Class and Value in Fiction

I think it’s safe to say that most books have protagonists that come from one of two categories: the struggling poor or the comfortably rich. It’s uncommon to see a character that’s middle of the road, or even one step above being poor. The amount of money a person has influences their outlook on life and their actions. Lack of money usually drives a character to prove themselves, whereas most character that don’t have to worry about money often have to overcome some other aspect of their life, such as accomplishments, love, a sense of worth, etc.

Recently I’ve been reading Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind. It’s the first book in a fantasy trilogy, and while it is well-written, it’s also reminded me of the fantasy books I used to read in my teens and early twenties. Just like Rothfuss's book, many of the characters in the fantasy books I’ve read over the years have tended to be poor or penniless, which is a stark contrast to the paranormal romances I also like to read, which usually feature characters with lots of money.

In a way this makes sense since most fantasy books, especially epic series fantasy, tend to be set in a low technology (think no electricity) world, whereas most paranormal romances are set in the modern day. There were more ways around not having money in the pre-technology days, but it is much harder to do in modern times where a person needs an identification card, an address, and references to even apply for a job. The best way to avoid all of this in modern day settings is to give the characters money and have them face other problems.

I’ve created characters from all classes of society, but when you come from a poor background, the passages that commiserate with my experiences are the ones that stand out. There have been two such passages from The Name of the Wind and I’ll close by sharing one below. This passage exhibits some of the same feelings I felt upon recently finding a full time job again; I too was one small catastrophe away from ruin.

If you have never been desperately poor, I doubt you can understand the relief I felt. For months I’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop, knowing that any small catastrophe could ruin me. But now I no longer had to live every day worrying about my next term’s tuition or the interest on Devi’s loan. I was no longer in danger of being forced out of the University. (p. 444)

The Specificity of English

This week I started my new job, which sometimes requires me to translate things from Japanese to English, and while I did this a lot in college and when I lived in Japan, this is the first time I've really thought about how vague Japanese can be.

Now, this isn't news to any student of Japanese, but the process becomes a lot harder when you're doing it for a job and not for a grade; people now rely on the information of my translations.

For example, the overuse of his, her and they can cause confusion in English, which is the last thing you want to do for your readers. In Japanese, however, vagueness becomes an art form. I just hope that my translating and reacquaintance with the language doesn't affect my English writing ability. In addition to the vagueness of Japanese, the sentence structure is different, with the verb usually falling at the end of a sentence. My English abilities suffered when I lived in Japan, I just hope it doesn't happen here, in the US too!

The Return from Practicality

What was once questionable is now a reality: I have found a proper job. No more time wasted with searching job postings, writing cover letters and tweaking resumes; I'm going to use my free time once again for writing fiction.

Speaking of which, I've come across an important discovery: always keep the drafts you start but think you'll never finish. With my recent writing hiatus, I decided it was best to read through the two ideas I had started back in January/February. The one I was sure would be the better of the two turned out to be weak and lacking in character. The other story, which I had given up on because of the feeling of hitting a "wall", I re-read and loved. The opening scenes draw you in, the pacing is good and you can feel the emotions and frustrations of the characters.

All of that was accomplished in three to four chapters.

The read-through filled my head with ideas and inspired me. I now know that I will continue the story to the end, attempting roadblocks as they appear. The story began as an exercise for myself--could I write something without an outline? I did have most of the world-building completed from the first book I finished (The Secondworld Stranger), but the story takes place not in the past, but the present time. It's a bit more dangerous, a little bit dark and will be a lot more steamy. This will be a paranormal romance, maybe even a romantic paranormal suspense.

Surprisingly that exercise--writing without an outline--was and is more fun than I imagined. Characters come nearly formed in my head, which also mixes up plot elements and makes them work. I know for a fact I'll have to fix things later on, but that's to be expected. All in all I'm just excited to be writing again for me instead of writing letters about me. A world that has an Asylum for Magical Threats sounds a lot more interesting than how stellar a worker I am, right?

The Importance of a Conclusion

Imagine that you've finished reading the second to last book in a series and it ends on a cliffhanger. You inwardly groan when you learn the final book won't come out for twelve months. And then it's delayed further, making it a full 17 month wait time. The book comes out and you manage to get it straight away. Not caring if you'll be up late reading, you open the book. And then...

It falls flat. Quickly. By page 85 you realize it just isn't worth the effort and decide that while you'll read it some day, you are in no hurry and put the book down.

This happened with Karen Marie Moning's final book of the Fever series, Shadowfever. Usually I refrain from mentioning the books I criticize, but this is an example that I cannot in good judgement let slide by, especially as I sung KMM's praises earlier.

Building up events, drama and tension in a series to its breaking point is no easy feat, but if an author doesn't write a satisfactory conclusion to a series, he or she will lose readers; after all, if you wish to remain a successful writer, you must keep reader loyalty and their willingness to refer titles to their friends. (A great example of this is Melanie Rawn's unfinished Exile series. It's been more than ten years and the series still remains unfinished. This destroyed her fan base and reputation.)

For KMM, she did everything you're not supposed to do: a slow beginning, pointless scenes, lack of tension, and even an annoying point of view style (Dani's). In the 85 pages I managed to read, the main character walked a little, had a weird dream and did a lot of talking with a man she thinks killed her sister. Compare this to the previous four pageturner books, and you begin to wonder what happened.

The most noticeable thing is the size; the book was nearly twice the length of the other four books. Now, a bigger book doesn't necessary mean it's boring (Sherrilyn Kenyon's Acheron was twice the size of her other books and I couldn't put it down). The problem with Shadowfever is that it suffered from a lack of editing. There were clearly sections that should've been cut, but weren't.

Another problem was its tension and pace. All of the four previous books had event after event, with lots of tension thrown in, and kept you turning the pages. This was not the case for Shadowfever. It's as if the editors knew everyone would buy the book regardless of editing, and left it as is. Or that the book was written in such a hurry that no time was left to put it aside for a month or so and go back to it and revise. Editing is a pain to complete, but it is one of the most important steps in writing and shouldn't be overlooked.

Thirdly, don't introduce an annoying point of view. In Shadowfever's case, it was for a character called Dani. The writing was written in overly-tough-teeanger-slang that drives you crazy, especially the overuse and abuse of the word "feck." Throw in some words that are supposed to make the character appear to be Irish (I was unconvinced), and it's hard to read more than a page at a time for this POV.

So if you're going to write a series, and create enormous obstacles to overcome, make sure you know how to tie it all up. Nothing can irritate or anger readers more than a poorly written conclusion. If I'm going to spend hours and hours reading through a series, it had better be worth it by the end.

A Different Kind of Writing

February has come and gone, and yet here I am with my first post of the month. It isn't because I have nothing to say; on the contrary, I almost always have an opinion ready, but this month has been different. Any unpublished or unestablished author has no choice but to have a supportive significant other or to work. I lack the former and am forced to do the latter. Yet as the economy is anything but grand at the moment, my career choice of teaching has become a burden. There are no teaching jobs and unlikely to be any in the near future. This leaves me working as a substitute teacher.

Being a substitute is unpredictable and energy draining; even with my fairly good classroom management skills, students seem to think it's fine and dandy to harass a guest teacher more than the regular teacher. It probably doesn't help that I have higher expectations of the students than most regular teachers. At the end of the day, this leaves me drained, with many students wanting me as their regular teacher. I love teaching, but unfortunately surviving comes first. I decided I must find another job and have been at it for months.

Over the last six weeks, I've been focusing not on fiction, but on another type of writing: cover letters. Some people use the same one for everything, but I learned that this approach rarely gets results, so in February I decided I would craft custom letters for each job I was applying to. The result? Me spending my evenings writing how good of an employee I'd make and not focusing on my fiction writing.

I didn't realize how much this affected me until this last week when I finally decided to start writing fiction again. Sitting at the keyboard, thinking about characters and impossible situations, I felt more like myself. I enjoyed doing it and realized that as much as I must focus on finding a job, I must also focus on writing for me.

I am exploring the challenges of writing a romance novel that is not cheesy, overdone or too dark and it's not easy. I haven't quite hit the mark yet, but I'm hopeful it will happen soon. In the meantime, I've at least learned my lessson: we must have money to survive, but we shouldn't sacrifice our very self for it.

Writer's Block or....?

Up until now, I've never really experienced writer's block. My imagination runs wild and usually gazing a few minutes out a window or taking a walk will solve my problem. Sometimes waking up in the morning and staying a few minutes in bed is another way to kickstart my creativity. With my latest attempt, however, it's been a different story.

The premise of the book was a woman from 2010 is transported back to 1774 Boston and finds herself in a situation where she has to marry a British soldier. There is all kinds of conflict simmering, from internal to external, and at first it was fun. The first chapter was easy to write. The next two chapters I rewrote two or three times before it was passable. Then, I wondered where was this story going? Will this really work? How can I weave the history and fiction together? How can it be believeable? I let it simmer for a week or so and came to a conclusion: I loved the characters, but the story felt more forced than anything else I'd written in a long time.

For anyone who writes, if something feels forced, warning bells usually go off in your head. I'm not denying that parts will be difficult to write, I've been there before, but there's a difference between difficult and forced. Parts of the second book of my Secondworld series were difficult, but never forced. The only reason I stopped writing that story (for now) is that if I can't sell the first book, writing the second is a little pointless. I have ideas of how to change it into a stand alone book if I have to, but I've put it aside for now, content to come back to it when the time is right.

My Boston story, however, feels forced. I don't mind rewriting scenes (I'm not one of those people who can just write it all out, never looking back until the first draft is complete), but having to rewrite two consecutive chapters two or more times is a warning bell. So I decided to shelf the idea for now, until the idea develops or the feeling of writer's block for that story goes away. I had one idea on a shelf for five years before I wrote something that was worthwhile, so there is hope.

All is not lost, however. I've taken the world of my 1891-1892 Secondworld books and put it in the context of the 21st century. The idea came while reading the two novellas in Deep Kiss of Winter and Stephen King's, On Writing (what if?). It's in the vein of the paranormal romance books I read religiously and if I read so many of them, and enjoy them, then why am I not writing one? I'm reveling in my no-plot mode and just typing away. Let's hope the story never becomes forced.

Liberating First Person

When it comes to writing, one of the most important decisions an author makes is which point of view to use. Most of the fiction I read uses third person, specifcially limited third person (also called single-third). The pronouns are "he" or "she", never "I" or "me".

In the past, I have always used third person. I vaguely recall using first person for a story I wrote in high school, but on the whole, I've used third person singular. This doesn't mean I had only one character, but rather that the character's thoughts are limited to a scene or chapter, switching to another character's third-singular point of view (POV) later.

You can imagine my surprise when I sat down to start my most recent story (set in 1774 Boston) and the words started pouring out in first person. I typed away Kate Johnson's thoughts (my character) and at about 1,000 words, I took a break, read what I had written and wondered if it would be safer to write the same scene in third person. So I opened a new document and started typing. After two paragraphs, I realized it was hopeless. If this story and set of characters was going to work, it had to be told through Kate's thoughts and personality alone.

At 7,000 words in, I find using first person challenging yet refreshing. I have the chance to make the story much more personal and bring the character competely to life. The entire story is told from one person's POV, similar to real life where we have one mind to interpret the world around us. Just like real life, it can be frustrating. We never really know what another person is thinking unless they tell us. A lot of times, as readers, we expect to know how two or more characters think, but this is impossible in first person. The dance between a solder and a woman out of place becomes more complicated and subtle; we must be convinced of their feelings through dialogue and actions alone.

I finished my first book last year, and know I am capable of finishing a 300+ page work. Now I have a new challenge: see if I can finish a 300+ page work told through the eyes of one person.

An Idea Strikes....

On New Year's, my brother-in-law gave me an extra HDMI cable he had and a few days later I hooked up my Blu-Ray player. Knowing this little cord was supposed to improve picture quality, I put in the only Blu-Ray I own: National Treasure. As much as I like the movie, I wasn't in the mood to sit down for two hours to watch it. Instead, I went to the extras and started the section that took a closer look at the Declaration of Independence (a key part of the film). It went line by line, with some additional mini-movies on the history behind it. When it came to talking about the revised Quartering Act of 1774 (where British soldiers could room in empty house, barns and inns if the barracks were overcrowded), an idea struck me: this could be a good beginning to a story.

At first my story leaned toward a merchant's daughter having to take care of, per the provisions of the law, the soldiers by feeding them and being thrown into a situation with a solider she'd end up marrying. I was excited and immediately started some research. Now, as a history teacher, I know the basics of the American Revolution but it had been some years since I studied anything about it (not since I took my subject knowledge test in 2008). I'm a stickler for details, and read articles, primary sources, watched PBS's famous Liberty! documentary, etc. The more I researched, the more I realized how difficult it would be to put this man and woman together. But what if the woman was from the present, knew what was going to happen, and was stuck in an unescapable situation with a British solider stationed in Boston? And what if it was 1774, right when the Intolerable Acts were fanning the flames, the year before the first shot was fired?

This idea was appealing, but how to get her there? I needed something semi-believable, with rules of time travel. Then I remembered my niece talking about a lunar eclipse right before Christmas, and I had it! The lunar eclipse fell on the Winter Solstice in 2010, for the first time since the 17th century. Here was something rare I could work with. After all, throughout history, and even today, there are a number of superstitions surrounding lunar eclipses.

Since I had constructed time travel via eclipses, I needed to find one in the beginning of 1774. According to NASA's predictions, the earliest lunar eclipse in 1774 was May, which was too late--General Gage (of the British Army) and his extra troops were already in Boston by this point. I looked up solar eclipses, and voila, there was one for March 12, 1774. Perfect!

So now I have a working time travel universe and I've just about completed my research. I have yet to decide if this will be historical romance or more historical with a twist, a la Gabaldon style. Whatever happens, it just shows that ideas for stories come from just about anywhere.

2010 in Review

The year is over in a few days and I decided to look back on 2010, in terms of reading and writing:

1--The number of novels I finished

83,000--The word count of my finished novel

75+--An estimate of how many books I read this year

11--The number of query letters I've sent out so far

2--The number of new novels I started writing

2,500--The length of my only short story this year

19--The number of blog posts, including this one, for 2010

99--Percentage of how happy I am when I write (characters do make it difficult that other 1%)

125,000--The number of words I've written this year


This is rather silly, but it'll be interesting to compare the numbers at the end of 2011. Here's to a great year in 2011! (I may even start saying twenty-eleven instead of two thousand eleven.)

Let's Revisit Short Stories

A little over a year ago, not long after I started my first novel, I toyed around with a few short stories. One of them I tried submitting, but it was ultimately rejected. It didn't bother much then or now since I like longer stories; short stories are too restrictive.

One of them, about the legend of Melusine, I ended up incorporating into my now second Secondworld novel. Melusine and her family will play a large role in the second book.

The other story, Burden of Discovery, I think still has an interesting premise (set in the future, where barren women are the outcasts of society and worth is determined by how many children you have), but is more suitable to a novel than a 5,000 word story. I've put in on the back burner for now, but maybe someday I'll be able to rework it.

Since I finished Melusine's story back in 2009, I have focused solely on my novels. I enjoy a larger cast of characters and the freedom to play around with the plot. I never thought I would try writing a short story again unless it tied to my Secondworld novels, hopefully after they'd been published. Then this week I started thinking, what if I gave short stories another chance? It'd be nice to write something that wasn't part of an 80,000+ word story and I could even write it in first person (something I want to do, but my current novels require narrow third person viewpoints).

I sat down and five minutes later, I had an idea. What if one of the characters from my second book, a huldra who can shift to the form of a fox, wrote a letter to his children about his first days as a shape-changer, offering fatherly advice along the way? I sat down and started writing. I finished half of it, took a day off for Christmas, and finished the second half this morning. It's cute, to say the least, and after letting it sit for a few days, I plan to edit it and submit it to a few online magazines.

After a year of near-constant writing and editing, writing a short story was easier for me. The key was to keep the topic narrower and focused, and not try to write a story spanning a number of years, as I had tried to do before. If my fun little exercise pays off, I may have to repeat it again in the future.

Encouraging the Next Generation

The holidays are here, which means I'm driving here and there, to one party, dinner or another, trying to keep my sanity. Yesterday, before going to my brother-in-law's birthday party, I decorated sugar cookies with my niece and nephews. This may seem ordinary, but to any aunt out there who is close to her nieces and nephews, it's not only a lot of fun, but dear to your heart.

After decorating the cookies, my niece had a surprise waiting for me that I hadn't anticipated: she finished her first story. If I'm such a good aunt, as I indubitably am, then how could something like this come as a surprise? Well, my niece is ten years old and like books with pictures, a la Diary of a Wimpy Kid. And while she loves the stories in Japanese Ghibli films, such as Howl's Moving Castle, she has never been a big reader (despite my nudges over the years). I was about to try and steer her towards manga (or graphic novels, if you prefer) when she blindsided me with her story. When I asked her why she wrote the story, she said, "Well, you and Leah (another aunt) both write and my teacher's son just got published, so I thought I would try it too." Let's just say she got a lot of hugs and extra love for that comment!

She was anxious to mail it off and even fetched an envelope. I read the story and afterwards I decided to help her pursue this new interest and had a "junior writer's talk" as I like to call it. In other words, I convinced her to type it up, let it sit a few days and have others offer some suggestions. She was pretty open to the idea, and I hope she takes my advice to keep writing (and to read more). Her story was creative, and if she keeps it up, she has potential. As an extra last minute Christmas gift I've decided to give her a notebook with "Stories by Joanna" on the cover and encourage her every step of the way.

More than one way to plot

After receiving my first request for a partial, I decided to be more productive on the second book in my series. I know that one request for a partial doesn't really mean anything, at least not yet, but if I don't keep writing, I know for a fact I'll never have a chance at being published.

I wrote the first few chapters last week, but then I reached a point where I realized I need to flesh out a new character and my overall plot or this draft would end up a train wreck. Since I wanted to avoid that, I took some time to think about plotting.

Now, I'm pretty much a non-plotter. This means different things to different people, but to me, it means that I don't have every little thing figured out and take inspiration from my imagination as I write. For the first book, The Secondworld Stranger, I spent ages trying to put a plot together. I had read a number of books on writing (if you haven't read Writing the Breakout Novel or The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass, I suggest you do, as these are some of the best) and all had different takes on how much plot you need to have structured to start writing. I tried writing all of the events on cards and putting them in the right order, but that didn't really help me. Writing the plot sequence out didn't help either, and in the end, I just started typing and it worked out okay. (I think it's because of the amount of time I spent thinking about the plot beforehand.)

This time around, however, I wanted to try something different. Somewhere I read about how you should, ideally, write your first synopsis before you start writing your novel. I thought, what the hell, maybe my spur of the moment inspiration would come through for this exercise. I started writing a synopsis, and what do you know, it worked. I don't have every little detail figured out (I need space to play around with for the story) but I was able to iron out some major questions I had about backstory. I have the last 1/3 of the book to plot, but I should have the basic plot outline finished today or tomorrow.

All in all, how you plot a novel is up to you and your style. Some people may be meticulous, thinking out every detail and write the story in a matter of weeks or months. Others may just write a first draft and go back. Or other are like me, and fall somewhere in-between. Whatever your style, the most important thing is to keep writing!

Go, go, go **deep breath** Go, go, go

Today I finished a book that left me exhausted. It wasn't a deep, philosophical work or a book written in Japanese (I have experience with both). Believe it or not, it was a paranormal romance.

If I reach page 50, or if I'm feeling generous, 100 and nothing has happened, I stop reading. Maybe a plot is too predictable, or maybe the writing is poor. At any rate, there is such a thing as not enough tension in a novel. What most people don't really talk about are the instances when a novel never stops for a breather. The novel I finished today was just like that; a nonstop ride from start to finish.

Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the characters, but there comes a point when you've had enough action and banter to last you for days. It makes it hard to finish the book, or if you persevere like I did, you end up exhausted. I know a book shouldn't be too slow, but please give us a little breathing space every now and then. We want to believe good things can happen in novels along with the bad.

And I hate to say it, but I've had my fill of vampires for a little while. I think I'll go back to historical romance for a week or so and see if I can dive back in. Let's hope so because I have a stack of paranormal books from the library, just sitting there, waiting to be read.

Side Note: I've started writing book two of my Secondworld series. There's so much possibility...

Polished Completion Happy Dance

As the title suggests, I've finished polishing my manuscript. From my first big edit to a polished product took me three months. Editing was, and has remained, my least favorite part of the writing process. I owe a big kudos to Michelle, my reader extraordinaire. I only hope everyone else is as fortunate to have a sister who also has a knack for spotting inconsistencies and giving invaluable critiques. Of course this is the same woman who never lets me forget I caught her kitchen on fire that one time...

At any rate, you may be wondering what next? Well that's easy: time to start Oliver's story for book two. I recently sketched up the plot for books two and three, although being the non-plotter I am, I have just the bare bones. I love to incorporate ideas as they come. A prime example is this morning: while I finished polishing the last few chapters, I realized what the fourth book will be about. Some authors want to write a trilogy and move on, but I believe with a large, complex cast of characters, writing a series will be fun. I love the world I've created (Secondworld) and hope to work my way forward and back in history. If you think you know what's happened in the past, think again. The Fair-folk have hidden themselves well over the years...

As time and word count goes on, editing may become a little less tiresome, but only time will tell. I certainly hope I don't have to throw out the first 100 pages again, like I did with this first book, and start over.

Time to celebrate briefly with some upbeat music before chaining myself to the keyboard once more.

Query update: I've researched and found five wonderful agents, sent them letters and now have to wait. I'm still researching agents for my second wave of letters, but I'll wait a little bit longer before I send them out.

My First Battle Scar

Well, it's official: I've received my first rejection letter. While this doesn't really change anything, I suppose it tranfers me from the group of "I want to write a book" to the group of "I wrote a book and I'm trying to get it published."

Personally, I'm good with rejections. (After attempting to find a teaching job, or any job really, in this economy, you get used to it.) What I was sad to read was how many agents won't respond with a rejection email, but only respond if they're interested. The reason? Too many heated and nasty emails in return.

To all those people who can't seem to take rejection well: shame on you. With many popular agents receiving up to 100 queries a day, there is no way they are going to accept everyone. The agent business is subjective and no, not everyone is going to fall in love with your work. Treat others how you want to be treated. This is the motto I live by, and hold my students to, and maybe you should try the same.

If you can't take rejection, and refuse to believe there is a way to better your writing, then maybe you should rethink your goals.

And to all agents who have received the aforementioned nasty emails, I'm sorry you had to put up with it. Please do your job and know that at least this aspiring author will respect your decision, no matter if it's a rejection or not.

Query Update: I tweaked my letter and sent out my first real wave. Now I wait.

Breaking the Synopsis Myth

You've done it. You've finished your manuscript to a bright polish. You even managed to put together a decent query letter, but then you realize what you still have to do: the synopsis. People tend to debate whether the synopsis or the query letter is more difficult, but after finishing both, the query letter wins hands down.

But, but, but...

Well, let's take a look.

For those of you who aren't aspiring authors, here's a little glimpse into the world of publishing. Now, I'm not in publishing, nor have I been published yet, but I offer you my many, many hours of research in a short blog entry, free of charge.

When you want to find a literary agent, you know, a person to help with your career, manage contracts, find a home for your book, etc., there is a process. First, you finish your story. If you haven't, don't even bother unless you're lucky enough to be someone like Stephen King, Diana Gabaldon or Janet Evanovich. Once that's done, and edited to a high gleam, you need what's called a query letter. A query is a short pitch of your novel, usually around 250 words, that should give the plot and tone, yet can still invoke the "awesome-ness" reaction. In other words, you want people to be knocking down doors for your work. I've talked about queries a bit before here.

Some agents also require a synopsis--this is the plot of your novel in about two pages. Now, everywhere I went, I read how difficult it was. How nervewracking. There was no way anyone could write the plot of their 300+ page novel in two pages! Even I fell into this trap, putting off the synopsis day after day and instead spent my time researching. The research wasn't helping, until I came across the most relevant and helpful sentence this morning on Nathan Bransford's blog. Simply, it says:

A synopsis needs to do two things: 1) it needs to cover all of the major characters and major plot points (including the ending) and 2) it needs to make the work come alive.

That single sentence caused a lightbulb to turn on inside my head. If I had only seen this advice a week ago, I would've had the synopsis done without all this dread inbetween. I abhor formulas, which was mostly what I had found until today, but this advice just worked for me. I sat down and an hour later, I had a finished synopsis of 1,400 words and just a tad over two pages. I'm pretty pleased with it, actually. A few subplots were left out, but it's for the best.

So, if you're at the stage where you want to find an agent and try getting published, don't fret over the synopsis. The query letter is hard, I won't deny it (mine took a month to get where I wanted it), but after that, the worst part will be the waiting and the rejections. Don't fear the synopsis.

On a side note, I sent my first query letter today.

UPDATE: I have since written another synopsis, just over a page and it was kind of fun. You read that right: I enjoyed it.

A Unique Idea from a Strange Conversation

A little over a week ago I had one of the most entertaining conversations I've had in a while. My best friend needed a break from her three sons, and after her husband came home, she came over to hang out. What followed was a three hour conversation about the impossibilities of romance novels.

Now, I will freely admit that I'm addicted to paranormal romance novels. I devour authors such as Gena Showalter, Kresley Cole, Sherrilyn Kenyon, JR Ward, etc in a matter of days, if not hours. For some reason the fantasy aspect (vampires, werewolves, immortal warriors) makes the romance novel more believable to me. I know, I know, there is not a plethora of 6'6" men with six packs and drop-dead gorgeous faces, but the main point of fantasy is that it isn't real. You say there's an underground culture of vampires? Sure. Does the Greek goddess Artemis go around granting acts of vengeance? What the hell. It is fantasy.

Of course there are some patterns that emerge, no matter if the romance is paranormal or other. Those of you who have read some will know this, I'm sure. Things like the man always pleases the woman first and is okay with waiting for his own pleasure. Or the woman can handle 10 hour long marathons with an immortal warrior without getting tired or feeling sore. Etc, etc. Now, these patterns sparked an idea in my head: why has no one ever written a fill-in-the-blank romance story?

Imagine it: you choose certain numbers, places, objects, a la Mad Libs style, and get your own personalized, semi-ridiculous romance adventure. It would be nothing short of entertaining.

Maybe some day I'll attempt it, but what holds me back from writing paranormal romance novels instead of fantasy with romantic elements is my family. They would buy the book and read it, and I can't say I'd feel comfortable having my family read sex scenes and wonder what is real or made up. I'll warm up a scene when the romantic peak comes, but I'll leave the details to your own imagination.

Of course if fill-in-the-blank is too much of challenge, there's always Choose Your Own Adventure possibilities as well. That way if you don't like how the story ends, it's your fault.

Unique Expectations of Fantasy

When I was a teenager, and even into my early twenties, I loved reading fantasy. Reading is a form of escapism, and what better form of escape could there be but to visit a made up world? I devoured some of the more lengthy series by Terry Goodkind, Melanie Rawn, Robin Hobb and Elizabeth Haydon.

And then one day, I stopped. It was a combination of factors, such as moving from Japan to England and starting graduate school, that brought it about, but I stopped reading fantasy. When I did have time to read, it was either Diana Gabaldon or Jane Austen. When I finished grad school in the UK, I then went to grad school in the US. By the time I was done, I realized I had free time again, which meant I could start reading for fun once more.

For a long time I focused on historical nonfiction, which makes sense since I am a certified history teacher. But eventually I wanted easy-to-read fiction. I wandered the aisles at my local bookstore and a cover for one of Karen Marie Moning's Highlander books caught my eye. And thus my interest in paranormal romance was born.

After a while I realized something: I was writing a book that would be termed "fantasy" yet I hadn't read any pure fantasies, aside from one attempt at Robin Hobb's newest series, in years. True my work is closer to paranormal fantasy, but I knew what I needed do: buckle down and research some new fantasy titles and read them.

I managed to wade through Richelle Mead's Storm Born without too much trouble. Was it a little slower than I liked? Yes. But at least the writing was to the point, and the story a nice length. I tried another book (which I won't name because of the negative review I'm about to give) that seemed closer to my own story: fairies lived below 17th century London. Now the premise of the book was interesting: a dragon was banished to a "star" that turned out to be Halley's comet and 50 years later, the fairies must find a way to defeat the dragon or all of London will be destroyed.

Unfortunately, the writing was long-winded. There were too many scenes of no importance and the writing got on my nerves. (Odd, considering how several reviewers praised the writing as an example of what fantasy should be.) In my opinion, the writer was more concerned with world-building and plot than character development. For example, you have a character who is always calm and collected, and then boom, for one scene only, she's yelling and out of control. The events didn't merit the over-reaction in any way.

This all got me thinking: Why do readers accept long-winded prose and lack of tension in fantasy novels? Any other genre, with the possible exception of literary fiction, would throw the story out or require some serious editing. But not necessarily in fantasy. Some of the masters can create necessary tension, but even Robin Hobb's Shaman's Crossing, while beautifully written, lacked tension most of the time. I grew bored of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series a long time ago for that exact reason: nothing was happening. And as much as people will disagree with me, JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is too slow-paced for my tastes.

You may be saying that world-building takes a long time and requires all those hundreds of extra pages. But if that be so, why can Anne McCaffrey or Richelle Mead create fully engaging worlds in under 400 pages? It requires focusing on what's necessary to know, not what's "nice to know." I'm begging fantasy authors: please take out the unnecessary and draw me in. I want tension, not flowery descriptions.

Broad Tapestries

Today I finished my big edit of "Book One" (still don't have a title) and started writing "Book Two." As the story ended on a cliffhanger for the first book, I thought about the influence of writers on my own style. Sure, I read a lot and have more than a handful of favorite authors, but do any of them really influence me? For the most part, no, they don't. Good writing makes me happy, end of story. Of course, there is one author I've been reading since I was 13 years old who definitely influences me to this day: Anne McCaffrey.

For those of you who don't know, Anne McCaffrey is most famous for her Dragonriders of Pern series. There are few authors who make you think you're reading fantasy only to discover it's really science fiction. (I dislike spoilers, so I won't go into specifics. But if you're curious, type in P.E.R.N. into a search engine, complete with the periods, and you should find out right quick what I'm talking about.) As you read the first book, Dragonflight, you realize the sheer number of characters introduced and think to yourself, "Doesn't this go against every how-to rule of writing?" Well, too many characters can be confusing if it's not handled correctly, but McCaffrey writes in "broad tapestries." For a better idea of her writing style, read the following quote:

I write in broad tapestries, interweaving characters lives, leaving the little details to the reader unless the details are important.

I have this scratched on a piece of paper I've kept since high school for a reason: this is my favorite style of writing. If you're going to create a whole world, it becomes more interesting with a variety of characters. Also, leave out the unimportant stuff. I don't want to know the description of every item in the room or read about you walking around the garden alone unless something is going to happen. SKIP the unnecessary, but DO include more points of view to help flesh out your world.

My own writing style reflects this, so if you're looking for elegant descriptions of rooms and clothing, or lots of irrelevant conversation, you may not like my stories. But if you do like stories that span longer amounts of time and leave room for your imagination to handle the little details, then mine might be worth a read.

I've always dreamt of Anne McCaffrey reading one of my stories, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Query Education

Since you're thinking it, let me ease your mind: I'm not talking about part of the XML computer language.

Okay, okay, that probably wasn't the first thing that came to your mind. If you were thinking of query letters, as in the letters aspiring writers send in to try and snag an agent or get published, then you'd be right on the money.

I'm less than 20,000 words away from finishing my first edit of my complete manuscript. While I'm waiting for my volunteer readers to finish, I decided it was time to start learning the best way to write a query letter. There are books on the subject, of course, but most of those focus on good ol' fashioned snail mail queries and most agents rely on email queries these days. But never fear, after a minimal amount of searching I found THE website for query advice (actually it's a blog): Query Shark.

Query Shark is run by an actual literary agent who critiques various drafts of query letters. Now, the beauty of this site is that the Query Shark is brutally honest, which can be amusing at times, but always helpful. After you read some of the posts, you begin to see patterns and detect glaring mistakes. (DO NOT put your address at the top of an email query. The Query Shark gets upset when this happens.) Once I finish reading the archives, I'm faced with the task of writing my own query letter. I cringe at the idea because I don't like "selling myself." I picked up some modesty whilst living in Japan all those years and it doesn't look to be going away anytime soon.

Read a few posts from Query Shark and then read an "example" query here that highlights everything you could possibly do wrong. I laugh every time I read it, so enjoy!

And to be honest, I'm actually looking forward to sending out queries and hearing back. I think my first rejection letter will be the equivalent of a solider's first battle scar; it may hurt like hell at first, but you learn from it and move on, thankful to be alive to take on the world.