On someone’s recommendation, I started reading a book by Barbara O’Neal, The Lost Recipe for Happiness. At about 100 pages in, I started to wonder if the story was ever going to end.
It’s not like I couldn’t tell where the story was going at that point. What was frustrating was knowing that there were still 340 pages to go until I actually got to the end of the story. And really. This story was not worthy of more than 400 pages. The first hundred pages were filled with hints to a “dark past” by the heroine, and broad hints about her attraction to her new boss. Then there was a whole lot of nonsense about soulmates. And finally, some very poorly written Spanish (the main character is of mixed heritage).
Ugh.
Done. The book has gone back to the library. I’m not even sure how this got to a publisher, much less through an editor. If we are supposed to watch as the main character, who is pushing 40, finally “comes of age,” it just was not getting there fast enough for me. I didn’t even finish the book, and I’m pretty sure I know how it ends: female chef marries her big-time movie-producer boss after they dance around falling in love for 447 pages.
Yup. I’m sure that’s how it goes.
Maybe I just have a short attention span these days. But as I get older, I realize I do not want to waste time reading bad books. Get to the point, keep the story moving, and I’m likely to keep reading. I actually had a related discussion with my daughter today. She had started and put down at least three books in the last month because they were “boring.” I gave her some Steven King. At least his stories move, and move quickly. I read them like candy when I was her age.
Sometimes, I read a book (or hear about one) where the female main character is just pathetic. Completely powerless (of their own free will) and inept. The kind of woman who, if she were friend would probably not be a friend for long.
I write romances, and a key part of my characters is some sort of “helplessness.” This is just the way it is when writing romances. There has to be something the character lacks, or needs “fixed,” by the male main character. On the other side of that, the male main character needs some fixing too. Or waking up, as I like to think of it.
These particular character “flaws” are pretty common in the genre I write in. They are used by lots of writers. But there is a point where you can go too far. “Flaws” are one thing. Characters with no backbone at all are hard to support, and if you can’t support the characters you are reading about, the story won’t be worth reading.
I try to write my female main characters with enough flaws to be human, but not so many that they have no will to live. I want my readers to sympathize with my character and her flaws. I don’t want them to wish they could reach into the pages of the book and smack her upside the back of the head.
It is a fine line to walk in writing, but an important one.
You would think it would be kind of hard to buy the wrong book on Amazon. Say you’re out looking for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but when you’re searching, you’re not sure, and you put in something similar, and even maybe add the author’s last name. You find the book, click on it, download it for your Kindle, and away you go. The price was right: 2.99 or 3.99 or 5.99. Enough to seem legitimate, but not as high as the bestseller.
And you start reading, only to find out the book is not the book you thought it was. It’s fully of typos, or is flat-out plagiarized, and is obviously not the best-seller you were looking for.
What happened?
Well, Amazon owns a Print on Demand publisher (POD), and anyone who has written anything at all can have their stuff published using the service, getting listed immediately in Amazon’s database. There is no editing process, no vetting by the publisher. You write what you want, lay it out the way you like, create a cover, and put it up for sale. The trick is to create a title that sounds like a current best-seller, and give yourself a nom de plume that is similar to the best-selling author’s name.
Step 3: Profit.
Amazon has started pulling down some obvious fakes, but I’m sure there are still others out there. One article I read quoted a current Amazon POD writer who has written “over 10,000 books” by her own admission. I’m sure they were lovely, well-researched, perfectly written works of considerable length. *snicker*
Why on earth didn’t I think of this? I could have made a fortune this past year or so, writing and selling fake books on Amazon. It’s illegal to sell a fake Coach purse at the local flea market. But it’s not illegal to write and sell a book, even if the title of the book is similar to a best-seller.
I totally missed a wonderful opportunity to make money!
As a romance writer, I skirt very close to, sometimes even stepping into, that den of iniquity called erotica. There is a very fine line, and that line is different for everyone, between romance and erotica. It can be the difference between an explicitly sexual romance novel or a novel that just has run of the mill sex. Some romance novels only have implied sex, others have explicit, well-described sex. What pushes it over to erotica? That’s hard to say.
My opinion is that erotica is more about the sex than the romance. There may be very little relationship building, very little plot building, or the plot is so gauzy as to be easily forgotten, while the sexual descriptions are all you are left with in your memories. I have written erotica, and I tend to think my romances, although they do include sex, are not erotica.
I recently read an article in Entertainment Weekly that talked about erotically charged novels. Some of the books on the list are classics, and I’ve even read some of them. Some of them I had never heard of, especially the newer ones. Here is the list, with their publication dates:
- Fanny Hill, by John Cleland, 1749
- Lady Chatterly’s Lover, D.H. Lawrence, 1929
- Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller, 1934
- Story of O, Pauline Reage, 1954
- The Happy Hooker, Xaviera Hollander, 1972
- Fear of Flying, Erica Jong, 1973
- Forever, Judy Blume, 1975
- Damage, Josephine Hart, 1991
- The Crimson Petal and the White, Michel Faber, 2002
- How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, Jenna Jameson, 2004
I think I need to add the ones I haven’t read to my reading list. I have read Fanny Hill, Lady Chatterly’s Lover, Fear of Flying, and Forever. I have not read the others. Believe it or not, I read all four of those books as part of coursework way back in the 1980’s, in various literature classes. It’s nice to see them still making some sort of list so many years later.
I really do wish I had more time to read than I do. As we have just moved, much of my time is being spent unpacking, hanging up curtain rods, moving furniture, and trying not to overdo it. By the time I hit the bed, when I might actually have time to read, I’m too tired to stay focused.
I have a couple of theories I figure I should share here. I may not be a great writer, but I know drak when I see it.
First, there’s Nicholas Sparks. I know there are people that adore him. I’m just not one of them. I do not believe that a man can ever write a romance novel well. Mr. Sparks is an excellent example of this. His stories are ridiculously implausible, and create characters that I truly dislike. And as a reader, if I dislike the characters, I’m pretty much not going to read the story. Sparks has written 17 novels, all mostly with the same basic plot line, and with the same type of book cover. Either it’s a woman with her hands on the guy’s face, their lips just about to touch in a searing, breathless kiss, or it’s the woman with her hands on the girl’s face, in the same breathless almost-kissing pose. If you’ve read one Nicholas Sparks book, you’ve read them all.
He prefers to call them “love stories,” rather than romance. He also is fond of criticizing Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Ernest Hemingway. And feels that they, and all romance writers, write “the same story over and over.” Pot. Kettle. Black.
Now, lest you think I’ve not actually read Nicholas Sparks, let me assure you I have. I was intrigued by the trailers for The Notebook (a movie made from his novel of the same name), so I checked the book out of the library to read it. I do not know how I finished it. I had been told it was good, that he was a good writer, that I would love his stuff. I hated that story. I still hate that story, and it’s been at least ten years since I read it. Yes, I tend to remember the ugly, and The Notebook was full-out ugly. Awful stuff. I never did see the movie, but after reading that garbage of a book, why would I want to watch the movie?
Tempted to read a Nicholas Sparks book? Just say no. Read Jane Austen instead.
Second, there’s Nora Roberts. My personal theory about Nora Roberts is that she has only written a tenth of what is published under her name. Everything else is ghost-written. She has written almost 200 books in 20 years. If you’re counting, that’s 10 books a year. I have written a novel in a month, but it sure wasn’t ready for prime-time. How is she writing nearly a book a month?
It is just not possible. No way, no how. And besides, if you’ve ever read two Nora Roberts novels back to back, it becomes exceedingly clear that the books were written by two different people. While there can be a change in voice, and some subtle change in styles, from book to book, the reality is, every writer has a “voice” and style they write in, and everything they write will have a similar sound and feel. No two Nora Roberts books sound or feel the same. There is no way one woman, writing a book every month, can change her writing voice so completely as to not be recognizable.
Not to mention her books are really poorly researched, and often don’t make a whole lot of sense. One I read was a murder mystery with an occult-ish leaning, and it was extremely inaccurate, and poorly put together. I was very disappointed in not only the quality of the story, but in how much she could have done with the story had she put some effort into it. Yet, another of her books that I read was fairly well-written, made sense, and had a decent ending.
That kind of dichotomy doesn’t come out of one writer, over and over, 200 times in 20 years. It’s just not, in my mind, possible.
Do you have authors you think should find another line of work? I’d love to hear about it.
Found out mid-week this week that not only does my husband have to have his hernia surgery re-performed due to the fact that it didn’t take in December, we also can move into our new townhouse by April 2nd.
Writing, and working on the coursework from my new book?
No, there won’t be much of that for a few weeks. I have spent every night packing, and using my teenager daughter and her teenage friends-who-happen-to-be-boys to lug stuff up from the basement and put it in the garage. And because my husband is absolutely restricted to NO LIFTING OF EVEN A PAPERBACK I have packed his stuff too. I’m worn out, and my brain is busy trying to do everything that needs to be done on short notice. Tomorrow I have to schedule the movers, figure out if we’re keeping satellite or getting cable, and then that decision will precipitate the decision about keeping DSL or getting rid of it. The packing will continue every night this week, and I will clean as I go so that I don’t have to re-clean spaces once they are empty. Since I work full time and am gone every day, this could be…interesting. Hubby’s surgery is on Tuesday, and the little one is on Spring Break this week.
Things are just…messy.
But once we’re settled next week, everything will be fine, I know, and I can get back to my routine. I really wish I’d had time to write this week, because I think I have my crazy character figured out and I can finally write about him. But he will just have to wait until I have the time to devote to it.
Now, I’m taking my sore, tired body to bed. Tomorrow will be a busy busy day!
It never hurts to improve one’s skills. The truth is, I read the one thing I’d written that I thought was fabulous this week (my first “finished” novel) and about gagged. It is atrocious. Why did I ever think that thing was worth reading, much less writing?? Gads. And what a confidence-buster that re-read was. I need help.
Serious help.
So yesterday my girls and I were trolling some second-hand stores and a few yard sales, and I came across a book by John Dufresne called The Lie That Tells a Truth. It is a guide to writing fiction, and comes complete with exercises. I started reading it last night, and this morning have done the first of three exercises in the first chapter. I’ve also added the book to my Goodreads list, and the reviews there are mostly positive on this book. So, I’ll try to keep myself on task and get through it in the next couple of weeks.
And, I do need to write every day. I often find other things to do (play around on the Internet for example) and then it’s time for bed and I haven’t done a danged thing about my writing. That whole motivation thing just seems to be lacking. And I’ve definitely got to get better at it.
A writer I like a lot, Sandra Dallas, has a simple method for writing. She writes 1 page a day, and edits the page she wrote the previous day. That’s her goal. 1 page a day. And you know what? She writes great stuff. I have read almost all of her novels (the remaining few are on my bucket list), and all of them are wonderful. And that’s how she does it. Writes 1 page a day, and edits the page from the day before.
That’s pretty darned simple. And I’ve told myself I need to write every day. I’ve set that goal. Yet I always manage to fall through. Or I’ll count a blog post as writing (it is writing, certainly, but not part of the goal). I need to make sure I’m setting that goal for my fiction, then keeping that goal. Small bites. 1 page is a nice small bite.
So, I guess I’m going to try again. I’m going to do the exercises in the book, hopefully get through it in the next two or three weeks. And every day, I will write one page, and edit the page from the day before. Every day. Even if I’m tired. Even if I’m busy finding excuses to not do it. If I can do it long enough, it will become a habit.
A good habit.
We are getting ready to move out of our awful duplex into a really nice townhouse. The last eight months have been no picnic, as our landlord is in foreclosure and the property manager has been less than honest, or forthcoming with details. We won’t mention the black mold in the upstairs bathroom, or the “family room” that has no heat duct and only one power outlet, or the basement “bedroom” that does not have an egress window.
But I digress. The townhouse is a decent size, has a fireplace, air conditioning, two and a half baths, and a bonus room in the basement (with an egress window). That bonus room is important. It is big enough to be my office, a library, and a guest bedroom.
Yes. I said “library.” I’m already mapping it out in my head, where I will put a bank of book cases, with the appropriate lighting. Never mind that I got rid of most of my books when I moved west last year. Books are pretty easy to come by, and I’ll just bet I can have my shelves filled in no time. I’m intending to start out with three sets of book cases, but should pretty quickly graduate to four or five, maybe six. Oh, it will be magnificent! Of course, it won’t be three stories tall and have rolling ladders to make getting books down from the upper shelves easier, but still. It will be a wonderful place, full of words and inspiration.
So, I wonder how I should sort the books. Fiction from non-fiction? One bookcase exclusively for circus and clowning books, and another for reference and writing books? Or mix them up a bit?
Should be fun!
I just finished what might have been an okay book. It was The Gazebo by Kimberly Cates. It was published in 2006, by a traditional publisher. This means it was accepted, edited, and put into print.
And no one caught a huge, glaring historical error in the whole process. This just boggles my mind.
In the book, one of the ancillary, yet important, characters is 75 years old. The year is 2005 or 2006, near as I can tell. This means the old man was born in 1930, and would have been 18 around 1948 or so. Yet, in the story arc of the book, he apparently served as an 18 year old in the Vietnam War.
Now maybe it’s because I lived through the Vietnam era that I caught the error. The war started as a cold war in the late 1950’s, and became an all-out engagement in the early 1960’s. There is no way the crusty old military man of the story could have served as an 18 year old during the Vietnam era. He would have at least been in his late 20’s or early 30’s, and too old to be drafted (the draft only applied to men between 18 and 26 years of age).
This is a pretty big mistake to make in a mainstream novel, I would think. The fact that this was missed at all should be a reminder to anyone writing writing contemporary fiction that history is important, and getting the facts right is just as important as if you were writing a historical fiction.
This huge breach of fact made it difficult to read the rest of the novel, for sure. It also make it unlikely that I’ll read any of her other works.
The novel I’m editing/re-writing is too flat. I’ve had this problem before. The characters are as flat as cardboard, and there are usually only two of them, and the only thing I write about is their interactions between each other. Once in a while, I let another character in, but they are no more than a wisp of steam that disappears pretty quickly and you weren’t even sure they were there in the first place.
But in real life, we interact with more than one or two people, on a daily basis, and especially throughout our lives. And while a romance novel (what I write) may occur over the course of several weeks or months (in the characters’ lives), they, too, should be interacting with others within the context of the story and also within the context of a “normal” life.
Right?
Well, I have the female main character’s interaction with the best friend/sister/mother/crazy aunt thing down pretty well. These are things I’ve experienced in my own life so have plenty to work with there. And I do okay with work-related interactions in a story; careers are easy to research and while I’ve only had a handful of jobs in my adult life, it has been enough to help me be able to write realistic work-related scenes.
What I don’t have is a lot of understanding or experience about how men interact with each other. Whether they are brothers or friends, I just don’t have that sort of relationship experience to know what to add to make it seem realistic. I mean, women tell their women friends everything, or most things, right? They get advice, guidance, do some venting and gossiping. That’s something I know all about. But what do guys do?
And more importantly, how do I find out what they do, so I can add those elements to my story?
I mean, I have this main male character, who is working with his brother, yet I never have them talk, more than just in passing. And my main male character could sure use some decent relationship advice from someone he trusts. Who better than the brother who is happily married with children? Right?
Well, this is my current dilemma, as I try to work on this story. I know what kinds of scenes I want to add, how I want to expand not only the action but perhaps some side/sub-plots. But I have no idea how guys talk to each other, or what they say.
And I’m not shy about asking for help, so I headed down to my local library and snagged a reference librarian. Reference librarians are my favorite people; they are the original google search engine, and their advice is absolutely FREE. They are sitting there waiting for people like me to come along and ask strange questions. They can’t wait to give people like me an answer, and I can guarantee they aren’t going to check Google first.
This reference librarian got up and took me to three places: romantic relationship advice, monologues and plays, and writing references. I walked out with books from all three places. I picked up How to Think Like a Guy about how to snag a guy from the dating pool by not acting like a girl, Mars and Venus: Languages of Love, and Rules of the Game from the relationship section. I picked up the 2006 and 2000 versions of The Best Men’s Stage Monologues and the 2006 version of The Best Stage Scenes from the drama section. And finally, in the writing section, I picked up Careers for Your Characters. I probably didn’t need that last one but it looked interesting.
So now I’m on the reading carousel, trying to get as much info as I can out of each of these books. The How to Think Like a Guy one has some interesting tidbits; I’ve been taking a few notes and nodding my head a lot. The book is aimed at younger people, but still, it gives me a bit of a closer look at how a guy thinks and what attracts him to a woman. I will soon move on to the monologues, and the other relationship books.
I’m going to see how many of the books I can pack into my suitcase for my week-long trip to San Diego this week. I am off to a conference for work, but nights in the hotel room with takeout should give me plenty of time to study.
Then it will be back to the horrible manuscript that is my book. The thing needs some life. It isn’t quite to the point of needing a defibrillator, but it’s not breathing well. It will be, though, after some major surgery and cosmetic enhancements. That’s the whole goal, anyway.
