How times have changed...in the publishing world! From Daphne du Maurier to today.

Hi everyone!

I've been busy with the River City Writers Conference, (a few of you 'liked' some of the trillion facebook posts), a single day dedicated to writing workshops, networking, launching/buying books, chatting with editors and publishers...and eating and drinking and being merry!

Members of Vannguard Writers Group @ the conference - 

Raelene, myself, Charmaine and Nas. 

(Nas is an honorary member of our Brisbane group)

We had some great presenters - Helene Young, pilot and author of a series of excellent romantic suspense single titles set in Queensland's wild, empty north where surveillance is key - Karen Tyrrell, author of 'resilience' books...2 adult (on overcoming mental illness) and 2 for children...one especially successful title Stop the Bully has gained her entree into schools and libraries - Antony Puttee, who runs an uber successful self-publishing one-stop-shop, Book Cover Cafe, who ran an awesome session on how to get your self-published book out there and how to get high Amazon sales - then our very own Nas Dean, helped me judge the flash fiction competition which ran in conjunction with the conference. Nas then presented her session on editing.

Nas Dean presenting on editing in the modern age

Nas' session on editing had some of the died-in-the-wool old-school publishing houses (who sent representatives to the conference to receive pitches from writers) screaming in frustration, claiming publishers did all the things the presenters had been claiming all day that writers did -- editing, promoting, book covers etc. This caused much merriment from those who had already told their story of the hard road of promotion even after being contracted to a publishing house. Obviously these guys have no idea how hard writers are doing it before submitting manuscripts in the faint hope of being picked up, and how little it is perceived that the traditional publishers do after buying rights to your book...(I'm no expert on this, having never submitted anything to an agent or publishing house!)

CLASSIC BOOKS Vs MODERN BOOKS

...Which brings me to some of the changes I see when comparing classic books to modern books. I read a lot of stories of how the old publishing houses used to treat favoured authors--the army of editors who went through the novel after submission, the pampering, the promotion etc. Don't many of us think these oldies were just pure genius? Well, it took a lot of help to polish that genius.

Today, many traditionally-published authors and self-published authors are doing it all/mostly by themselves, some by choice and some because they can't afford/don't see the need for even one editor. (My  opinion is everyone needs an editor, and most savvy readers can tell when this important step has been skipped). I've shared this before, but Margaret Mitchell (author of Gone With the Wind) re-wrote her first chapter 60 times. So these oldies but goodies still did the hard yards themselves before they were touted as overnight/on-going successes.


Along with several other books, I'm currently reading Daphne du Maurier's Frenchman's Creek, (1941). (Well, it does have French... in the title). This book is a classic passionate romance/adventure, one of her most popular novels -- on the best-selling list for thirty years!! But the beautiful Lady Dona and her French pirate adventurer would have been severely edited today.

We modern writers get slapped on the wrist if we carelessly 'head hop' even once in our stories - du Maurier and plenty of her contemporaries did this as a matter of course, and even modern best-sellling author Nora Roberts, a great favourite of mine, does it A LOT, especially in her romances.

Dialogue has changed too. Now we go through our manuscripts with a magnifying glass trying to find/slay most, if not all, dialogue tags, turning them into actions instead.

"Don't touch that!" Jack said to Kiddly Bop. ... becomes...

Jack ran across the room. "Don't touch that!" Kiddly Bop snatched his hand away from the grinding machine just before his arm was lopped off.

(I used the exclamation mark to upset all the 'no exclamation marks' modern rule!! as I think it is quite probable that Jack yelled in this situation.) 

But on p.62 of Frenchman's Creek I found this dialogue...exactly reproduced:

  'William, you are a genius,' she [Lady Dona] said, and he bowed, permitting himself a smile. 'I am pleased you are glad, my lady.'
  'How do I look? Will your master approve?' she asked him, turning on her heels. 'He will make no comment, my lady,' replied the servant, 'but I do not think he will be entirely indifferent to your appearance.'

So...if you don't know what's odd about the above, I'll leave you blissfully unaware. But I'll just say it caused me to be 'taken out of the story' which is the criticism I receive from critique partners whose job it is to make sure we don't commit such writerly sins.

And of course I bought a book - Delia Strange's

FEMME. I'm quite liking the sci-fi romance genre.

• Methinks it was somewhat easier to be an author in the olden days. What do you think? (And I don't mean -- of course it's not, it's a lot easier today to be an author as you can just self publish). I'm talking about the old style, the third person onmisicient POV etc. as compared to today's more stringent rules about everything.

Nas snapped us heading out to breakfast. 

Yes, the last bite of Winter was in the air.

Had a great weekend with Nas and Rajesh staying with us... and attending the River City Writers Conference. How was your weekend?

Let's Talk Blogfest Dialogue

Today, with much fear and trembling, I'm taking part in Fiction Groupie's Let's Talk Blogfest. The rule for today is that we have to post a short passage of dialogue from one of our WIP and others who have signed up will drop by and (hopefully) comment. If you drop by and are not signed up, please feel free to drop a comment. We all aim for sparkly dialogue but practise makes perfect...or does it?

My entry is a passage from the beginning of a Rom/Com short story in progress. A coffee shop scene with dialogue between two besties, one the cafe owner and the other her celeb-type best friend:

 ***

 

Angie’s favourite café looked different. Hands on hips, she stood at the door, puzzled. She was a girl who liked everything under control, everything just so. But today something was strangely out of place.

Aha! That’s it! she thought. Her beautiful little table at the window had some random guy...What the..?


Angie stepped inside. She wasn’t going to solve her problem standing on the doorstep. Putting some extra pep in her step, she relished the sound of her high-heels clanging and clunking on Sylvie’s shiny wooden floorboards.


She raised a perfectly-waxed eyebrow at Sylvie, her good friend and owner of Chez Sylvie (or part-owner as Sylvie liked to say—which part was never clear to Angie.) But Sylvie was avoiding eye contact, looking very busy hunched over the hissing coffee machine.


‘The usual thank you Sylvie darling,’ Angie purred, popping her strawberry-blond locks with thirty shades of highlights behind the steamy espresso machine.

‘Uh, hello Ange. Won’t be a tick. Just have a latté to go.’

Angie tapped her French-manicured nails on the zinc counter.

‘It wouldn’t be for that guy at my table, would it?’ she hissed.

‘Ah, actually, well, yes it would be, Pumpkin. He’s got good taste, hey? Headed straight for your table. Dumped the Reserved sign. No stopping him.’

‘But, Sylvie, you know it means…’

‘Sorry Pumpkin. I’ve got to take his coffee over.’

‘Allow me!’ Angie snatched the cup, grabbed the tiny tongs and dropped a mini shortbread onto the saucer.

‘Now Angie..!’

‘Don’t mention it Sil. T’rah!’ A swish of frilly red sundress, a toss of luscious long locks, and Angie was gone.

‘Careful!’ Sylvie called, wincing as the coffee jangled in its saucer.

Angie clumped to a halt at the table. The stranger acted surprised, although she’d been watching him watching her ever since she’d arrived.

Questions to ask yourself about your novel

Day Three 3/11 - Tuesday - Words 2874 (9336)
Day Four 4/11 - Wednesday - Words 1771 (11,107)


A very useful little set of notes came my way courtesy of my local Nano region. They are good to check every now and then.

1. Character

• How can I make the actions/reactions of the characters believable?
• Have I provided enough background to understand the characters?

2. Setting

• How can I make the setting contribute to the tone, theme, plot of the narrative?

3. Plot

• How can I make the plot believable?
• Do the characters have a significant role in the plot?
• How can I make the plot fresh and original?

4. Theme

• What larger issues do I want readers to think about as a result of my novel?

5. Dialogue

• Is the dialogue natural?
• Does the dialogue develop the characters and plot?
• Does the dialogue show action?

Notes from Book in a Month, by Vl Schmidt and Writing for Emotional Impact, by K. Iglesias

The First Chapter

Well it is scary watching that NaNoWriMo widget counting down and the day has nearly arrived. It's now Saturday 31st October 8.33 am. I've written my synopsis and am thinking about the first chapter. I thought I'd use my blog to write what I'm up to, a bit of an online diary thingy, as it's pretty much just between me and me and my little Foxy Lady up there (I love images as you might have noticed) watching what I write so intently and wisely and licking my tears of frustration away, so Denise, let's get this first chapter underway.

As I'm going with the Romance genre and am hoping to have a sweet little Harlequin book done by the end of November, I checked out a few 'how to write a romance 'books as you do. One of my foibles is I just keep checkin' out 'how tos' and never get around to the doing. I'm under no illusions that it's going to be easy to actually keep doing...

I found 'An Introduction to Romance Writing' by Sherry Anne Jacobs very helpful. She has some good stuff on the first chapter. What does she say? Well, I'm not too sure about plagarism in this case so Sherry and me are sharing stuff here. And, remember, I'm just talking to myself and Foxy. These are the bits I'll be paying attention to:

• the first chapter is the most important part of the book (we all know if we aren't rivited from the start and life is too short to read a bad book, we toss it and reach for the next one)



• get the hero and heroine out there so the reader can start caring about them. I'm in love with mine already, just gotta get other people to feel the same...



• hint at the basic plot of your novel, show don't tell of course



• set your tone (you can hardly help doing this) gotta have your own voice coming thru...



• show physical setting for your story. I like Elizabeth Adler's style here. The setting becomes a character. I have some dreamy settings on the go...



• get crackin' with that sparkling dialogue, hmmm, that can be tricky. Need help there! There'll be a lot of mumbling to myself and Foxy...



• get some conflict happenin' with that hero/heroine or what's the point? Don't we all just love a good to-do...



• trot out some subordinate characters (I'd hate to be one of those, wouldn't you?) But no man (or woman) is an island after all, although I could think of some exceptions...



• there is a need for 2 'hooks' - one at the beginning, preferably in the first paragraph, and the other at the end (and this is not a fishing trip, but I'll certainly be fishing for hooks! That's terrible! I do hope I improve soon...there's always hope!)

Well, if I can do all that, I'll have a crackin' good first chapter happening. I could even be dangerous. Wonder what the other NaNoWriMo 150,000 adults and 35,ooo kids are doin' today?

A footnote about post dates. Blogger has my dates mixed up and I can't fix the problem. I am sick of doing the post options thing, so I'll write the real date somewhere...If anyone reads this and knows how to fix it, I'd be grateful. Blogger help just points out the Post Options option...