Stuck

So, you've written out most of your story and then for some reason the climax seems almost moot.  What happened?  Is it that you've gone over it in your head so much that it just doesn't affect you anymore?  Does it feel like the right ending?  Or does it feel flat?  What's going on here?  How do you pull out of it?  Well, formula should be able to help!  That's right, for every story there is a formula.  Go back to your notes, read a good book and pick apart the ending.  Maybe your climax is too predictable.  Or maybe you need to end it somewhere else.  What ever the case you can always go back to those plot and structure manuals!  James Scott Bell I believe has a great book on Plot and Structure.  I believe it's called Write Great Fiction.

What's Your Books Soundtrack?

Do you listen to music while you write?  I've heard of others proclaiming they listen to music while writing and even Patricia Briggs gives you a "music list" of the songs that her DJ character Kitty plays on the radio.  One piece of advice I was given was don't listen to music that has words in it.  The lyrics might wind-up in your book!

Research

Research is a part of the writing process.  I can't think of any type of novel or short story where I don't have a question or detail to research.  But where do you go to research?  Google? 

I've heard professors at colleges tell their students they must provide an index of research they've done on their projects.  Those professors tell me if one of those references is from the Wikipedia or snopes they pretty much discount the work.  Professors don't think highly of wikipedia or internet information that is free because anyone can write anything they want on the internet. 

Someone published is more likely to have good information.  Someone who has done the proper research.  Not someone who gets all their information from "hearsay". 

What do you think?  Are some internet sources firm?  Or would you rather go to an encyclopedia?  Which source would you trust more?

Writing Unique & Original

 Photo by Donald Weller

 

Here's a conundrum.  You have to be original and have a unique voice or story telling, but you have to be "familiar" enough so that readers don't feel alienated.  Writing unique and original seems to equate to finding your voice.  But what is voice?  To some, voice would be the way you talk in words.  Voice is your unique choice and placement of words.  Voice makes readers familiar to you.  If you have a voice all your own that's unique, where a fan could look at an excerpt and say, "that's Neil Gaiman!"  without having known the author of the piece.  So when you go out and try to be unique and original, don't forget most of that comes from voice!  So tune up your words and write without editing.  You might find the rhythm in which people with relate to. 

Book Opinion: My Immortal Assassin by Carolyn Jewel

Being a fan of Carolyn Jewel's "My..." series I looked forward to "My Immortal Assassin".  The covers of her books are always hot too!  This series continued on with Durian, the sworn fiend to Nicodemus, and Gray, vanilla human.  Gray turns out to be not so vanilla after the mage Christoph kills Tigran, Gray's lover, and the demon directs the power of his magic into Gray. 

When Gray tries to kill Christoph, Durian intercedes.  Being a demon, Durian has no love for mages, but Nicodemus has agreed Christoph no harm will come to him if he doesn't harm "free kin" (which are demons without mage masters).  Now it's up to Durian to keep Gray from killing Christoph and keep the mage from enslaving Gray.

Okay, that was my interpretation of the book.  Here are my thoughts.  The book started off with what I've come to know as Jewel's formula.  Female in trouble, demon comes to kill her, for some reason the demon doesn't, they fall in love and have lots of sex.  There really wasn't a obvious story arc (but there were hints) from the first two books.  This is the book that really makes you aware that there will be more to the series (and why it will continue).

I liked this book but not as much as the second one--I liked "My Forbidden Desire" better than "My Wicked Enemy" even!  I knew a "Christoph" who was wild-eyed, too skinny and freakishly unstable, so I placed a mental image of him in the place of Jewel's Christoph and it worked well. 

On the case of the book as a whole, it felt a little all over the place and seemed a bit drawn out on the sex scenes -- not as in too much of one sex scene, but the build up seemed forced at times.  I had a little bit of difficulty in knowing who was talking.  However, I loved the concepts, I loved the world, I love the details.  That's why I'm going to be reading more!

I had some other nagging questions...but these are kinna spoilers...so don't look!

•  Why did Gray give up going after Christoph?  -- I realize she did it to save Durian, but I'm just not convinced about the circumstance.
•  Who made the stupid rule of not allowing demons to have sex in there true form without permission?  You might as well tell teenagers not to have sex.  See how good that does.  "Ah Nicodemus?  May I please have true form sex with this human?"  How's that gonna go?  I'd like to slap the most noble wise being that set that rule.  
•  Why did Leonidas make Gray a full fledged witch?  That was kinda of like here ya go! Have this power that takes years of practice and training and now you have that all within a blink.  It did not make sense.  I mean Gray already had some of Christoph's magic, why not have it grow organically from that?  -- Weird scene.  
•  When do I get to see more of Kaynan?  It seemed in the last book there was going to be a book about Kaynan and Matty, but that doesn't seem to be working out according to the third book.  

Now you might think I'm down on the book, but I'm not.  I did like it, however I have seen better writing from Jewel and have fully confidence in her writing ability and to entertain.  So I'm getting the next book about Iskander!   On her website, it said it would be out July 2011.  But in the book it said January. 

Here's a link to her website: Carolyn Jewel

Market Your Writing

I'm a Writer not a Marketer!

Yes you are.  If you have a published book, your responsible for marketing that book.  How?  Where?  Are there people that do that?  I know I've asked this before but I'd like to show a different method of thinking about marketing.

I look at different forms of marketing and sales and one person I really like is Larry Prevost.  He's up-beat, he's an innovative thinker, he's positive and always looking for new ways to improve his ever expansive knowledge and experience he already has.

You can take a look at what Larry has to say about seperating yourself from the pack HERE.