Tag: Write-Plotting

Editing Rant: Possession is not Romantic

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Sira Anamwong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

No, no. NO!

Possession is not romantic.

Slavery romance is not a kink I have, and it is one I don’t think is ever healthy for the participants. Avoid it. Period!

In a recent romance, the prince kept saying “mine” – and, f-no, not when the female has been ripped from her home and enslaved. Don’t care if it is insta-love, don’t care is the woman is super-strong-were, don’t care if the prince had his own problems and has my sympathy, don’t care if the prince wants to free her – the possessive term, while sexy when both sides have the option of agreeing to equal possession is NOT okay when one is wearing a slave collar and the other holds the leash (even though he really, really doesn’t want to).

Aside from possession terms, the romance had the perfect use of insta-love, woman is super-strong-were, romantic hero (a prince) has problems which create great sympathy, and a story overall was way too big for the 62 pages it was stuffed into.

But romance is about equals coming together. Both of them bringing something to the plate. I love it when a strong man and strong woman say “mine” to each other. If only one side (usually the male) says “mine”, and the other side doesn’t immediately agree that – yes, I am yours but I also own you in equal measure – then the power dynamic is off.

Watch out for this in your writing. I see it far too often where someone holds leash-level power and stakes a “romantic” claim to someone who isn’t in the position to say no.

That’s slavery. Not a relationship.

In this month of the celebration of love AND black history, learn to tell the difference.

Editing Rant: Homeschool Plotting

Erin Penn

Photo by Tong Nguyen van on Unsplash

Several of my sisters homeschool their children and one with several in her brood texted me about a writing issue she was having. Below is the whole exchange, spelling and grammar errors corrected for clarity.

 

“How do you tell your authors that they need a plot? (or at least a conflict/dilemma and resolution)”

“Since we (Falstaff books where I edit) are action adventure genres, conflict is fairly integral.

Age of the offender?

Mostly I focus on beginning middle end. What is the BME of the character development, and what is the BME of the action development? You aren’t saying something is missing so much as asking for them to define it for you and they then know where to beef it up. By asking for both, you hide where you think the problem is and make them find it. I do this with newer authors when they ask me to quickly look at their stuff. Those under contract would not have gotten the contract if they are missing plot.”

“K is 12. For language arts she was to write a story. I thought the conflict was going to be the last part of her outline, but it wasn’t. She wants it to be a different part, but does not want to make the protagonist work for the solution, nor to express distress beforehand, nor satisfaction with the resolution.”

“So the question is where is the change, or why is there no change? Mom went grocery shopping and brought back food, is a change in the house. She didn’t bring back food is a different story and also interesting.

Sounds like you also want to see both a climax and a resolution. The solution and the reactions to the solution. That one I do need to talk to authors about. The emotional need of the reader to be released from a story …. otherwise known as why people hate cliffhangers.

A question to ask her, maybe, is why is the main character interesting? How is the reader identifying with her? Do you want to show thinking, feeling, action, or reaction to have the reader know her? What character have you read or watched recently that drew you in? Why? What did they do or feel? Were they satisfied with the story resolution? How do you know?

Just realized she is still mostly a concrete thinker. Asking her to think like a reader or the character is likely at the edge of her abstract thinking. A good learning experience, but an additional layer to the lesson.”

 

Yes, I am that wordy texting on my phone. Sister didn’t get back to me about how things turned out with K and her plots. I remember the fights I had with creative writing at that age. Abstract thinking, figuring out how the reader sees the words is tough. And I have seen adult writers not wanting to make a protagonist work for a solution. Torturing your characters – these parts of you being put on paper – is tough, especially when they look up from the page with distress. Be interesting to see where K is after a couple more years of brain rewiring from concrete to abstract.

Editing Rant: Repair the Pants

Erin Penn 3 Comments

Image courtesy of ladywriter55 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What the…?

Okay folks, it is great to be a pantser. Break free of the constraints of outlining and worldbuilding. Just write things out and get it on paper. Fresh, new, exciting.

Then edit that draft!

Just read a story where the author was obviously a pantser. The action was constant, the plotting – not so much. The reveal of what the human female was and her ongoing issues felt very “slidey”; things were added during the pantsing writing and not fully integrated during subsequent editing passes.

Oh, let’s have her not just be human. First meeting of ex – helpful and healthy – oh, but wait … won’t it be better if he was poison as she starts a new relationship. Great additions, really help the story pop – but created an unevenness in the presentation, a feeling of being tacked on instead of full integration. 

Image courtesy of the internet Hivemind

I understand that draft stage is boring. You know the story now. But this is the difference between telling a haphazard story among friends and creating a coherent manuscript.

Pants it all you want – just remember the tradeoff. With plotters, they do a lot of the prep work before hand. This is the exciting part to them. Writing it out is hard. For pantsers, writing out is fun, it is the draft work that is the chore. One way or the other, details and sorting things out for a full well-written document worthy of publication requires effort.

Go back and repair those pants.

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words 2/24/2010

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of winnond at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The magic advice so often given: Write what you know. And its immediate corollary: Write what you love.

Of course there is always just the simple all hopeful authors need: Write.

Blake Charlton provided a new one to the mix: Write what scares you.

Think on that. We are not just talking horror, but all genres. Write what scares you. This is “Write what you know,” because what you know is emotions – the need to get into the reader’s head and make them feel with their heart. Exploring what scares you can do that. Scared of demagoguery, or racism, or trusting people only to be betrayed, or a big rock falling out of the sky and changing everything? Bring it to the keyboard.

This is part of the human condition. Don’t use fear for fear’s sake but face it, explore it, and figure out how to conquer it or live with it. One of my recent flashes, Thebe Loses Day Job, lightly touches on the fear we all have in exploring something new taking away what we know. Will the new job provide enough income to pay the bills? What will happen if the new job doesn’t work out? Yes, these fears are presented within an erotica storyline, but that is part of what makes people enter the story. Something just about moist, mushy, and manic is okay. But something which pounds a pain center while being moist, takes things to the next level.

Write what scares you.

See the whole blog here (and be sure to look at the comments): http://www.magicalwords.net/specialgueststars/todays-special-guest-blake-charlton/

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words March 23, 2009

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Chapter Breaks – Stepping Stones in a Story

“Why Divide Your Book Into Chapters?” was asked of the Magical Word crew in 2009, and David B. Coe responded giving insight into how books are structured.

The most direct answer is seeing all those words strung together without any breaks exhausts a reader before they even start.

The working answer is writers get exhausted thinking about writing all those words at once. For plotters, outlines and chapters can walk hand-in-hand.

The more subtle answer is dividing the work up provides clues and prompts to a reader’s mind which can be exploited by authors. 

Breaking down the basics from the post:

  1. Maintaining narrative flow: POV changes, jumps in time
  2. Escalating narrative tension: changing narrative threads, critical beats/cliffhangers
  3. Keeping readers interested: provides breaks to take care of business, gives chunks to think about as a unit
  4. (From Comments) Selling points: editors ask for a chapter, being able to offer the first chapter for free
  5. (From Comments) Editing for word count: helps visualize word count
  6. (From Comments) Voice: length of chapter can affect the narrative voice, helps focus
  7. (From Comments) Serialization: offering the story via podcast, magazine, etc requires breaking things into narrative chunks but remaining true to a complete novel.

If you would like to read the full post and related comments, go here: http://www.magicalwords.net/david-b-coe/why-divide-your-book-into-chapters/