From the Notebook: Victorian Courting Customs

First thing’s first: someone has randomly thanked me for posting in this journal, and encouraged me to keep up the good work. I don’t know who wrote the comment, but let me thank you for leaving it. Writing is a lonely adventure sometimes. Random, anonymous comments, while frustrating because the commenter remains mysterious, are greatly appreciated. Not to gush or anything, because the comment is a little sparse, but I’ve been having a semi-bad week thanks to school stresses and residual back/leg pain from an injury, and this random comment completely made my day.

All right. Now that I’ve managed to contain my pleasure, I thought I’d treat you all with a little bit of something something from my notes about courtships. I missed Valentine’s Day, but February is the month of love and hey, I am a romance writer, so here’s an excerpt from my research journal:

Courtship at most formal:

• Man wants to marry?
  1. Consider future prospects, financial position –> justify his trying to attract women?
  2. See if chosen women return his affection “with delicacy and caution to avoid compromising her” (can happen even before meeting the girl)
     -Might see her in church, at a ball, be family friend
  3. If haven’t met her before, arrange for mutual friend to introduce him to family
     -If no mutual friend, good sign the idea should be dropped cuz families don’t run in same social circle
• Girl and Guy meet in family circles with at least one married member present…allows girl to “assess his worth”
  -Does he diss women? Does he attend church? Are his hobbies “low and vulgar?”
  -He also can’t be lazy, eccentric, frivolous or foppish
  -He better have enough biz interest to ensure they’ll have future $$ 

  -Also allows him to see if she is attentive to her duties, respectful/affectionate to parents, kind to siblings, mellow…

• If she turns out to be a flirt or he a jerk, they can remove themselves from the courtship at this process and not feel guilty
• Now he can speak to her father. If dad’s agreeable, speak to daughter

Parent’s involvement along gender lines: dad takes care of financial concerns, mom looks at social compatability.

If all looks good, invitations set so couple can meet, give talking opportunities…

Information gleaned from Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders

In other words, courtship was a business back then. I’m not sure how many happy couples were created out of such a courtship system, but given the number of romantic fiction authors, I hope there were a lot. Or at least a few. But then, given the divorce rate these days, and, knowing that for many couples, the divisive topic was money, maybe we should consider marriage more of a business than we do?

Anyway, Happy belated Valentine’s Day! May your muse bless you with beautiful prose that befits the month of love.

Building Novel Templates

I found this article online to help you structure your projects. It seems simple enough, and isn’t a strict outline, which I have never been able to do. Instead, it helps you make a list of major plot points, which does make it seem suspiciously like an outline. Perhaps it’s just how Parnell talks about his method, but I just seemed to find this article helpful. Give it a try, it might help with your writer’s block (even if you are in the middle of a project).

Building Novel Templates
by Rob ParnellFirst, know your characters inside out, work through a rough story outline either in your head or on paper, making sure it’s your characters that define the story and not the other way round. Okay, so that’s the tough bit. Now for the easy bit:

1. Get a piece of paper and write 1 to 10 down the left hand side with plenty of space for writing in between.
2. Next to No 1, write Intro.
3. Next to No 10, write Finale
4. At No 1, write one sentence, no more, describing your opening scene.
5. At No 10, write one sentence describing the last scene in your book.
6. For instance, if you were writing a love story, next to No 1 you might write: ‘Jane finds herself alone after husband John dies’
7. At No 10, you might write ‘Dirk asks for Jane’s hand in marriage.’ It’s simplistic I know but that’s almost the point.
8. Now, against 2 to 9, write down the major plot points that will take your reader from the beginning of your novel to the end. These will act as cues for scenes in your writing.

Now read it through. Is there logic? Does it seem satisfying? Is there a moral, a point to the story? If so, good. If not, start again. Its no big deal.If you’re happy with what you’ve got, write a couple of words, lines etc. linking the plot points. These act as more cues for scenes in your novel. Next, transfer everything on to PC and begin to expand on your short sentences.

Start to describe how you’re going to open scenes, what you’re going to write about, what actions take place, what the various conversations will be about and how issues might be set up and resolved. At the end of this process you should have a draft template for your novel. Read over if a few times to see if it includes everything you want to mention in your novel.

This is a great exercise for many reasons, not least that it helps you visualize your novel in its entirety, probably one of the best tricks you’ll ever have to pull as a writer! Not only that, it can help you iron out problems before you start writing. Too many writers stumble during their novels because they run out of steam and cant remember where it was going, or discover its now different from how they imagined it.

I know planning novels is not everyone’s idea of creative bliss. Indeed many writers tell me they just cant do it, donut want to do it, and will fight to protect their right to make up the story as they go along. Fine. That works for some. But let me tell you something I’ve learnt, in my long career teaching writers to write novels. With a novel template you are at least twenty times more likely to finish your novel than without one! Sobering thought, eh? So before you dismiss the idea, at least give the template a fair go.

© Copyright Rob Parnell 2004 http://easywaytowrite.com

Article found at http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/templates.html

Keep Your Writing Sharp…By Reading A Lot

The following wonderful writing advice was found at Carrie’s Procrastinatory Outlet. Her original post is about why we, as writers, should analyze why we, as readers, decide to put a book down. This analysis should improve our writing and help us with our editing, is her main point. I decided to share her writing tips with you, but click the link above if you want to read the original blog post or start reading Carrie on a normal basis.

• Once you’ve made a point, move on. Don’t belabor, don’t get mired down in dialoge that doesn’t move the story forward. Especially in the beginning.
• When you’ve got a hook and when you sell the book to the reader based on that hook, get to the hook early. Don’t make us sit around and wait; that can make the reader antsy.
• Corollary to above: if the reader knows the hook is coming don’t make like it’s some big surprise to the reader. And don’t make that the only thing we’re reading for either.If we know the book is about the woman getting dumped by her boyfriend and so she has to go out and figure out her life (or whatever) don’t drag out the first two chapters when she’s all nervous cause she thinks he’s going to propose to her at the special dinner he planned when we all know she’s about to be dumped cause that’s what the book is about. Sure, make it a cute scene, but don’t spend too long.

  We already know what happens (this is my personal back cover blurb rule: if the reader will know something by reading the back cover blurb, don’t drag it out in the book – or at least don’t make that be the only reason the reader is turning pages cause there will be no payoff).

• Be creative with the middle of the book (so much easier said than done, eh?) Don’t necessarily go with the first idea that strikes you. I can’t remember who said to brainstorm 20 options for each big plot point because you never know what kind of crazy, yet appropriate, stuff you’ll come up with.I guess I’m trying to say that sometimes the obvious is good, but sometimes it’s boring. I think this is more important for plot based books: I like less obvious for plot based books. If it’s character based I don’t mind so much if the plot is obvious because I care more about the characters and how the plot is a reflection of them.
• Make every scene count. Don’t give the reader the option of putting the book down. So much easier said than done, eh?

Carrie’s original post written February 3, 2007 at http://carrie-me.blogspot.com/2007/02/putting-books-down.html.

Quote: Embellishment

Do not embellish so much in the pursuit of drama that you lose sight of the truth. Beware telling only one side of the story. It’s unfair to your audience, leaving them to think and act on false impressions.
- Jennifer Jackson (arcaedia at LiveJournal)

Quote: The Plot

The primary purpose of the plot is to give the protagonist a reason to change in the direction she needs to change.
- Alicia Rasley

Can’t Slow Down

I can’t remember if I mentioned this already (and I’m too lazy to look at the last couple entries to find out), so let me say this now: school is back in session. This surely explains the lack of posts and the reason why it is taking me three weeks to finish one book when normally, I finish three books in one week.

That aside, I am fighting for my right to write. I am taking six classes when the normal is three or four, I am working more hours than I have ever before, and I am the new editor-in-chief of my college’s magazine. Busy girl? That I am. Finding time to write? Surprisingly, I am. Because I’m so busy, I end up freaking out that I won’t be able to get everything done, so I start my homework and projects as soon as they are assigned, I end up getting them done a couple days ahead of time, and suddenly, my Friday morning shift at work is spent writing another chapter or so (in-between answering programming questions).

Life is hectic, but it’s good. Then again, life is always good when I find time to write and I feel like what I’m writing isn’t complete and utter dross*. Plus, the writing is easier this time around since I’ve put aside that first complete draft that I finished this past October. Following the sage advice of writers who have come before me, I’ve laid that draft to rest as utter trash and started anew with the same characters, now knowing what works and what doesn’t. I know now, that the phenomenon of the adult orphan will play a much bigger part. Yet, I don’t want the story to be bogged down with it, I want my characters to learn and grow. I know now not to force my characters, especially in terms of shoving the plot in one direction when the characters are plainly telling me to go the opposite way.

So tell me, how have your projects been going? The new draft is approximately 11,000 words, which I’m proud of. I gotta say, NaNoWriMo really loosened those fears that I have to write pretty the first time around.

* dross (n): worthless material that should be removed.

Trials of an Editor

Think your editor, or all editors, have it good because they get to sit around proofreading the next Great American Novel while drinking tea? I never really thought about it. Most the things I hear about are how difficult it is to be a writer, or an agent, or a publisher. But the editor? Well, I guess I figured they sat around reading already approved manuscripts and that there were enough of them to go around. According to Lucia Macro, that’s very untrue. Read below to find out just how a real editor spends her day:

What I Do When I’m At Work
by Lucia MarcoWhenever I tell people I’m an editor, I almost always get two responses. The first is, “Oh, so you must be a really good proofreader!” The other is, “Wow, I wish I sat around all day and got to read books.”

That’s when I get to tell them that while I do a little bit of proofreading, that I don’t spend my hours reading galleys, red pencil in hand. And one thing I seldom do at work is “sit around” all day reading books—or manuscripts. Their vision of me in a comfy chair, cup of tea in hand, happily reading the next Great Novel is a (lovely) fantasy while tweedy men and earnest women occasionally pop in for “a word” went the way of the two martini lunch…if it ever existed at all.

Angela Booth’s Top 10 to Help You Write More

Top Ten Writing Tips to Help You Write More
- Angela Booth

Tip One: Pay attention to images
Your right brain thinks in images, and when you write, you translate images from your right brain into words. Usually this process happens so quickly that you’re unaware of it. If you can make this process conscious, you can goose up your own creativity. Stephen King calls this process “writing with the third eye — the eye of imagination and memory.”

Tip Two: Making mud/ laying track
Your first draft of any piece of work is “mud” — raw material. Julia Cameron refers to your first draft as “laying track”, another term I like. If the first draft’s awful, great! It’s meant to be. It’s only raw material. However, if you don’t create the first draft, or you wait until you have a really great idea that’s worth a first draft, you won’t write anything. Write. Make mud.

Tip Three: Just write — think on the page, or on the screen, NOT in your head
Thinking too much while you write is treacherous, because you can spend two hours “writing” and end up with half a page of work. Write-think. That is, think on the page, not in your head.

Tip Four: Grow your writing with lists
Listing is a form of brainstorming. It grows your writing, and it’s fun. Listing is an excellent technique to use when you get stuck in your writing, and it doesn’t matter what kind of writing you’re doing, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction. Listing also helps you in the revision process, to add texture to your work.

Tip Five: Use your magical thesaurus
Your most useful listing tool is —- a thesaurus. Keep one on your desk to kickstart your brain. Your thesaurus and dictionary are perfect kickstarters. They’re also vital tools whenever you’re revising.

Tip Six: Make writing the FIRST thing you do each day
If you write at least page, by hand, as soon as you get up, you’ll find that writing comes more easily to you for the rest of the day. You’re also more focused and relaxed for the rest of the day.

Tip Seven: Set WIG goals — the best goals are always unrealistic
Writer Martha Beck calls unrealistic goals WIGs: Wildly Improbable Goals. In the September 2002 issue of Oprah magazine she says: “… learning to invite and accept your own WIG can awaken you to a kind of ubiquitous, benevolent magic, a river of enchantment that perpetually flows to your destiny.” A WIG is exciting. Just thinking about a WIG will get your heart pounding. Working toward your WIG (writing a book, writing a screenplay, getting signed on as a contributor at a mass-market magazine) takes hard work. Lots of hard work. And at the end of that hard work, as Beck points out, you achieve your goal, but there’s a twist. You never achieve it exactly as you envisioned it – you achieve something even better, something you could never have imagined. I’m a great believer in writing ABOUT your goals. This is because when you write, you’re using both sides of your brain, and are accessing your unconscious mind as well. You live in your left brain, which you regard as “you”, but you have a silent partner, your right brain, which is also you, and which communicates via images and feelings.

Tip Eight: Separate writing and editing
Writing comes first, then editing. If you try to combine the two, you will block. Writing should come as easily to you as chatting to a friend. If it doesn’t, you’re trying to edit in your head before you get the words on paper, or on the computer screen. If you’re not aware of the danger of combining writing and editing, you’ll make writing hard for yourself, when it should be easy. If you don’t have trouble talking, how can you have trouble writing?

Tip Nine: It’s good to struggle with your writing
In his book The Breakout Principle, Dr Herbert Benson (who also wrote The Relaxation Response) describes a struggle/ release process that leads to a new level of awareness. When you struggle, and then completely give up the struggle — just give up — there’s a chance that you can achieve a peak experience which leads you to a new level of functioning. How does this work in your writing? Let’s say that you’re writing a novel. This work is hard for you. However, you keep at it faithfully, working on your novel each day. You struggle with it for weeks. Then you give up. Although you keep writing, you say to yourself: “I don’t care any more what garbage I write. I’m just going to do it. I’m just going to write.” This release leads to writing magic. Suddenly you’re inspired, and you finish the book in a rush. Although you will still occasionally struggle with your writing (because struggle is a part of life), you’ve broken through to a new level of functioning in your work. This new level would not, and could not, have happened without the struggle.

Tip Ten: Good writing = truthful writing
Writing truthfully can feel like undressing in public, so many beginning writers worry about sharing their writing. Be compassionate. Firstly, to yourself. Write. Write for yourself. All writing takes courage.

Found here from Angela Booth’s Writing Blog.

Happy New Year, Get Studying

Happy New Year everyone! May your muse shine brightly this year.

Now to some business: for those of you who are interested in taking graduate-level courses, check out the following programs. Some of them are only a week long, but cram enough information to cover a year-long publishing internship/entry-level job. I suggest looking these over, especially if you’re thinking of self-publishing and doing it properly and well. Also, it looks great on your resume, and, I think, looks even better than saying you have a graduate degree in Creative Writing. The thing is, a creative writing degree is hard to sell unless you came from a prestigious school or had a well-known writer as your lecturer. Even so, having the degree only means you know the tricks–it says nothing about whether you can apply them or not. With a publishing degree, it shows you take the process of writing a book seriously. Your publishing house/agent/whomever knows that you understand the process and therefore know that even though they’re publishing the book, your marketing skills are absolutely key.

NYU Summer Publishing Institute: Provides lectures, workshops, simulations, site visits, special events, and career planning sessions to those interested in developing a publishing career. Explore key principles and practices in this thorough introduction to publishing, as well as the role of editing, marketing, design, new media, production, budgeting, advertising, circulation, publicity, and much more.

Columbia Publishing Course: Shortest graduate school in the country; would take you a year in an entry-level position in publishing to learn what you will learn in six-weeks here, and ten years to meet all the people you will meet. For almost sixty years, the course has been training young men and women for careers as editors, literary agents, publishers, designers, publicists, and more. Graduates can be found in every kind of job, at major magazines and publishing houses across the nation.

University of Denver Publishing Institute: An intensive, full-time, four-week, graduate-level course that devotes itself to all aspects of book publishing: editing, marketing, and production. During the final week, the Institute provides career counseling sessions to assist students in finding positions in publishing.

Emerson College MA in Publishing and Writing: Offers courses in book, magazine, and electronic publishing; in fiction and nonfiction writing; and in literature and criticism. Internship and apprenticeship opportunities are available, for credit, in Boston publishing and production firms and literary agencies.

Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing: Canada’s premier training ground for professional publishing, Simon Fraser University’s Master of Publishing (MPub) is a rigorous 16-month program of seminars, guest lectures, technology workshops and an internship.

Publishing Training: Learn publishing skills from the industry’s training provider. Classroom-based open courses cover everything from editorial skills to marketing and publicity. Can also study proofreading, editing, copywriting or picture research by distance learning.

Quote: New Year’s Resolutions

My New Year’s resolution is to focus on the book and forget all the crap that surrounds the writing business. To lose myself in a story, and not give a damn if it makes any lists, has a good sell-through, gets glowing reviews on Amazon, pleases my editors, hell, even pleases my readers. I want to love what I’m writing so much that none of the rest of it matters, and if I don’t, I won’t write it. Life’s too short to abuse the muse.
- Anne Stuart