Speak loudly

Martin Niemoller -
“First They Came for the Jews”

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

This is a poem that we used to use for National Day of Silence when I was an officer (secretary, president, treasurer) of the Gay Straight Alliance in Ogden, Utah. While it is in relation to the Holocaust, the overall message of the poem is useful in many different contexts. If you are unwilling to speak out, even when the topic doesn't affect you, there may be a day when you need the help and no one will be there to speak out for you. Which brings to the reason many blogs are talking about speaking out...


I haven't read the book people are talking about right now, the one that this blog post is about, which is SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson. I was going to do a banned book week at one point but with the confernece, october prep month and november novel writing month, it's going to be a long time before I can post on it. So, I'm throwing this one post in between conference topics because it's important.

SPEAK is being banned because the character in the book is raped, which is a key element to the novel. On top of that, someone is actually saying that the rape scene is pornography (even though the term would be obscene, but I won't do that rant here, I promise). The link for the article about the banning is HERE. There is also a dispute over the sex education because they are teaching about reproduction...

This doesn't surprise me. I do have a different story not related to rape but it shows how just the word "sex" scares parents when it comes to any school, even High School. I volunteered for three years at a drop-in center for GLBTQ teens (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning) in Ogden, Utah.  We were given a bunch of abstinence only stuff from an organization. Not because they were trying to force abstinence on the gay teens (though I'm sure they didn't mind giving us the message that even we could be abstinent for awhile). They gave it to us because they could not hand out the pencils, stickers and little flashlight thingy at the schools in Ogden. The reason they couldn't hand it out is because they said "wait for sex". The schools ban handing out anything that has the word "sex" on it, even if it is telling people to wait. For real.

Parents don't want their kids to be around sex, just like kids don't want to know that their parents have sex. The only thing is the parents have a little more power, and sometimes too much power to control what goes on.

Now, I don't think if the student is overly uncomfortable with the subject matter of a book, they should be forced to read it. But there has to be a line. Should one parents single complaint affect the rest of students in that school forever? No. Maybe they can ask that their child be given an alternative assignment, or something. But one parent not liking a book shouldn't mean no one ever gets to read it.

Besides, don't these parents know what happens when books are banned? As soon as you ban a book, that means the students will actually want to read it. Students are a little less likely to like a book when they are forced to read it in school, but tell them they can't read it at all... not a bright move. I bet at some point, that parent's kid is going to read SPEAK in part because they were told not to read it.

Buy the book:
10th Anniversary Edition on Amazon
on Barnes and Noble
on Borders web site
from Books A Million


So, my advice here is: Think Before You Ban!

Conference Tips

If you have the chance, and can afford to, go to a conference in person at least once. (Online is good too, but doesn't have the same, face to face aspect.) And for once I'm going to flat out give advice. I've been to two conferences, small and not as small sized, and have some tips to share with you all.

Where to sit?
In front, if possible. I know some people prefer the back, to be away from the presenter and the chance of being called upon because the front row is fair game for any speaker, but that's why it's better to sit in front. While many writers are introverted by nature (I'm shy, I promise. Very shy.) much can be attained from sitting close to the front of the room at a conference. In college, some statistics state that those sitting in the front row and in the middle sections of rows have a tendency to get higher grades than the rest. Okay, workshops don't get grades but maybe those in conferences could get more from the presentation but that is just my own speculation. It does, however provide more opportunities.

Examples:
I moved to the front after sitting through a not as useful workshop on networking and because of that, had Connie Willis (science fiction author and winner of many Hugo and Nebula awards) come up and start a conversation with me. Had a little fan girl moment there once I read her name tag but managed to keep talking about A Beautiful Mind and such. Even brought up the Sixth Sense for how the plot in the middle of the story worked and she mentioned it in her speech (which she probably planned to mention because her knowledge of books and movies is amazing but I can pretend).

In the workshop run by agent Kristin Nelson, on how to get out of the slushpile, I could have spoke with the agent during a break when we were working on the pitch paragraphs because I was in the front row. Granted, I was actually speaking to the person next to me, and I had a second of panic but if I'd really wanted to, that would have been a good moment.

I could have one more but that will be in the take opportunities section.


 Talk to people
 Yes. Even if you are really shy like me, you should try and talk to people when at a conference. Either approach people and start talking, or you can stand/sit on your own because other people will also approach you. Just don't be afraid to talk to anyone. It is actually one of the perks to going to a writing conference. Everyone is there to talk about writing and they all understand the characters doing whatever they want, talking to different characters and the other aspects found in writing. They understand it all, which is very freeing for those of us that don't have many writers around in real life. And it is different to talk in person than to talk online.  If you are with a group of people, go ahead and enjoy time with them but at least once, get out on your own to meet new people. Trust me, it's good for you.

Never know who you will have a conversation with at a conference.


and the big one...

Take chances and opportunities if they arise.
This is true for not only writing conferences/conventions but also in general. There may be times when you should turn down an opportunity, there is a difference between doing what you can and doing too much, which rarely leads to great things. But if you have the opportunity to do something, then go with it. This can be small or big.

Example: I'm not a vocal person usually. When watching a presenter in a large enough room, I know my input isn't needed. But during the last workshop of the conference, on writing endings, the questions part brought about a question the presenter didn't feel suited to answer. Since she wrote mostly stand alone novels, she didn't feel she had the answer for people trying to write endings in series. So, I raised my hand to give an answer and got the microphone handed to me. The workshops were taped for those that wanted to buy the ones they couldn't get to see. My answer is on the cd of the ending workshop because I put myself out there even though, I hate talking in microphones. I'm very self conscious about it because I don't feel I understand how the work or how to hold them in the right way.


Have you ever gone to a conference?
Would you go to one (again)?

RMFW Conference Aftermath

Hi. This weekend I was at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (RMFW) Colorado Gold Conference and it was awesome!

Link: http://www.rmfw.org/

There is just so much that I could post right now thanks to the conference. Talk about brain overload. Between the knowledge, workshops, discussions, panels and people's names, my brain is exhausted. If I saw most the people I met there (with a few exceptions) a week from now, I don't think I'll remember them because it was just too many names for one weekend. But I still loved it. This post is a general, this is random stuff that happened. There will be specific posts with things I learned at the different activities. The ones I really enjoyed and got the most out of will get their own posts because I took notes for you all.

It was so crazy that I don't know where to begin. So, I'm going to do this. I'm going to list the events I went to, small bits of advice I learned but don't want to dedicate a whole post to the topic and then tell you all the books I bought (9 of them, all signed).


The Workshops
I went to several workshops, though some were hard to choose from because two or three really good ones were held at the same time. I missed the first editors panel, for example, which had the fantasy/sci-fi editors because there was no way I was going to leave my front row seat (people sat on floor even) in Kristin Nelson's query workshop. What I went to at the conference:

Welcome to RMFW - Getting to Know Your Characters - Neworking: Sowing the Seeds of Success - It Gets Complicated: Dealing with the Middle of Your Novel - Rhythm and Cadence and Beats, Oh My! - Agent Panel One - As Miss Piggy Says, It Has To Go Somewhere - Searching for Harry Potter: Key Elements of YA - He Said, She Said: Writing the Opposite Sex - Writing Worlds That Work - Say Goodbye to the Slushpile - Editor Panel Two - Revising Fiction: Making Sense of the Madness - The End is Near! Now What Do I Do?

Yep, I went to all those.


Random Advice

With Marketing Self: Consider the people you need to make a career from writing, write those down and then across from them on the list write down what you could give them in exchange.

From Revision Workshop: Write in scenes. Scene changes occur when POV shifts, skipping time (hours, days, etc), or sudden moves of location.
Also, Show v Tell. Tell draws a conclusion for the reader, instead of letting them come to their own conclusions.

Pitch (query workshop) - The pitch should have the catalyst, which should be located in the first 30 pages. (Not the big, near the end part of the conflict, which is what I had been doing. Good to know.)

There will be much more advice over the next week or so. I'm going to post one blog entry on my own advice for attending conferences along with doing posts using the information I received at the workshops. And I will even post the stuff I wrote during the query workshop, which is really bad. So, you can see my horrible attempt at the pitch part of the query (people were struggling to get under 10 lines and I barely managed to get 5 lines, just saying).

Books I Bought:

Two books signed by authors specifically to me.
Dooms Day Book by Connie Willis
Heart Mate by Robin D. Owens

Book on Writing (signed)
Wild Ink: How to Write Fiction for Young Adults by Victoria Hanley

General signed fiction.
Cowboy Trouble by Joanne Kennedy
Bellwether by Connie Willis
Violet Wings by Victoria Hanley
The Witch of Agnesi by Robert Spiller
The Gods of Fate: Foresight by Sherry D. Ficklin

And the last one is different. I picked the book up because the cover interested me with the atomic type symbol and earth in the middle. The story information sounded information, involving a physicist so I took the book to the register. Turns out the books first printing had a slight error on the front cover. Instead of saying "13th" the front says "13", which according to the ones selling the books makes it a collector's item. And it was the only one they brought to the sale. Quite the little surprise.
The 13th Power by Terry Wright


Now, I need sleep because I've got work tomorrow.

Romance Novel Covers

Had trouble with the site all day, but finally am able to do the last post for the romance week. And it's a fun one. Today, I'm mostly posting pictures of Romance Novel book covers. There will be some commentary too, don't worry. It's a fun last post for the week. No posts will be up over the weekend as I'll be at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers conference.


Romance novels are notorious for their covers, which have some variety but often have a specific look to them. The covers will often have the couple on the picture, though the second common would be to have a single character (often the male, love interest). The type of romance, or subgenre, also influences the cover in some cases. Okay, let's look at some covers. (Note: all images were found in google images, not my own by any means, though that should be obvious. And if any of the books aren't romance, blame Google.)

And it wasn't easy to find romance but not erotica looking covers for any pairing.

The Couples

Let's consider the titles. And these were the better titles, for real, in the first 5 or so pages on google image of romance novels. OMG  There is one that seriously has the words "crack baby" as part of the title. Wow. Not only do the images have some things in common (I'll talk about the glaring male common factor in the single character section) but the titles are either very obvious or odd against the image. These images don't necessarily show that, but give google a try and you'll probably see what I mean.

Yes. It was difficult to find non-erotic, or just enough, book covers in the Google images of gay & lesbian romance novels. Not to mention, some of the covers were of a man and a woman, which they may include bi elements but that's hard to tell based upon the cover.

So, couple covers are common in romance novels. This is in part because it shows who the novel is about, because the story focuses around the two characters and their romance.


Single Characters

Notice anything? It seems that many romance novel covers with a man on it either has the guy shirtless or with something that still shows off his chest. Not something that appeals to me in the slightest, but  whatever works for their sales.  And it wasn't very easy finding a single female, or at least there weren't easy ones to in the first few pages. But the goal is to get the reader interested in the book and for the most part, Romance Novels know their target audience.


And that ends Romance Week. Yay!



What covers do you like for romance stories?
Did you have fun this week?
:-D

Love Triangles

The rant is here!

(Image  from Simply Solo)

(Image from Sandy Feet)

What is a love triangle?
This usually refers to two different types of situations where more than one person is involved, or the love interests are split and/or not to the same person. It can refer to more than three people, but three is the common number used. The two main types of situations is when two characters like/love the same person and that person has to choose between the two (Twilight, etc), or when person A likes person B but person B likes person C (Les Miserables, the musical at least). Often, in the case of the second type at least, one character is either the decoy and/or unrequited type of love. There are ones where the person doesn't have to choose between the two love interests but that's more of a menage, as opposed to a conflicted love triangle.


Rant time:
When I see a novel description that says love triangle, it makes me not want to read the book a bit. I should have a better reason, I'm sure, but it just bugs me. There will be an occasional one where I won't notice it as much. The books in this section are both pretty good books, but they illustrate my opinions pretty well.  ***possible spoilers on the books but no plot twists given***

I think there is sort of a love triangle in The Forest of Hands and Teeth (Carrie Ryan), but it's not the who will she choose happy type. It doesn't feel like a love triangle really and the main focus of the story is how the main character handles things and makes decisions for herself. She's not reliant on either of the possible choices of relationships. That type works for me. If I read the story and barely notice it might be a love triangle that is great. Which is why, I don't want the description to tell me there is a love triangle in the story. If it's there, I don't want it to be the most important part of the story because it's really hard to pull it off for me. Because there are so many possible problems.

Wings (Aprilynne Pike), is a good book with an interesting type of faerie and I really liked the character but there is a love triangle started in this first book that I didn't care for. The problem has to do with the overall story, which was necessary for the way it was written. And this one is a bit of a spoiler, but... She doesn't remember something important, which has to do with the second love interest and their history. But the reader doesn't know it either until the little bits at the very end. So, at first it's the human boy who works really hard and despite everything he experiences with her, is devoted and then this faerie male she has this unexplained attraction to that she can't help but practically swoon when he's around. Some people might like the different tension and the whole picking a team aspect, but I didn't like it. I just felt bad for the human boy. I liked the other aspects of the novel, just not the love triangle.

Twilight is the one people talk the most about but I've never read it. Okay, I read 4 pages of Twilight and that is all. So, I won't talk about it.

For me, it's hard to enjoy the story line if I don't see why the person is conflicted. This is more of a problem, it seems with the mc must choose between two(or so) love interest characters. The one character who loves another character who loves another character has its own set of problems but it's not quite as bad for me. One of my favorite songs is from the unrequited love character in the musical version of Les Miserables. Basically, I have a harder time believing the love triangle and sometimes it seems to be put in just to have the added conflict instead of it really being needed in the story. Those are the worse, because the love triangle should only be used if needed in the story and not just because the writer thinks some readers will like it or that it's necessary for extra conflict.


Web sites:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LoveTriangle
http://www.simplysolo.com/relationships/triangular_theory_of_love_robert_sternberg.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_triangle
http://www.thirdage.com/today/dating/how-to-cope-in-a-love-triangle-help-for-the-other-man-or-woman


And another picture just for fun.

(Image Source: toppun)

Your Opinion

Do you like love triangles? No?
Do you write love triangles in your stories?

Romance Plots

Yes, there is plot in romance. ;-)

Main Plots

This is where the romance novels fall under. The main plot of the novel is the romance storyline. So, to reiterate, the whole story is based around the love, relationship and the conflicts that occur within it. And there isn't much else to explain. So, I looked up a few different plots of romance novels and the link is found below.

The Bet - This one annoys me a little bit. Think the movie She's All That. He helps the girl, trying to make her prom queen material based on a bet and they fall for each other. After she finds out it was a bet there is a conflict but then it gets worked out.

Adversary - the love/hate types. In the story there is strong conflict between the two characters, which can make it hard to have the right balance because it still needs to be believable that they fall for each other.

Star Crossed Lovers - The Romeo & Juliet type, the fated, young lovers that are kept apart. It usually ends on a sad note and can be considered more of an anti-romance for those that follow the trope of romance always ending well.

The Best Friend (right under your nose) - This is the one where the friend has been there a long time, but it takes some type of twist (often the one friend being engaged to someone else in movies) for the one to realize they have been in love with the other the whole time.

Some good Web sites:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RomanceNovelPlots
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RomanceArc
http://prairiechickswriteromance.blogspot.com/2009/08/twenty-classic-romance-plots-part-two.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_16764_plot-romance-novel.html



Sub Plots

Many of the romance tropes can work in the sub-plot, only they aren't the main point of the plot. These novels can be found in any genre or subgenre, where there is a main plot (quest, adventure, coming of age, etc) and one of the twisting side stories that make the novel more substantial has a romance storyline. It can intertwine with the main plot, having an effect on the results, like falling in love and the villain uses the love interest as bait. Fantasy is one example of a genre that can include a romance story line even when the main plot isn't.

Sub plots of romance are what I strive for in a number of my own stories. Sure, the romances are fun, to focus full on the conflicts of the relationship, but to have an exciting mutant adventure and a relationship involved is just as fun (or more).

The problem of some romance lines is that there should be a reason for the subplot. An author shouldn't tack on the subplot just because they think the reader needs a romance. This is sometimes called a "token romance" and can be off-putting for some readers. Not every story needs a romance storyline in it, and knowing when to put it in and when to leave it out of the manuscript is just one of the many aspects of writing that will take practice.

Done right, in a story where the romance works well with the main plot, a romance subplot will not only get readers interested, but enhance the overall story of the novel.



Which do you prefer in reading or writing: romance as main plot or as subplot?

Romance Characters

Characters are key for romance novels and for subplots. Both the main character and the love interest have to have enough appeal and then believability that they will get together even if some readers would rather the character end up with someone else. The characters depend a little on whether the romance is a main focus of the plot or if it's just a subplot. Dual point of view is more common in romance stories, for example, but that can also be done in romance as a subplot. Characters give us readers the "aww" moment, for without them there would be no romance.

Main Character (hero or heroine)
(side characters can have romances but we'll focus on main ones this week)
The main character, the one the story is about, is the one that will be the POV character for a larger percentage of the story. Even with split POV novels, there is usually one that has more chapters than the other, at least in romance novels. Often times this charcter is female when talking about romance, but with subplots (and sometimes with full romance plot) the male can be a main character.

It's not easy to write the main character as fresh, unsterotypical and interesting for the reader to follow. The reader has to "like" the character enough to read the book but there has to be certain flaws to make the character realistic. Like any genre, there are some stereotypes that some people still like but others get tired of reading. The virgin main character is an example from romance novels.

How the character falls in love is another aspect because the meet one time and immediate infatuation may work for some readers, but those that are like me won't find that very believable. But we have a couple hundred pages to develop the love story and the first aspect is really interest to get the ball rolling.

Love Interest
This character is key for a romance plot/subplot. Would be very difficult to have a romance without the love interest, at least one that readers would want to see in a book. The love interest is just that, the person the character falls in love with in the story. Usually, if the MC is female, then the love interest is male. GLBT is considered an exception and separated from general lines, though as most will know those are the types I write.

The love interest is one fun aspect of a story, though it can be a struggle. Sometimes the person the author plans the MC to fall for doesn't work out and instead someone else ends up being the actual love interest. I haven't had this happen yet but have heard authors talk about it. Getting the right chemistry between characters is key and the love interest can't be a cardboard character either.


It takes the Pair
One doesn't work well without the other, the MC and Love Interest, for a romance story. Not including the exceptions, these two characters make up the start of a good romance subplot or main plot. Without them, it would just be another story.