Apr 27 2010

Group Therapy – Session One

Category: Group Therapy — Angela Swanlund @ 11:03 am

The Dreaded Flashback

Yesterday was the first official group therapy session concerning the book. Present were Patti Stafford, Maria Fox, Jonathan Bailey and myself. We focused on a revised edition of chapter one. One of the most critical things any book needs is an opening that immediately captures the attention and/or curiosity of the reader. I had originally started the book with the main female character jumping into a rather lengthy flashback as she was driving to work. Not being a fan of the flashback myself, and the fact this book is first person present tense – this opening had always bothered me. Group consensus confirmed my own fears, and we all agreed it would be better to just begin the book in the moment. I could add the information the flashback had contained piecemeal throughout the book as needed.

Depth Of Character

Although the female lead character is the first person the reader meets in my book, she’s the last one the reader gets to know. There’s two primary reasons for this, one obvious, the other… not so much. When you’re writing in first person, it’s hard for the character to describe themselves to the reader without sounding as if they’re in some way “tooting their own horn”. In chapter one I tried to cleverly use her reflection in mirrors and casual remarks by the people she interacted with to give the reader a general concept of what this character looks like. I’d hoped her actions would speak for themselves and give the reader an idea of how this character acts. The not so obvious reason that this character seems a bit shallow at the beginning of the book is that she’s living what amounts to a make believe existence. Nothing about her is very in depth, because she makes it up as she goes along.

Once we’d taken a look at the depth of character on the main leads in the book, we discussed the supporting cast. Jonathan felt I’d given descriptions similar to how a person would describe a mugger to the Police. (tall, dark hair, no tattoos) The degree to which Jonathan was right became astounding as I ask the group to tell me what their impressions were of a particular cast member. Dead silence. Emotional connections simply hadn’t been made between the reader and any of the supporting cast in chapter one. In some cases this isn’t important, if a cast member is only deserving of a mention. In this case, it was critical because several of the cast members continue on in the book, and carry some of the weight of the story.

To Curse or Not to Curse

Life isn’t always pretty, and at some point or another, we’ve all felt the urge to let loose with profanity. To remove profanity entirely from my book would take something away from the raw nature of the characters it focuses on. Unfortunately, there’s several “old school” rules that still apply to this day concerning romance novels. Some strong language is allowed, but dropping the “f-bomb” is not. A harsh fact is that there simply is no substitute in the English language for this word. Nothing else carries the same weight, or can be delivered with the same impact. We discussed making up a word, we even spent some time brainstorming. We’ve since came to the conclusion that in the romance genre, it’s perhaps best to just avoid scenes where the use of this particular word would seem necessary. Keep the scene intense, but tone the emotional levels down so a substitute word would still deliver an adequate punch. One example of this that comes to mind is Clint Eastwood playing “Dirty” Harry Callahan with the line, “Go ahead, make my day.” I’m sure the character of Dirty Harry felt the urge to unleash profanity, but the writer toned the character’s emotional level down, while maintaining the scene intensity – and actually had Callahan come across as even more powerful by his lack of profanity.

How Much Sex in the Sex Scenes?

Let me first say, of course there are many Publishers that accept erotica, some that even require it in the romance novels that they publish. However, my book is intended for the mainstream/contemporary romance genre where traditional rules still apply. Sex can be alluded to, sexual tensions build up, anticipation encouraged, and closing cuddle scenes always welcomed. Of course, the actual sexual acts themselves are considered “closed door” material. I chose to keep the bedroom door open as I wrote my book, knowing full well these scenes would later be cut. The main reason I chose to do this was so I’d be able to pull out and save any emotional significance the encounters might have had. People think and feel many things during a sexual encounter and these things are what’s ultimately important. Once you separate these things from the act itself, the story looses nothing by removing the details of the physical encounter.

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Apr 24 2010

Speaking Voice vs. Writing Voice

Category: Revisions — Angela Swanlund @ 1:15 pm

When I worked in radio one of my biggest pet peeves was sales people writing commercial copy. Have you ever read aloud for 30 or 60 seconds? Most people haven’t. For whatever the reason, sales people seem abnormally oblivious to the amount of written words that can be spoken aloud in a set amount of time. If you listen to live and local radio, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Some commercials will be sped up to the point of sounding like Chipmunks and others will be drawn out and padded with background music to fill the extra seconds.

Another pet peeve of mine is not being able to say aloud what I’m reading. Have you ever wanted to share a sentence or two from something you’re reading, then realized as you read it aloud – it lost it’s punch? This is primarily because few writers write with their speaking voice.

How many times have you read conversation in a book and felt like it was strained? This happens because the “writer” in the writer is coming out, instead of the “speaker”. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

“Melissa won’t be stopping by today. She informed me earlier that she has errands to run that will likely occupy her time until late this evening.”

Sure, that “reads” fine, but try saying that aloud. How natural does that feel when you say it? Now try it this way…

“Melissa said she’ll be busy running errands until late this evening, so she won’t be stopping by.”

In all honesty, if you were trying to tell me Melissa wouldn’t be coming over today – which way would you say it? Which way feels more natural to you?

Know Your Character

You would never perform the lines of a play without getting into character first. You would study your character, know their expressions, know their body language, their tone, their emotion. You would speak their lines as closely as you could to the manner in which you imagine they would say them. Conversation in a book should be no different!

The two main characters in my book are not Scholars, there is no narration, it’s strictly first person – present tense. They’re not in public, there’s no cameras on them, there’s absolutely no reason to speak with anything other than their natural speaking voices. It’s jerky enough to have to read all of the “he said” – “she said” tags at the end of every line. As I wrote the conversational blocks in my book, I kept this in the forefront of my mind, and would always read the conversations aloud and in character.

Showcase The Fancy Stuff

If your book contains blocks of narration, this is a better place to show off your wordsmith talents. Narration is your turn to use your “writing voice”. The only character you need to get into here is yourself, your own unique style. Maybe your main character is a Chicago street thug who grunts more than he speaks, so you’re really limited on just how much information this man can convey to the reader in a block of conversation. However, as a narrator, you’re only limited by your own creativity. This is where you can describe the streets of Chicago as veins of filth running through the soft tissue of a decaying civilization. If your reader does decide to read this aloud, it won’t contain the “he said” – “she said” tags to stumble all over and it doesn’t have to be “in character” with any of your book’s characters.

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Apr 23 2010

Cutting Room Floor

Category: Revisions — Angela Swanlund @ 9:28 am

Once the book was in Gary’s hands for punctuation correction, other copies were sent to other people for liposuction. Or actually, maybe I should rephrase that. I thought I was sending the book for liposuction, but it’s turned into amputation. Instead of removing excess fat, entire scenes and sections are hitting the cutting room floor. I’m one of those annoying people who pay attention to the most absurd and minute detail, and unfortunately – I tend to write them all down too. Patti and Maria will likely have a shiny key on their keyboards very soon, the one that use to say “delete” will be blank, the word rubbed right off from excessive use.

As a writer, of course, I think every word is imperative to the story. Publishers deal with numbers, percentages, and profit margin. Every copy of a book costs “X” amount of dollars to print, market, and ship. The cover price of the book not only has to cover these costs, but allow for a profit margin for the Publisher and Author. The smaller the book, the lower the printing and shipping costs, and higher the end profits. In turn, the larger the book, the more you’re encroaching on end profits because of higher frontal costs. My mind comprehends all this, but then the writer in me goes… yeah, but…..

So what do you do with everything that didn’t make the grade for the final draft? Is it just wasted words and time on your part? Not necessarily. I’ve started what I call my “character” and “scene” boxes. If a character is cut from my book, I’ve been taking all the information on them (conversations with them, descriptions of them, etc.) and placing it into a folder. The same with scene deletions. I title them and put them into a folder. These people, places, and events may not have been relevant enough to keep in the final draft of this particular book, but they may be perfect for future works. I also save my notes and research materials in a file, simply because I might use that same location or setting in a subsequent work.

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Apr 13 2010

Bring It On!

Category: Author Notes — Angela Swanlund @ 9:35 pm

Had it not been for the efforts of Patti Stafford of The Stafford Scribe and Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today, I would not have much of a web presence. I certainly never expected to come back to my very own dot com! Special thanks also goes out to MagTel, who by some fluke of nature still happens to offer local dial up internet access in my area. I live in the foothills of the Magazine mountain range in Arkansas and my area is so remote it requires a four wheel drive vehicle to access the property. Satellite signal is blocked by the dense forest, and of course DSL and cable decided to go around the mountain with their lines instead of straight up it. The only reason I was able to get a land line phone out here is because of Ranger stations and fire towers in the area. Even my cell phone has a hard time finding anything to catch a signal from, so I tell people I have the “can you hear me now“ calling plan with unlimited dropped calls.

The year hiatus I took from the internet wasn’t entirely spent in pursuit of happiness or lost socks, I actually spent most of the down time writing. I completed my first work of creative fiction in February of this year, and am currently in the editing stage of the publishing process. I wrote what I’d intended to be a novel, but the official verdict is still out on whether I accomplished this… or wrote a screenplay in book format. Special thanks to Gary Decker, punctuation expert and Southern grammar interpreter extraordinaire for helping me with this! It takes a very special man to help his ex-wife with a mammoth sized book after working 8 to 10 hours a day. As with every project I’ve ever taken on, very special thanks to my children and JT as well. They understand the “look of death” they get when they interrupt me at the computer is meant in the most loving way possible.

The work is in excess of 200,000 words, first person, present tense, heavy on conversation, sexually explicit, with strong adult language. In short – a Publisher’s worst nightmare. The journey the work takes from here to print (or screen) will likely prove to be a very interesting one. If I can find a generator I’ll try to add a “rejection” ticker on here as a widget. I fully expect the numbers to reach the hundreds!

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