Novel writing class, week four
Oct. 3rd, 2007 04:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalMostly 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.
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.
