized Irish dance, speaking, singing, other forms of dance, music, and visual sets is used to tell the story of Irish immigration. Although the events in Ireland that increased immigration and the trials immigrants faced in America are part of one group's story, Riverdance is an international hit because everyone can relate to feeling alienated and wanting a better life. Everyone can relate to being part of a family. Because immigration from Ireland such a broad, sweeping topic, the format works perfectly in telling a story of individuals that applies to humanity. I think that is what writers and artists in general  try to do. Although their work may be singular, the best stories are the ones people can relate to on a human level.

As an Irish dancer, I can't really remember ever NOT knowing about Riverdance. Love it or hate it, anyone who has Irish danced knows about it. Tomorrow, I'm seeing the show for the first time since I was six years old. I can't even sit still as I'm writing right now.  I don't think it will have lost the magic. I will appreciate it more because I know more about dance and because stories that we connect with on multiple levels never really leave us, but sort of linger around like nargles, getting in our brains and changing the way we see things.

Because I'm a shameless Irish dance freak, I'm linking you all to to a video of the opening number of Riverdance. I hope I can convert you.

DFTBA,
Caroline
http://throughascreenofwhimsy.tumblr.com/

Tuesday on Pets

I am a fan of big dogs. Labs, retrievers, St. Bernard, et cetera--I'd probably get along very well with Marmaduke. My dog (a yellow lab) happens to be one of my favorite beings in existence. Yet none of my main characters, so far, have had any pet at all, much less a dog.

I mean, I can understand the rest of the pets not making an appearance. I like animals, but don't see myself running off to adopt cats/birds/hamsters later in life. However, I will definitely be getting some sort of large dog. (Preferably lab.) So why hasn't this made it into a story?

Maybe it's because my stories tend to have some sad themes. And adorable large dogs don't fit well into sad scenes. Even if I could make my character have no reaction to the appearance of Adorable Large Dog, I would start grinning while writing and then probably go pet my dog and then finish the scene which would cause an unintentional but likely unavoidable mood shift from sad-talking-about-sad-stuff to weirdly-happy-talking-about-sad-stuff. My head just wouldn't be in the sadness game. Because really, who cares about Main Character's angst over lost love or missing friends or fake reality or saving the world when THIS walks into the room?

Okay, maybe Adorable large Dog won't be all wet. But who knows, maybe Main Character has a pool in her house?

So why don't you give Main Character a different kind of pet, Kieryn?

What? Who are you? And how dare you suggest that absurd idea? I don't think I could muster up enough character emotions to make Main Character care as much about any other sort of pet. And then Main Character would seem somewhat apathetic or fakely (yes, I can use that word) attached to this pet that is not a large dog. And then I'd be annoyed, because what's the point of having the pet there in the first place if Main Character doesn't even care that much? Unless Other Pet is a plot device, a very important plot device, it'll probably be more hassle than it's worth.

However, some fictional pets have worked out brilliantly. Hedwig, for example (if she can even be considered a "pet"--she kind of ran her own show). But the cuteness factor didn't really get in the way there. A typical reaction to "snowy owl" is not usually "awwwwwwwwwwwww."

Do you find fictional pets work well, or not?

Kieryn
www.kierynnicolas.com

Monday Remembers

I sincerely apologize for not posting last Monday; the power box located three feet outside my house exploded, thus destroying my Wi-Fi access. I would have posted the next day, but I promptly left for New York at 4:45 a.m. and spent the next 7 hours wandering around the LaGaurdia airport, so... I'm guilty.

On the upside, my New York birthday trip invigorated my writing spirit and enhanced my desire to someday reside in an adorable flat and write comedy sketches for NBC. A girl can dream, right?

As you all know (citizens of the great USA, at the very least), today is Memorial Day, the day where: if you're still in school, you're probably out; or if you're fortunate enough that this day lands in your summer vacation, congratulations, it's another day of the rest of your life. Wrong. Actually, what I said was exactly right, but there is a better explanation to sum this day up. Memorial Day lets us remember the good men and women of America who died serving their country. In other words, it's a day of remembrance-- which also plays a great role in our stories and novels. Cue the awkward conversation segue.

Flashbacks occasionally (and for some writers, quite frequently) help us out in our writings. Flashbacks present opportunities to further give characters depth and create foreshadowing and dum dum DUM... suspense. I bow down to the flashback god; he gave us a completely ingenious technique of incorporating major details in a funny or dramatic way to convey important character flaws or backstory information. I'm aware I yacked about Harry Potter in my last post (and many thanks to Jewels for her short but amazing post last week with her Harry Potter videos), but J.K. Rowling never ceases to amaze me- especially with her use of the most amazing invention ever dreamed so awesome I could die Pensieve. For those of you who don't know (and shame on you if you aren't educated), the Pensieve in the Harry Potter series served as a source of many nicely placed flashbacks. Located in Dumbledore's office, Harry used the Pensieve in the last book to retrieve a memory of Snape's, which proved crucial in establishing the real man behind the somewhat-creepy Professor Snape. Once fully emersed in the Pensieve, a character can relive any memory he or she extracts from a wizard. So, Rowling created a totally fail-proof way to set up her flashbacks, and it was completely original (to my knowledge, anyway). If you have an uncanny way to set up your story's flashbacks, props to you, because I have not found that way as of now.

I will admit, writers can get a little too flashback-happy. In my younger days (ha- like I'm so old), I wrote a story where I featured a flashback every single chapter. At first, my twelve year-old self was thinking, Oh yeah, I'm so cool, it's like I'm writing a story within a story. If Inception had been out then, I would have thought they ripped off my story-within-a-story idea. But as the plot wore on, it became difficult to keep up with all the details I had given (and not given), and it was evident that my numerous flashbacks drew away from the present story. So, after 24,000 words and the heartbreak of the century, I knew it was time to lock up my flashback obsession and keep it in my back pocket for a rainy day.

When it comes to flashbacks, moderation is key, I suppose. Always make sure that they add, not take away, to your story. If done correctly, you could have a fantastic novel like this one here. The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder is a great example where flashbacks actually make up the story itself. I suggest you look it up if you have never read it.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your Memorial Day weekend, and remember our wonderful American troops! Cue flashback from today's barbecue...