Editing Rant – Page 30 – Erin Penn's Second Base

Editing Rant: Generic Worldbuilding

July 11, 2017May 30, 2017 Erin Penn

Image courtesy of suphakit73 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

If you have been following my blog, you know I looooove worldbuilding.

Good worldbuilding brings a layer to the game where the characters are more real, the plot more driven, and the story becomes mind-blowing as the reader forgets about their own world and gets involved in yours. Generic worldbuilding creates an opposite affect – the characters are cutouts, the plot phoned in, and the story so “paint-by-numbers” the reader would have been better off buying a choose-your-own-adventure.

The superhero prose genre has some of the best and some of the most generic worldbuilding I have ever seen. Of all sci-fi/fantasy type stories, Superhero prose is one of the easiest for world-building so not doing it is beyond lazy. You don’t need to define where the powers come from – people could one day wake up with the powers; you don’t need to define how they work, they just do. You can play fast and loose with real science, sci-fi science, and fantasy magic. The rules don’t need to make sense. You can have standard powers ranging from “brick” (invulnerable and strong) to speedster to energy. This subgenre, thanks to roleplaying, comes with lots of quick power ideas clearly defined.

The superhero romance I just read did not even try. The superheroes were one family, and they fly and have superstrength, and, with the strength levels, needed to be careful with their romantic interests. Fly and have superstrength; that was it! The extent of the worldbuilding stopped with being careful when hugging their women. No variation between the powers – not even one brother flies better and the other is stronger and the third more invulnerable so they change who responds to what emergency.

I’ve seen generic powers become fun with the superhero learns control by learning how to cook; think fried eggs for strength and whipping up a souffle for speed. The Greatest American Hero TV show (1981-1983) had a flying hero afraid of heights, so when he first started he topped out his flying at 5 feet above the ground. Take what makes your world unique to the next level!

It’s okay to start your world as “generic” fantasy with elves, orcs, and dwarves or your sci-fi with “typical” faster-than-light travel and laser cannons. Even urban fantasy has the generic setting of vampire, werewolves, and ghosts. But once establish…

make it yours.

Editing Rant: Distance

June 8, 2017April 24, 2024 Erin Penn

Image courtesy of nitinut at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Check the simple stuff. If you have internet, check distances and dates. People know this stuff.

A book I just read – the main character has “lived her entire life within a seventy-five mile radius of her small <home> town” according to the blurb on the back. Two locations were named – the small town and a well-known third-tier city. I searched these two locations because passing off someone as a country hick that lived for an extended period of time with over a million other people annoyed me. Turns out the locations were 110 miles apart.

The book has a bunch of other issues with fact-checking and continuity. But this, THIS, inability to get distance right really, REALLY bugged me. All they needed to say was one hundred miles, not seventy-five.

Fact checking previously have been discussed

Hint: If I keep coming back to a topic in the Editing Rants, (A) It’s Important and (B) People Keep Getting It Wrong.

Editing Rant: Different Dance Moves

May 9, 2017October 31, 2022 Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Rating: Mature

Choreography

Two aspects areas of storytelling take choreography to the extreme: fighting and sex. Normally, stating where a person is standing in a conversation has little impact on the situation other than providing an anchor of time and place. During sex and fighting where the two (or more) characters are located, where they are located in relation to each other, and how they interact with each other and the scenery (beds and cars) and props (guns and bedsheets) are all important.

And like any choreography, the moves need to vary to keep interest. If writing fighting, each battle needs to be different – not a one-punch and done. To Beat the Devil by M.K. Gibson does an amazing job of changing up the dance from single couple to large scale ballroom/battlefield, from no props (fist only) to canes and top-hats (magic and guns). No altercation repeats aspects of previous fights. If writing sex, similar rules apply.

Recent books deserving rants:

BOOK 1: All sex scenes followed the same pattern: oral/manual simulation followed by vanilla intercourse. All emotional levels are the same (no crying, hurt, joy, happy, anger). All sex happened in the same room, on the bed. This would be like all the fights in an urban fantasy happening in a boxing ring.

BOOK 2: A five-way relationship (one female to four males). Two complete rounds of intercourse follow the same exact order of the males doing the same exact actions; the only variation is the location, once in the living room and once in the bedroom. No emotional level variation. Even the dialogue did not vary.

For choreography to work, variation in location, emotions, number of characters, order of activities, and the props is required, whether fighting or sex. When done right each major choreographic encounter should advance the plot. In a romance, each encounter advances the romance. In an action-thriller, each encounter teaches the main character a new skill or reveals a new portion of the plot.

Each dance results in movement, emotional sweeps to plotting quicksteps.

Limiting the dance of fighting or romance to a single step or pattern of steps is like watching the tango with no dips or spins.

WRITING EXERCISE: Create a fight or romantic scene of 1,000 words or less between two characters. Change one of the following and only one of the following and rewrite the scene: (1) location or (2) emotional driving force behind the scene.

READING EXERCISE: For your most recent read, write down every “dance” within the book – include location, emotional level, number of characters, prop/powers used, and activities. Did the variation help keep the “dances” fresh?