Novel writing class, week four

[jeriendhal]

Mostly a discussion of characterization and character growth this week. Coming from the LMB school of "What's the worst possible thing that could happen to Character X?" there wasn't much new to me, though she again emphasized the need to set your themes in the first chapter and stick to them as you draw your character's story out.

She seemed to like the sample I gave her. There were some suggestions on improving the text flow, and some pointers where I should shore up the descriptions (a weak point of mine) but she seemed to enjoy it judging from the final note at the end. She even used it as an example of imparting information on the setting through dialog instead of info-dumping (though she didn't use that phrase exactly).

The most amusing moment came shortly after a discussion of the use of pen names and how they relate to copyright notices in the front of the book and proper attribution from the publisher. She spoke in my direction about something and then said, "Royce... uh, that's your pen name, right?"

"No, it's my real one. Dad picked it out, and Mom didn't bother to tell him that was the name of her first boyfriend in high school."

Big laugh. What made it funnier is I can understand her confusion. "Royce" is about as common a name in romance novel characters as "John Smith" is in the real world. :) I may have to use some variation on as a pen name, or choose something else if I want to write non-romance stuff.

In other news, she did mention that Tor and Kensington are actively looking for new writers at the moment, so I suppose it would be a good idea to get off my duff and actually try to write something commercially viable to take advantage of that.

Comments

[sabledrake.livejournal.com]

From what I hear, it doesn't quite work that way ... the trick is to write something so nifty that it becomes commercially viable. If you try to write to the market, you're not going to be writing with the best part of your talent and heart, and it'll show. Even if it's sexy elfboys and demonesses. Heck, maybe ESPECIALLY in that case!

That being said, I did hear TOR's looking for vampire stuff. Or at least they were a while ago when they rejected mine :P

And in a moment of weird synchronicity, speaking of novels, speaking of vampires, and speaking of your name ... there was a character named Royce McDougall in Stephen King's SALEM'S LOT.

Best of luck with whatever you un-duff to write!

-- C.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Well, Tez and Maria's story would definitely qualify under the Supernatural romance division, and the teacher did say that outright Erotica was making a comeback. Guess LKH and Anne Rice are good for something beside kindling after all. :)

And she did say that the trick was to write what the publishers are looking for, but break the rules so your particular story stands out. Though she is fairly dismissive of the idea of "Writing from the heart". Like I said in my first post about this class, she tends to take the industrial method of writing, which makes sense given she's primarily a Romance author. [i]Christian[/i] Romance, which is doubly restrictive in what the publisher will let the writer get away with. In her field there's practically no mid-list stuff. Everything she puts out is generally [i]gone[/i] in 30 days from the shelves, never to come back. On the plus side, the field has the largest amount of fiction readers associated with it. *shrug*

[sabledrake.livejournal.com]

Yep ... romance novels account for fully 50% of all mass-market paperback sales. It's where the $$ is, that's for sure.

-- C.