Stacia Kane

Heh, see how neatly that little analogy comes together? I’m just so clever.

(Part one of this little series can be found here. Part two is here.)

When last we left little FOUR on its journey to the bookshelves, I was forcing myself to look at my stupid galleys, the Sales people were tallying the number of orders they managed to coerce and blackmail out of the poor bookstore buyers, my publicist was, well, probably dealing with far more important people than me. But she’s also probably getting together a list of review magazines/sites/blogs/whatevers to send ARCs to, if the publisher is doing ARCs, which they don’t always.

In dramatic time, it’s around June, or five months prior to release date.

16. Using the copyedited ms that was sent to me as a galley, the file is sent to the printer for ARCs if they’re being done. The timing on this bit is a tad sketchy, and really depends on how close we are to release date. But generally, if I’m not mistaken, ARCs are printed from that same ms that was sent to me, either with my corrections or before my corrections are added. They aren’t printed immediately, but they’re sent to enter a queue at the printer. This is why ARCs say “UNCORRECTED PROOF” in big letters, and it’s why you may get an ARC that is essentially pristine but another with more errors; some mss don’t get as many editing passes before it goes to ARC, because of the lead-time required.

17. I send my galleys back. I have now Officially Signed Off–so to speak–on the book. Nothing should be changed now that I have not approved.

Not that the galley process is done, oh no. My changes are input, and another galley is printed. That galley is reviewed in-house, for typos or errors that may have been missed the first umpteen times everyone looked at the ms. (By now we all hate my book, and wish it would just go away so we wouldn’t have to look at the damned thing ever again.) If there are any changes made, those are inputted again.

18. Cover art is finalized. This actually happened a while ago but I forgot to put it in. But it’s all done now. Sometimes, if the bookstores don’t seem too enthusiastic about a particular cover when the Sales teams visit them, a new one is quickly put together. That happens more often than you might think, but not as often as it might seem. (Hee.) Anyway. So you might have a new cover being finalized now, so it’s not totally out of place here.

19. ARCs are printed in August, and sent out shortly after to those reviewers etc. If I’m lucky, I’ll get a few; my agent will get a buttload (that’s about twenty, for books) of them as well to send to the foreign market to try to convince them how great I am and that they should totally buy foreign rights for my books or they’ll be sorry because who could resist such a bundle of fabulosity? Nobody, that’s who.

ARCs must be sent out at least three months in advance of the deadline dates for the November issues of whatever magazines or whatever the book is being sent to. At LEAST. If we want reviews in those magazines the month of release, we have to meet their deadlines.

20. Everything is sent off to the printers now. Whoo! That galley that dozens of people have looked at, and that all those people in the Production department lovingly entered and checked and checked and entered, and those nifty covers, are put together into a special file and sent off.

21. Books are printed. It’s probably, let’s say…the middle of October. Or rather, for a November 1st on-sale date, the printing will need to be finished by the middle of October. Why? Because now we have shipping & distribution, which is a whole big thing I only know a very little bit about. But I will share that little bit of knowledge with you, dearies.

22. All of those books are printed, boxed, and shipped to the distributer and/or warehouser. I used to be better able to explain the difference, but it’s not particularly important at the moment. All you need to know is, they divide the books into the amounts of boxes that go to, say, B&N, Borders, and Amazon. There are about fifty books in a box. For smaller indie stores or other online venues they may break up some of those boxes, so Murder by the Book in Houston might get twenty copies of FOUR and ten copies each of UG, UM, and CoG, because of course everyone wants to buy lots and lots of my books, right? Why would a bookstore stock any others?

23. Anyway. The books for B&N et al go to their big divisional warehouses, according to what sells in that area. Like, if UF sells big in the Northwest, the Northwest will get 5000 copies, whereas an area like the upper Midwest may only get 2000 because that genre doesn’t sell so much there. From those regional warehouses they get distributed and shipped to the individual stores.

24. It is now probably a week or so before release date. If all goes well, and according to the way it should, those boxes should sit in the storerooms of the individual stores until release day, when they are unboxed and placed lovingly on the shelves or towers or front tables by happy, smiling booksellers, all of whom love me and want to force their customers to buy my books even if said customer is a ten-year-old boy (hey, these are sales numbers we’re talking about. I’m ruthless).

What often happens is the poor, overworked booksellers, who just want to fill the shelves, or who have plans next Tuesday (books are released on Tuesdays, just like DVDs, unless they’re superspecial Event releases like Harry Potter books or something) and so want to get the hell out of that store that day, or whatever, will open boxes early and put the books on the shelves. It happens. And I still say that unless and until someone learns they lost out on hitting the NYT because fifty copies sold the week prior, it’s something writers should just suck up. Yes, it’s better when they wait. We all love it when they wait. It reminds us that there is order in the universe, and that sometimes that order is Good and Just, and makes us feel that sweet “all is right with the world,” sort of feeling as we tuck into our little beds at night.

But there is also Chaos in the world, and books getting shelved on Saturday because Melinda’s manager told her to stop standing around like that and just fucking do something are part of that Chaos. Yin and Yang, people, Yin and Yang.

25. Books are on the shelves! Oh, happy day! Now is the best part. All of you wonderful reader people can lie up outside the bookstore at eight a.m., wearing your Downside t-shirts and stuff (hey, this is my damn fantasy here so shut up), singing songs and drinking beer or whatever until the bookstore opens, the cops show up, an impromptu musical number breaks out, or all of the above, and you buy your copies of FOUR, which you then rush home to shower with love in a purely non-sexual sort of way (or maybe not; what you do in the privacy of your own home is your business, chickies). Meanwhile I sit at home, cowering, terrified that not only will there be no dance routines, there will be no sales at all, and at the end of the week my agent will call me to say not a single copy sold and there’s a cadre of angry bookstore managers about to rush the Del Rey offices and burn them down for wasting their valuable shelf space with my drivel.

And that is it. How a mss becomes a book. Isn’t that a sweet story?

I’m sure I messed up some timelines a bit and/or left some steps out. I’m not an actual employee at a publishing house, and some houses do things a bit differently. But this is based on my experience. my observations, and that of people I know, including a few very helpful answers/bits of info from Jessie at Random House. Thanks, Jessie.

Any questions?

*books. It’s just a joke.

(Part One of this little series can be found here.)

So, where last we left our manuscript, sweet little FOUR, it was making its dark and lonely descent into the hands of a copyeditor, where it was placed on the bottom of a stack of perhaps five or ten other manuscripts just like it, to be gone over with the dreaded green pencil, and it was early February at the very earliest (but more likely at least March).

While I’ve been piddling about with words, a few other things have been happening. Shauna will come up with a few thoughts or ideas about what she might like to see on my cover; what the concept is. She presents those to the cover people, and the Publisher in a big meeting that takes place three or four times a year (this is the way it’s done at Random House, anyway; it may be different at other houses). What sort of model, background, pose, etc? One person or two? That sort of thing. They decide on a concept, or maybe a couple, and the whole thing is sent on to a cover artist person.

That person finds and hires the necessary model(s) and takes numerous pictures in various poses and outfits. They show those to Shauna and/or someone else, but I do know for a fact Shauna sees the poses and selects the one she likes best. If the meeting took place immediately after FOUR was turned in, or right after the contracts were signed, it may be only January or so, but chances are it’s closer to March or April.

Then the cover artist starts, well, being artistic. They draw or digitally create backgrounds, or manipulate existing art or backgrounds. They do whatever else it is that artists do; I have no idea, frankly. All I know is, a cover generally takes at least a couple of months, and the cover art usually starts being discussed almost immediately. Yes, writers are asked for input, and yes, if it comes down to what we like vs. what Marketing likes, we’re going to lose. We’re asked for input, but “input” is all it is. And honestly, well, Marketing’s being doing this a lot longer than we have.

And really, they want us to be happy. No editor or publisher has ever cheered and high-fived when an authors bursts into tears at the sight of their cover. They want to please us. It’s just sometimes we can’t be pleased. And sometimes Marketing is totally right, and the cover we don’t particularly care for is a cover that readers seem to adore. That happens a lot.

So. Cover art may take anywhere from 2-6 months. Which means that cover art may come in for FOUR anywhere from January-March. Because the sales people are going to need a finished cover when they start soliciting orders, it will pretty much have to be in by May at the very, very latest, but April is a much better deadline.
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*by which I mean “books.”

No, books are not babies, but the title was too much fun to resist.

Okay, we’re going to discuss where books come from. See, sometimes when a mommy and a daddy love each other very–oh, I just slay myself, seriously. And I can see you laughing hysterically too, right? That rolling your eyes and checking your watch that you’re doing, that’s laughter, right? That’s what my parents always told me.

Anyway.

No, seriously, we are. Occasionally I do like to go all publishing wonk (I love publishing, I can’t help it) and write long detailed posts about things no one except other publishing wonks really care about. It’s my little way of driving people away, like all emotionally healthy people are known to do. But no, I do hope the wonk stuff is fun anyway, and that it might actually be interesting to other people.

So. How does a book go from manuscript to finished book, in stores, on shelves? (The process is different for epublishing; a lot of the steps are the same, but this post is specifically about printed books with NY houses [although printed books with small presses are made exactly the same and have the same steps, they just might possibly occur a little faster], and more specifically about mass market paperbacks. I imagine it’s the same, basically, for trade paperbacks and hardcovers, but mmps are what I have experience with.)

I’m going to use my books as an example, of course, and we’re going to start with the fourth Downside book, so we can really get an idea of time frames (UNHOLY GHOSTS, for example, was sold to Del Rey in June or July 2008, set for publication in October 2009, but of course was delayed so they could do the consecutive releases. So it’s not as good for demonstrative purposes).

FOUR–I have a tentative title, of course, but until I see if it actually fits the book and it’s all approved I don’t want to mention it, so we’ll call it FOUR here–is not yet written. I wrote about a page of it last night, that first page that’s so terrifying and awful and looks so lonely. But that’s it; it’s not even a thousand words yet. I have submitted a short synopsis of it to my editor(s), so they have a general idea what to expect, but that could change quite a bit. I don’t plan my books in advance; this makes for more work in editing but if I plan it ahead of time the book feels written and I lose enthusiasm. So all FOUR is at the moment is a paragraph or two of plot details, a single page of writing, and a few scenes in my head, only one of which I know where it goes (Chapter Two).

I have to finish FOUR and hand it over to Shauna, my editor at Del Rey (fabulous woman she is), by November 15th. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had quite a few readers ask me about t-shirts, or Downside Army bumper stickers, or various items like those. So I’m considering doing it–I’d quite like to, actually, it’s something I’ve had in mind for some time.

But of course, what exactly to put on them? A DA sticker or keyring or something isn’t hard, but a t-shirt? I want something people would actually wear, you know–there’s no point otherwise–so a sort of generic book cover shirt is out. Obviously I’m not going to get something with my name emblazoned all over it in big letters or anything.

These were my thoughts:
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Well! Last night (or actually early this morning) I sent Frauke at Croco Designs, the lady who designed this fabulous site and still does the more complicated updates for me (which is most of them, frankly), a very very long list of updates. Included in those are a bunch of interview links, and bunch of guest blog links (mostly about different aspects of the Downside books), some new sidebar links, the Downside playlists with buy links, and a bunch of other stuff. I also sent her a separate file with four or five deleted scenes from UNHOLY MAGIC, with commentary explaining why they were deleted. I don’t actually have any deleted scenes for UNHOLY GHOSTS, to be honest, but there are a few for CITY OF GHOSTS as well, and those will go up a couple of weeks after that book’s release. Which is Tuesday! Ack!

(One thing about the deleted scenes that I think will be really fun: I wrote a scene for UM that ended up getting cut. But I really really liked the scene, so I rewrote a little bit of it–the intro part, basically–and stuck it in CITY OF GHOSTS. But as I edited CoG, I decided the scene still didn’t work as written, so I rewrote it again, extensively this time. So there will be a few versions of that scene, and you’ll be able to compare them all, if you’re the type of person who enjoys stuff like that.)

So look for all of that soon. I’m really excited about it.

Another thing I’m quite excited about is the fact that my blog series “Be a Sex-writing Strumpet,” with which I know some of you are familiar, is now available on Kindle! So you can buy a paperback from Lulu, or an ebook from Lulu, or a Kindle version from Amazon. And of course, as always, the series is free here on the blog; just click the “be a sex-writing strumpet” tag in the sidebar.

I offer the series as an actual book because I had a lot of requests to do so, and I charge for it in those formats because people convinced me to do so by saying they wanted to pay me something for it, but you absolutely do not have to buy the book to read and enjoy the series. You don’t and you never will have to. I wrote it as a blog series, and it will remain a blog series. The book formats are just there to make it easier for people if they like, and so they don’t have to keep clicking all over my blog if they want to read it. I still get website hits for that series almost every day, which just stuns me; if you type “be a se” into google the second auto-finish term it offers is “be a sex-writing strumpet.” It’s just insane, it really is. I never imagined when I wrote it that people would enjoy it so much and find it so useful, and that’s amazingly gratifying. Also, having it on Amazon offers people a chance to write a review for it, which would be fantastic; it’d be really cool to see some feedback on it after all this time! And of course you could all review all of my books if you want, heh.

Also exciting to me is the Name a Character Contest! I’m thrilled at how enthusiastic you all are! Thank you so much! I did want to let you know that I am checking the #cityofghosts tag on Twitter regularly, and keeping track of the entries there, as well as the emails and blog post links I’m getting. If at any time you want to double-check the number of entries you have, feel free to email either the Downside Army email address or me, or use the contact form here on the site (which of course also comes to me). Make sure you include your Twitter name, if you have one, or whatever other information I might need to identify you.

Tomorrow evening sometime I plan to post a new snippety excerpt from CITY OF GHOSTS, so be on the lookout for that!

I know I say this a lot, and you guys are probably tired of hearing it, but I really honestly am amazed by how enthusiastic the response has been to the series. I never expected it, I really didn’t, and it’s absolutely amazing. I can’t thank you all enough.

So let’s see, what else? I’m going to be popping down to the RWA convention in Orlando next week for a couple of days. I know, I know, it’s RWA, but I’m not actually registering/paying for the convention, I’m just hanging out in the bar, really. I’d decided–and basically committed to–doing so when it was supposed to be in Nashville, which is only like two hours away. Of course, tragic floods intervened, and now it’s in Orlando which is considerably farther, but like I said, I’d already committed. And it’s not a bad drive. I like driving by myself. I mean, I like to drive, period, but I especially like driving by myself. I can turn the music up loud and sing along, I can flip through the radio stations all I want, stop or don’t stop as I please…whee! I’m almost more excited about the drive than the con itself, much like I was when I drove to Massachusetts to see Caitlin before we went to RT. Of course, I was excited about the convention, but that really was an awfully fun drive.

Anyway, I think this post is unfortunately a bit dull. Too much news and stuff to keep track of. I’ll try to be more fun again shortly. For now my head is so full of nervousness (over CoG’s release; what if you all hate it? What if nobody buys it?), projects I’m working on (loosely mentally plotting the 4th Downside book, and lots of stuff for the new WIP/series I’m working on), netbooks (hee, I am totally getting one asap!), our trip to Florida to see my BFF next month–we’ll be there for my birthday–and of course the usual family things. So forgive me, please. I’ll be more interesting next time. Anything you want me to blog about? Feel free to ask!

Oh! And speaking of questions, I wanted to let everyone know that this Saturday the 24th at three pm, I’ll be participating in Twitter’s first #UFChat! You can find a bit more info about it here. Either way, come and hang out, follow the hash tag, and please ask any questions you want, as many as you want! I’m hoping it’s going to be a lot of fun (and, you know, that people actually participate).

This is something I’ve been thinking of for a while, and have wanted to post about for a while, too. It’s probably the first post of a few, and I warn you, I may ramble a bit.

A few weeks ago over on the Romance Divas forum a discussion was started about honesty in your writing, and what that means. It moved on into discussions of art and connection to your work as art, which I’m also going to discuss. So basically we’re going to have a big mishmash of Stacia’s Deep Thoughts about writing, which will hopefully be fun for everyone, but of course we’ll see, won’t we?

Anyway. The initial question, posted by the lovely and talented Kate Pearce, was whether or not we, as writers, compromise ourselves–change what we want to write–in order to sell the work or make it “acceptable” to a particular audience; do we stop ourselves from writing things readers might react badly to. Keeping in mind we’re discussing genre fiction, and genre fiction has certain conventions and reader expectations. All of which are, of course, perfectly fine; readers are entitled to expect the book they pick up will be what the cover and bookstore shelving or whatever promises them it will be.

But at what point do we stop writing what we want to write in order to be successful? At what point do we suffer for refusing to do so?

The thing is, your writing should excite you. Not ‘excite” as discussed in the Strumpet series, lol (although sometimes it should, depending on what you’re writing), but excite as in fire you up intellectually and creatively. I firmly believe that if what you’re writing doesn’t do that, the reader will sense it. The writing will be flat. The story will seem cliche. And frankly, a flat, cliche story stands very little chance of selling (yes, there are exceptions, but in general, and especially when it comes to first-time authors or those just beginning careers). This post isn’t about writing techniques, though. It’s about the deeper aspects of writing, the emotional stuff, the stuff we couch in skill.
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No, really, hear me out here. This isn’t a “Twilight is great” or a “Twilight sucks” post. I’m not defending it, but I’m not raging against it either. I’ve just had a few thoughts abut it recently, and I thought they were interesting, and I thought my smart and wonderful blog readers might have some thoughts about my thoughts. So here we are.

I’ve read the Twilight books. Well, okay, I read the first three. The second, if memory serves, was the one I liked best out of those, but I simply could not force myself to get through the last one. I was dreadfully bored, so I skimmed it, and got the gist, and that was more than enough. And again, I didn’t hate them. I didn’t love them, by any stretch. I didn’t particularly like them. But I didn’t loathe them. I even thought–and it’s not an uncommon thought, I don’t think–that there were some good ideas buried in there, some really cool shit. And I admit as well that one scene in the first book, the one at the lake when Jacob tells Bella the legend of the vampires, was pretty nifty. I dug that scene.

But yes, I also see the problems. I see the essentially abusive relationship, the completely ridiculous parents, the ha-ha-semi-rape-is-okay bits, the oh-sure-it’s-totally-cool-for-adults-to-fall-in-love-with-infants bits, the female-sexual-desire-is-gross-and-must-be-suppressed bits, the creepy-religion-y stuff…you name it. I know it’s there.

Am I happy that teenage girls all over the world wish a man would stalk them, scare them, destroy their possessions in order to get them to obey, patronize them, treat them like morons? No. Of course not.

But here’s the thing. What exactly are the other relationship alternatives we as a society are offering teenage girls?

How many stories do we see about teen pregnancy rates going up? How many of the fathers of those babies stick around? How many women and girls do you know who’ve slept with a man who said he loved them or cared about them, and then dumped them shortly after they had sex? How many times does our society tell young women that for them to expect to be loved and taken care of by a man is ridiculous, a silly fairy-tale dream, and that they better get used to relying only on themselves because men won’t stick around? How many girls out there are led to believe that their only value is as a sex object? That being a sex object is the most important thing there is? How many of these girls have fathers in their homes? How many see men as people who drift in and out of your life, treating you sort of okay sometimes?

It’s not just about sex. I don’t mean to sound like I’m on some chastity crusade. But what I do think is that girls today are being raised to believe that they shouldn’t expect respect, love, responsibility, or anything else from men. That being cheated on is just the way it goes. That the only way to get and keep a boyfriend is to not mind when he treats you badly, to give him things, to not act like you really care that much, to place no expectations on him.

I realize I’m exaggerating a bit. I realize there are still plenty of decent people out there. I realize that things can be just as tough for teenage boys.

But my point is, our society seems to be moving further and further away from the idea that love is a valuable and good thing, that people belong together, that girls have the right to expect to be treated with respect and kindness, and that boys have the right to expect the same.

And that, my friends, is one reason I believe the Twilight books are so popular. Yes, Edward is a controlling jerk. But Edward isn’t embarrassed to care (he even says the L word!), and he doesn’t leave Bella at home alone while he goes out with his friends picking up girls. He doesn’t refer to her as his “bitch.” Once he admits he cares, he is committed. Twilight offers girls a view of a relationship that, if it’s not a great alternative, at least seems more secure than a casual hook-up. It’s a world where girls don’t have to be embarrassed to want a solid relationship, with a man who will care for and about them, and wants to make a serious commitment to them. It’s a world where, for all that the sexual attitudes in the book are troublesome to say the least, Bella’s sexuality and willingness to sexually perform is the least important aspect of the relationship.

And in this world it’s okay, even right, if the desire to love and be loved is the most important thing in your life. That desire isn’t pooh-poohed or put down in those books. It’s not treated as frivolity. It’s not spoken about or represented as if it’s a shameful thing to want to be loved or to be in love, and that any girl who thinks about relationships and romance instead of college and their investment portfolios are obviously ridiculous, irresponsible creatures.

Twilight offers a skewed view of relationship, yes. Twilight does not contain what I would say is a truly healthy relationship.

But Twilight is about a relationship, and Twilight takes that relationship seriously and treats it as an important thing, a worthwhile thing, a thing of respect. Something fulfilling. Twilight doesn’t put down young girls for wanting a boyfriend, or for wanting that more than anything else. It doesn’t make them feel as if they’re not good enough if they don’t know what they want to be when they grow up, or aren’t spending their every waking minute working hard and collecting references for college applications.

I don’t think this is the only reason; it’s just the only one I can fathom, to be honest. And I’m not saying any of this is a good thing, or that I approve. And I’m not saying Twilight doesn’t deserve the criticism it’s gotten; it absolutely does.

But I also think that in relentlessly attacking Twilight, we’re once again attacking these girls, too. We’re telling them, once again, that they’re stupid and silly for believing in love and for wanting it. They’re ridiculous for wanting a man to truly love them and to see something special in them. We’re telling them that the desires of their heart and soul are unimportant, and foolish, and that if they aren’t focusing their entire selves on future earning power and getting ahead they’re wasting everyone’s time.

And to be honest, I don’t know which of those messages is worse.

Okay, a couple of quick things first:

First, and most importantly. Last night I noticed Mrs. Giggles–whom you all know I adore–linked to my Jade Goody entry and wrote an excellent and very informative post about Pap smears and the types of cells/cell abnormalities found in them. It’s well worth a read; great information there. But more importantly, Mrs. G. makes a point that I neglected to make: whether or not you are sexually active, you should be getting your pap smears annually. I don’t care if you’re a nun, once you reach a certain age–Mrs. G suggests 18–you need to do them. And she is 100% correct. I’m ashamed that I didn’t mention this myself. Please…get the test, whether you’re having sex or not. I need you to live so you can buy my books. (No, seriously, buy my books or don’t, but get the test. It could be the most important thing you ever do.)

Second, this will be my last bloggy-type blog post for a while. Thursday I’m just going to post some scheduling/update things and possible freak out a bit more. Next Monday the movers are coming; I will probably pop in for a very quick post, as I plan to open the blog to reader recommendations, which I’d like to start doing once every few months. After that we’ll be in transit for the next few weeks.

Third, we had a lovely time in London this weekend. Got to meet up with fellow writer, the excellent Kaz from lj, and have a couple of drinks on Friday night, and share some giggles and gossip. Unfortunately, thanks to the vagaries of the transit system on Sundays, I did NOT get to see my friend Yeyo from lj, which I’m very unhappy about; she’s been a good friend to me for almost seven years, and I’m heartbroken that I didn’t get to say goodbye to her and her wonderful hubby in person. But we did get to the British Museum and the Natural History museum, and to just be in London one more time; I do love London. Sigh.

Okay. Remember my post about UF as a genre, and how it’s changing? I had no idea when I wrote it that the post would be such a big deal; it’s still getting comments and was actually quoted in an NPR interview with Mario Acevedo, which was pretty exciting.

Anyway. Like I said it’s still getting comments, and I want to address a couple of those here in a new post.

First, a very nice lady posted the URL to her UF/paranormal mystery Yahoo group, which I haven’t joined yet but fully intend to. At the time she posted they had over 400 members, all avid readers. So groups like that are, IMO, great places to join and be a part of, in addition to reading blogs like Urban Fantasy Land (of course!) and Bitten by Books, or livejournal groups like Urban Fantasy Fans. (And please, if you belong to or know of another fan/reader community, leave it in comments!)

Second, I had quite a few comments about the level of sex in UF, or where the line is between paranormal romance and UF. This is a really interesting question for me, because I know the Demons books come pretty close to straddling that line. In my mind they’re UF, because although the Megan/Greyson relationship is a big part of the first book (and figures prominently in future books), ultimately the book is about Megan vs. the Yezer & the Accuser. She has to defeat the Accuser on her own. It’s about her and her story and how she changes, and the second is the same.

The Downside books are definitely UF. There is some romance and some sex–I’m going to get to the sex part in a minute–but ultimately Chess solves the mystery and Chess has to fight the bad guys, every time. She may get a little help from her friends, and she may fall in love along the way, and she may deal with a lot of issues related to her sexual or relationship choices, but in the end it’s just her doing what she has to do. And the romantic subplot stuff is a much smaller part of the books on the whole (with the possible exception of the third book, which it looks like we now might be calling SPELLBOUND GHOSTS.)

Now, one of the most recent comments the entry got was this:

I hate picking up a UF (and sometimes a SFF novel) and finding a thinly veiled romance. I am simply not into romances as a rule and really don’t care to read about someone having teh hawt sexxorz.
While I appreciate that people head in the UF direction precisely because of the copious sex and romance, it is not for me. I have even taken to picking up a book in the store and skimming page by page counting the sex scenes and considering the length of the scene. 0-1 is ideal, up to 3 dependent on the length and detail. Anything above that is an automatic ‘no’. I have no problems with relationships, searching, acquiring, troubles and what not. It can provide interest. I like things to be a bit more realistic than the standard romance instant lurv. I just wish books were better labeled. I have picked up novels listed as paranormal romances and found a great story with little to no sex and a more or less realistic approach to relationships. I have also picked up books labeled Scifi, fantasy or fiction with more insta-lurv and sex than a skin-a-max late night movie marathon. Hence the page by page skimming in the store. This is not to say that I haven’t purchased books with, in my opinion, too much sex, I have. The story just has to be very good and I can just flip past the areas that to me, aren’t important. These are very rare. I do have to laugh at myself though, wanting realistic relationships in novels which have nothing to do with reality.

I was going to reply to this in the comments but it interested me so much I thought it would be a good separate entry in itself.

First, I’ve gotten a few comments along the lines of “There’s too much sex for me.” And what troubles me about it–one of the things, anyway–is the way the commenter always seems to feel kind of sheepish about it, or like they expect to be attacked. Guys, there is no reason in the world why anyone, anywhere, should have to apologize for their reading tastes. Never. Ever. (Unless you like reading kiddie porn or something, of course.) But just because you don’t want to read erotica? You have every right not to read erotica if you don’t want.

I’m kind of the opposite, because I won’t buy a romance if there’s no sex scene and I’ll skim in the store for that. If there’s no sex it goes back on the shelf. And I don’t apologize for that. As readers of The Strumpet Series know, I believe sex scenes are important; I outlined my reasons in this entry specifically. In a nutshell, though, they are that I believe sex scenes–if well-written–show us something about the characters and their relationship that we couldn’t see any other way, that they are fulcrums on which entire plotlines and character arcs can shift, and that leaving them out in essence hides things from the reader and leaves them out of important parts of the story.

But let’s be honest. Not every sex scene is going to do that. They should, but they don’t always. And let’s be honest too, some readers just don’t find them interesting or appealing. I think that’s a shame, because I believe a well-written sex scene is a thing of beauty and adds a lot to a story, but I would never tell anyone they HAVE to read them if they don’t like them.

But I do think this points to the other thing which troubles me, and it’s one where I think those blogs and groups I linked to above can help. Because UF is a fairly new genre–which is to say, it’s been around for a long time but has just gelled into “UF,” everyone seems to have a different idea of what exactly it is. There are people who believe UF is exclusively first-person heroines, for example. There are people who believe that if a human is in love with a paranormal creature, it’s a paranormal romance no matter how much or how little of the book is devoted to the relationship.

So it’s hard to label the books correctly. It’s hard to know exactly where to look and what to look for. I’ve seen a few people who feel PERSONAL DEMONS is a paranormal romance rather than UF.

The thing is, what used to define genre romance was the HEA–the Happily-Ever-After ending. That separated romance from anything else. But now there are books sold as romance that don’t have it. There are books sold as UF that do.

And the level of sex isn’t really a good indicator of genre either, as the commenter pointed out. PD has one sex scene; DEMON INSIDE has two. UNHOLY GHOSTS and the further Downside books have at least one each; two at the most. Because I do believe they’re important; they’re part of the story. But PD skirts the line of paranormal romance whereas UG doesn’t at all, I don’t think.

All of which is a rather long and convoluted way of saying this is a complex issue, and one that will probably get more so as time goes on, which is why groups and blogs and communities are important.

I dislike the mislabeling of books in general. Books should be easy for readers to find; you should get what you want without having to hunt around too terribly much. While I am absolutely an advocate of trying new and different books, it’s hard to try new and different books when you don’t know where those are either. This is why I want to open the blog to recommendations on Monday and why I want to keep doing so on occasion; it’s why I recommend various genre blogs and groups.

But I’m really interested in your thoughts on this. How do you as a reader decide what genre is which? Where do you make the distinction? What do you look for in UF and how is that different from what you look for in para romance, if you read both?

Like I said if you know of a UF group or blog that I don’t have, please leave it in comments. I’d like to keep specific titles out of this one, as we’ll do that next week and hopefully that thread will keep going while I’m away.

So you tell me. What do you think?

And sigh again.

I wasn’t going to talk about this, I really wasn’t. Because I don’t want to piss off or upset people. I certainly don’t want to make readers, the lovely people who spend money on books, angry with me.

But I just…It’s like the opinion is a pot of coffee, percolating in my chest, and it’s going to explode. (Incidentally, I feel kind of weird thinking that nobody uses percolators anymore. My parents were never coffee drinkers, but my Grandpa was. And when he would come visit the smell of coffee and especially the sound of the percolator, that particular burble-sploosh noise, would wake me up in the mornings. I used to really like it; I was fascinated by the percolator and could never figure out quite how it worked, you know? All those childhood machines that seemed like magic to me, and none of them are in use anymore. The percolator, the 8-track tape, the flashlight that ran because of how fast you squeezed the trigger thingie…anyway. No time for this; this is going to be a little long anyway.)

So everybody knows about this Stephen King/Stephenie Meyer thing. Basically, Mr. King said in an interview that Ms. Meyer “can’t write worth a darn.”

And for reasons I cannot fathom, it’s being treated like he said Hitler was a really good guy or something, or that in his spare time he enjoys molesting children.

Leaving aside the truth or lack thereof of his statement itself, and leaving aside the fact that although he claimed Meyer can’t write worth a darn he did say he understood the appeal of the books…

So what?

There seem to be two schools of thought among the “Fry him! FRY HIM!” crowd. The first is that he’s jealous of Meyer’s success, which is, IMO, patently ridiculous. Stephen King is arguably the most successful writer the world has ever seen (and no, you cannot bring up the people who wrote the Bible or the Talmud of the Koran or whatever). No, I’m serious. Think about it for a minute. How long has the man been writing bestsellers? How many of his books or stories have been made into major films? Adapted for television? Turned into series? How many of those film adaptations have garnered Oscar nominations in any category?

Now think of one other author, living or dead, which that kind of success. ONGOING success. I suppose it’s possible to argue that JK Rowling hits it, but King’s written something like thirty books. JKR has not. Tolkein had massive, unprecedented success, but again, not as many books.

So the idea that Stephen King is jealous of Stephenie Meyer is silliness. I’m sorry but it is, and there’s another reason why it is, and it ties into my whole feeling about this so I’ll get to it in a minute.

First I want to address the other silliness surrounding this, which is the idea that writers shouldn’t criticize other writers. Which is bullshit.

I’m not even going to discuss the fact that without writers criticizing other writers we would’t have Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses. We wouldn’t have Virginia Woolf’s comment about Ulysses: “The work of a greasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.” We wouldn’t have ANY of Dorothy Parker’s fantastic reviews; we wouldn’t have any of Florence King’s; we wouldn’t have a huge, varied, and wonderful library of critique and wit and style. Since fucking when is it not okay for writers to comment on and criticize the work of other writers? In what world has that *ever* been the case?

I would say that it stopped being okay when women got in on it, since it seems to largely be women playing the “Stephen King’s just plain mean!” card, but that isn’t right at all. Especially not after I just quoted or mentioned three women in the last paragraph, not one of whom behaved as though a critique of her work was tantamount to touching little kids in their Swimsuit Areas.

But I suspect womanhood has something to do with it, yes I do. And that something is, everyone playing the “professional courtesy” card (professional courtesy, what a bunch of crap. We’re writers, not fucking insurance salesmen) seems to be female, and more importantly, seems to be upset not that one writer is commenting on another writer’s work, but that the commenting writer has a protruding pee-pee and the one being commented on does not.

I know.

But seriously. King said some not-very-nice things about a few male writers in that article too, but nobody seems to be jumping up and down all over the internets to say how Mr. King is just jealous of Mr. Patterson. In fact, no one seems at all bothered by the fact that not only did King call Petterson “a terrible writer,” he didn’t even qualify that statement anywhere by saying he sees the appeal of Patterson’s work, or that Patterson has very cleverly tapped into something in his audience’s collective subconscious.

So…why? Why does it seem okay for King to criticize Patterson, but not Meyer? Why isn’t anyone throwing “jealous” around? Why isn’t anyone acting as though writers are supposed to keep their mouths shut when we see each other butchering the language, as though we’re all the very best of good, clean pals and every Saturday night we sing Kumbaya in the park and roast hot dogs?

Yeah. I think a big part of it is that Meyer is a woman. And I think there is a very ugly assumption beneath this, which is that a woman cannot take criticism. And sadly, I think there is a segment of the female writing “society,” for lack of a better term, which truly cannot take criticism, who flounce around saying things like “If you’ve never written a book you can’t criticize” or “It’s hard work to write a book and the author deserves something for that and it’s mean to say her book isn’t very good” or whatever other whiny little excuses these namby-pambies toss around to justify their own total and complete lack of professionalism.

We’ve seen these people online. We see them all the freaking time, in fact. They’re the ones who stalk Amazon reviewers or decide to name transexual AIDS-riddled prostitutes after people who give them mediocre reviews (and let’s keep in mind, btw, what sort of person thinks “transexual” is a worthy insult) or send nasty emails to reviewers or start blogs where they put up nasty cartoons or send hate mail or have hissy fits in comments or whatever the fuck it is, and thus make all female writers look as though we too have never progressed beyond the 9th grade.

This attitude seriously makes me ill. You know what, gang? I seriously doubt Stephenie Meyer gives a fuck what Stephen King says. And good, because she shouldn’t. I love Stephen King. I think he’s fantastic. And I would love to think he’d read my work and enjoyed it; that would be a huge thrill. But you know what? if he loved it, that’s just one man’s opinion. And if he hated it? That’s still just one man’s opinion.

And jealous? Why is this argument so rarely brought up when two men are involved? Why do we hardly ever see someone claiming, for example, that Steve Jobs is just jealous of Bill Gates? or that, I don’t know, Javier Bardem is just jealous of Benicio del Toro? Not that I’m aware of these men making comments about each other, but really, can you imagine it? So why then, does this crap come up when women are involved? Stephen King is a grown man, people, and I don’t know about you but I’ve never seen anything before that would lead me to believe he’s the kind of man for whom jealousy of other writers is a problem. Have you?

Stephenie Meyer is a published author; she’s written four enormous bestsellers. Let’s give her a little credit, shall we? Let’s assume she’s mature enough to shrug this off and go on writing, and not behave as though she’s crying in the bathrooms by the gym and she won’t come out until Stephen writes her a note that says he’s sorry and gee, golly, the dance is tonight and she was our ride and we’re gonna get Stephen and pants him in the cafeteria?

We’re all entitled to our opinions. (In fact, one could argue that Meyer is one of the few people Stephen King can actually criticize *without* looking like a bully; who else is big enough?) And in the grand scheme of things, this is such a non-issue it’s not even funny.

I was going to tell you about a book I bought the other day, which I haven’t finished, but which is so well-written my jaw keeps literally dropping open–but that will have to wait until next Monday, because this is so long already. Sigh.

So, first, sorry. I didn’t post on Monday. It was a Bad Day. I’ve been having a lot of those lately, but Monday was particularly Bad and I honestly just couldn’t get my head around anything well enough to blog. So, sorry about that.

Seriously, is this month over yet? It’s been AWFUL. One of the worst months I’ve ever had; I feel bruised all over from the beating it’s given me. Part of it might be the Mercury retrograde; part of it might just be that it’s January and the weather is a neverending stream of miserable (and has been for two years.) Whatever it is, I just want to go crawl under the covers and hide.

But of course I cannot. I have kids to raise and a novel, a short story, and a proposal to write. So, no hiding for me. And actually, although it’s been a slow month, the novel is coming along and so is the proposal (haven’t started the short yet) so I feel good about that; I’m 25k or so into the third Downside book, which I’m calling CITY OF GHOSTS for now (although I’m not sure how unique that is, so we’ll see if I get to keep it. It might end up being something like UNDERGROUND GHOSTS or maybe GHOSTS UNBOUND. Don’t know. Reminder to self: Google “City of ghosts” and see what you get.) Shame, really, as it’s the perfect title for what I think is going to be a kickass book; I’m actually extremely pleased with it so far, which is nice. I have a couple more clues to drop in this first third and my subplots are simmering along nicely.

See, here’s what I do. I separate the novel, in my head, into three parts; assuming a 90k book, which of course it won’t be exactly–the final version of UNHOLY GHOSTS is about 98k; UNHOLY MAGIC before edits is about 101k. So we’ll see. Anyway.

It occurred to me that this particular way of structuring a book might interest some of you, so here’s what I’m going to do. This Thursday and the next two I’m going to outline my basic method; feel free to ask questions at the end of each post and I’ll answer them the following Thursday, and we’ll do a little summary at the end.

So. Why would you want to do this? Why would you want to structure your books this way? What is the benefit of it?

I can only answer what the benefit is for me, and how it helps me organize my thoughts and work, and the ways in which I feel it’s improved my writing. Honestly I think most of you probably do this anyway, either consciously or unconsciously.

I’m not an outliner or planner. I start my books with a couple of characters and a problem which needs solving. Occasionally I’ll have a couple of ideas for Big Scenes in my head, but that’s really it. An idea excites me and I start writing, period. If you are an outliner or planner, this may not be necessary for you or, again, you probably already do this. And as with any other writing advice I give, this is my way and only mine; it’s not in any way a “You must do it this way” or “This is the best way”. But I mentioned my little structure elsewhere and a few people really liked it, so I thought why not share it a little more widely.

Also keep in mind that if your projected word counts are shorter, you will of course need shorter thirds, and especially remember this is not set in stone. Every book is different. Every book will have its own needs. You do not have to do this the way I do in order to write well, not at all, not remotely.

So. Here is what this does for me:

**It improves pacing. Separating the book into three 30k chunks, and knowing basically what purpose each chunk has to serve, gives me a structure on which to hang my wild imaginings (hee). Also, because of the way each “Act” is set up, it draws the reader into the story at a predictable pace and keeps the flow of information steady.

**It gives me a much stronger first draft. You pantsers know exactly what I’m talking about here. By the time our book is finished we have so many clues we need to go back and add, so many changes that need to be made, it’s like rewriting the book. But keeping the structure in mind makes it easier for me to fit in anything I might need; I know where the additional info needs to go or from where it needs to be removed.

**It means I’m not cramming to fit things in at the end, or left with too many loose ends.

**It eliminates the problem of the “sagging middle”. I believe the sagging middle is a pacing/information problem; sagging middles occur when too much information is given in the beginning of a story. By structuring my books this way I make sure there’s plenty of action throughout.

Assuming a book is 90k words, by the end of the first third–or 30k–I need to have all my basic information in place:

*Who the major players are. The bad guy needs to be introduced here, even if–as is usually the case–the reader is unaware that s/he is the bad guy. Hell, I’m not usually aware at this point who the bad guy is, especially given how much I enjoy my red herrings. So I usually set up two or three likely suspects here. I can always edit later to strengthen or remove the connections, once I figure out who the Baddie really is. We also need, of course, the main characters.

*The basic plot. What is the mystery or problem we’re solving? A lot of people will tell you this should be in the first chapter, and they’re not wrong. The sooner the better. But I’m also a fan of the Indiana Jones opening, whereby the first chapter is an intro to character and action that clears up events which occurred before the book’s opening. So I feel that as long as we introduce the issue in those first three chapters, we’re good.

*At least one subplot, hopefully two. They don’t have to be delved too deeply into in the first 10k or so, but by the end of 30k they should be (and we’re going to go into the structure of each act itself as well). But the basic stage needs to be set early, in this first act. For example, in PERSONAL DEMONS, Megan’s interview with Brian. We also met our Ultimate Baddie in those first chapters and added our little subplot with the vision of the Yezer’s house on the astral plane. And of course we met our romantic lead as well and (hopefully) had a nice little attraction/irritation vibe going fairly quickly, at least by the end of that 30k.

ALL THE BASIC CLUES NEED TO BE IN PLACE BY THE END OF THE FIRST ACT.

This doesn’t mean at all that by the end of the first act the mystery would be solvable. Oh, no. Not at all. But everything that comes later has to build on what’s already in those first 30k words. No deus ex machinas for us; we need to lay our groundwork.

For example, let’s say we’re writing a murder mystery. It can be set in any world, from “normal” to total fantasy.

For example, let’s say we’re writing a murder mystery. It can be set in any world, from “normal” to total fantasy.

So, in the first 10-15k words we want to introduce:

Our main character
Sidekicks, if any
The mystery itself
The bad guys
The world we’re in
Our basic clues

Is the murderer out for revenge? Then we might want to mention, in that first section, how many people loved (or hated) the victim. Out for money? Then we mention how rich (or poor) the victim was. We might introduce some physical clues here; the bloody knife or gun, say. Or there may be no obvious cause of death, and we introduce the cause at the very end of this act (we may even wait until the second act, but if that’s the case we should have a lot of other stuff going on.)

And in the second 15k or so we want to start exploring the word, pick up a few additional clues, and get to our first Major Complication (beyond the basic plot-laying one).

Every act ends with action and deepening conflict.

Well, technically, every sentence, ever scene, every page, needs to deepen conflict, of course. But for the sake of our structure we’re going to focus on Major Conflict.

To go back to our murder mystery, let’s say our MC is Jennifer, a private detective. The subject of one of jennifer’s investigations turns up dead, and she decides to work with the police–or behind their backs, perhaps–to solve the crime for whatever reason.

It’s a pretty basic plot and one I think we’re all fairly familiar with.

So our first act is the dead body, the introduction of Jennifer and her frenemies on the force, the world, whatever. And we pick up info here and there, and perhaps we learn that Jennifer is debating whether to put her grandmother in a home, and Jennifer’s just broken up with a lover, and Jennifer needs a new car, or whatever.

We’ll probably have some excitement in those chapters, and some uncoverings. But it’s right around the end of that first act that things go from bad to worse. Jennifer is attacked at her home. Or a witness is found dead. Or she’s kidnapped. Or the police tell her in a very shady way to get the heck out of their investigation.

Whatever the plot is, the end of the first act is where you generally put:

*A major action scene
*A major complication

Preferably at the same time. That first 30k has to encourage the reader to keep going; you want the end of that act to be an “Oh crap” moment, you know what I mean? I tend to think of those, and of those major action scenes, as “beats”, and each act should end with or right around a beat.

This isn’t to say at all that you shouldn’t be having those moments as you go, because of course you should. But the end of that first act is where everything rolls on its side; it’s where the MC finds him or herself in jeopardy somehow or where someone else is put in jeopardy (like, for example, the kidnapping of Catherine Martin in Thomas Harris’s Silence of the Lambs, to pull an example out of my–ahem–hat. The abduction, in fact, occurs on page 104 of my copy [I just went upstairs and grabbed it], which is 352 pages long, and is especially masterful there as just a few pages before Harris showed us the autopsy of a Buffalo Bill victim. Thus at the end of that book’s “first act” we have a graphic representation of how different this killer is; we have a significant clue in the throat larvae; and we have the abduction–so we know exactly what is waiting for that girl.)

The end of the first act is where the stakes jump higher. It’s not just an investigation anymore; this time it’s personal, if you know what I mean. Something Bad Has Happened. It’s going to happen again, unless we stop it. There’s often–again, as in Silence–a time factor introduced here too. Either way, this is where everything that’s come so far raises to a fever pitch, and the reader is (hopefully!) left breathlessly anticipating the second act, where everything gets deeper and more complicated.

Remember, none of this is set in stone. All stories are different. It’s just a guideline.

So. Any questions? What do you think; is this a structure you use? Do you keep these things in mind as you work?