Reminiscences of Controversies, Part 2

 I was hoping for a little color to add to Part 2 of "Reminiscences of Controversies," and, lo and behold, three pics arrived in the morning's e-mail. It seems the Girl Scouts had a sleep-over at Coco Key on International Drive (Orlando). So here are some colorful bits to spice up my memories of the early days of e-publishing.

Coco Key Resort, I-Drive, Orlando

Coco Key Resort

 

Cassidy, Hailey & Riley w/troop at Coco Key

  ~ * ~

Reminiscences of Controversies - Part 2

Continuing my series on how I've managed to put my foot in it through the years. (Gleefully, at times.) Here are excerpts from my article, "E-Books and You," written sometime between 2000 & 2002:



On CONTENT. 

"E-publishers are looking for fresh ideas, new voices. They came into being as alternatives to print publishing, determined to offer a wide variety of ideas and styles than was acceptable in the traditional New York market. E-publishers are not afraid of cross-genres, older heroines, historicals set in the twentieth century, a long separation between the hero and heroine, or books set in foreign countries other than Britian or Ireland. If a book is well-written, it doesn't have to be rejected because the marking department says it's too long or doesn't have a hook they can sell. Yes, economical publishing costs make this feasible, but the open-minded attitude of e-publishers is the key ingredient which will appeal to the eager minds of Internet users looking for the world of the twenty-first century. 

[Note: not much change here, except that major publishers have finally waked up to the e-revolution, most now adding an e-book line.]

 ACCESSIBILITY.
 Most print books, particularly category, have a lifetime of four to six weeks. That's right 30-45 days. After you spent six months, maybe a year, writing it. Not a happy thought. E-books are not only good for the length of your original contract, but for however long after that you want to keep your book on the web site. And your book is not fighting for doubtful placement at Barnes & Noble or even at your local mom and pop bookstore. Your book is right there on the World Wide Web, as available in London and Sydney as it is in New York, Boston, Chicago, suburbs across the nation, farms in the heartland, or college dormitoris. To those with the newest cell phone upgrades, it's even available on the beach!

[Note: so much change here the reality is mind-boggling. A deluge of e-books available on a myriad devices. So many good e-readers at a reasonable price; even some color e-readers at a cost that's not too far out of sight.  And then there are I-Pads and Smart Phones, and an endless variety of devices offering book-reading capacity.]

MONEY.
For most of us who write romance, e-book royalties are best described as "not much, not yet." The royalty percentage of each download is high (often around 35%), but e-books are still in their infancy and volume has not yet had time to build. Except for erotica. The demand for e-erotica has been astonishing, and its authors are making good money, as much as print books, if not more. So even if you don't care for erotica, it's helping increase e-readership, and we should all be grateful for its impact. 

[Note: Also a major change from when I wrote the above—primarily brought about by two things, I believe: the proliferation of e-reading devices and the advent of indie publishing. Well-known authors, publishing their backlists on their own, were among the first to discover this vast new market. And make good money. They were soon followed by those who "write between the cracks." Authors whose work was good but did not fit the New York guidelines. And then, of course, it seemed like half the world jumped on the bandwagon, and indie pub became the rage. Some good, some not so good. But you can't stuff the genie back in the bottle. Indie pub is as much here to stay as the formal e-publishing which began near the end of the 1990s. And, yes, a lot more than authors of erotica are making money, myself among them. For which I am enormously grateful.]

PUBLISHERS.
[Okay, I'm not going to repeat this paragraph. At the time I was proselytizing for recognition of e-publishers as true publishers, never dreaming what would happen when Smashwords and Amazon offered independent publishing. There are, however, many excellent e-publishers out there, who edit, provide covers, distribution, and pay royalties on time. In particular, if your work does not fit the New York mold, I strongly recommend submitting to a good e-publisher. This list has broadened a great deal in just the last few years as major New York publishing houses have added e-book divisions. Check with other e-pubbed authors to make sure you're submitting to one of the e-pubs who provides good service and prompt royalties. And if you'd rather go DYI, by all means do so. I've just edited several indie books, for example, where the characterizations and stories were truly impressive, comparable to only the top ten percent of New York print books. I will never, however, advocate writing a book and throwing it at the Internet with all the arrogance of someone who actually believes their first draft is undying prose. Edit, idiot! Edit! And if you can't do it yourself, hire someone who can.

 I don't write articles on the e-revolution or e-pub any more. There's no need. It's happened, and even faster than I anticipated. But I'm proud to have been in on it from very near the beginning. By the time I "retired" to indie pub, I had nine print books and eight e-books to my published credit. And Tarleton's Wife, the book that started it all for me, is on its third incarnation. Ellora's Cave Blush, which had offered an e-version for some time, brought it out in paperback in the fall of 2012. Talk about longevity!

 ~ * ~

 

Although e-publishing has been the major controversy I've been embroiled in over more than a decade, there are others worth a mention. 

I am a member of RWA's online historical romance chapter, The BeauMonde. I try to steer a median down the middle on the battles that rage over authenticity, but sometimes I blow my top and scream (via keyboard): How can it possibly matter what the weather was on a particular day in the year 1813? Do you really have to know the exact dates a certain play or opera was performed in London? Yes, I agree one shouldn't get the dates of the Frost Fair (which was unique) wrong. And one should never, ever have a bastard inherit a title. But, really . . . one can't be flexible about the weather? Or write about an opera by Mozart without citing the exact date and year? Come on, people, be real!

And—warning!—heaven forbid anyone should mention the word "horse" on the BeauMonde loop. In the blink of an eye there will be fifty posts on "horses I have known." Kind of hard on those of us who might like to get a word in edgewise. So, yes, I've been an old curmudgeon about that on occasion. 

And, yes, I'm the one who broke the dam on indie publishing on RWAPAN, RWA's e-loop for published authors. I wrote a post called "Brave New World," and it was like the walls came tumbling down. Suddenly, all sorts of print authors were admitting they were making money by indie-pubbing their backlist, even as others rushed to join the gravy train. Not long after that, RWA was putting out a survey asking their authors how much they were making on e-pub. Finally. 

Not that the battle is over - I still see a definite "class" system within RWA - print pubs vs. e-pubs vs. indie pubs. And I'm heartily sorry for it. This needs to change. Since I began writing more than twenty years ago, I have been involved in all three, and I can say with absolute honesty that my e-publishers provided far more extensive editing than my print publishers. And that I had to work a lot harder to write, edit, and format my indie books than I have ever worked at a book before. Give credit where credit is due. If someone writes a bunch of pages, calls it a book, and tosses it up on the net, warts and all, then that person's work should be shunned. But over the course of the past two and a half years of reading downloads exclusively, I have found some wonderful indie books (as well as some I deleted after the first few pages). Be open-minded. Accept that New York is not putting out all the good books. (It is, in fact, putting out some real wall-bangers, as well as the good stuff.) Be venturesome. Give something new a try. Reject the bad, accept, even praise, the good, no matter how the book found its way to Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, Sony, or your Smart Phone.

~ * ~

Next week: a different kind of controversy, one I put my foot in by accident because I had no idea it was such a sensitive topic.  Some call it, "Plotter vs. Pantser." Since I hate both terms, finding them both inadequate and a tad vulgar, I haven't decided what to call the two sides of the coin yet. But controversial? Oh wow! You wouldn't believe!

Blair's Free Book Schedule on Amazon Kindle

Florida Knight (an SCA story)                                  Tuesday, May 21

Limbo Man (the Russians are coming)                      Tuesday, May 28

Orange Blossoms & Mayhem (marriage & murder)      Tuesday, June 4 

For covers and blurbs of the books above, click here.
 

Thanks for stopping by.

Grace

Click here for a list of Grace's books as Blair Bancroft 

Thanks for stopping by.

Grace

ADD BOOK LINK

Reminiscences of Controversies

For those who are still wondering what was wrong with the romance cover 
featured in my previous blog: the lovely, languishing heroine has three hands.

 ~ * ~

Reminiscences of Controversies

In my life before the Romance Writers of America, I must admit to a controversy or two. I can distinctly recall telling people in Connecticut, when I was a young wife and mother, not to put me on any committees as I was inclined to be too vocal. (Which, alas, was all too true.) And I got into it on an environmental issue when a neighbor (on Long Island Sound) wanted to build a deck on a rocky outcropping, which was partially below mean high water. Had to go all the way to Hartford for a hearing on that one. I won, by the way. But mostly I lived a pretty peaceful existence until I joined RWA somewhere around twenty years ago. And began to discover how far outside the box I really was.

I had been editor of a small publishing company for a number of years, and when I learned RWA chapter contests were still advocating Courier 10 at 25 lines to the page, I nearly choked. Courier, a hold-over font from the 19th century? They had to be kidding. I admit we'd had word processing computers only about ten years at that point (not counting the ones before PCs), but, well, really . . .? 

I sighed and tried to conform, but using ugly old Courier with underlines for italics when the modern author could write in Times New Roman with real italics . . .? My solution? I only submitted to contests which did not specify a type font. And I gritted my teeth every time some other author complained that people using TNR were able to submit more words! Well, boo-hoo, so could they if they'd just get up out of their rut. (The johnny-come-latelies to publishing are undoubtedly dropping their jaws in astonishment. There was a time when TNR was frowned upon, considered "cheating"??? Oh, yes, a very long time, in fact.)

And then I discovered the multiple points of view I'd used in my first three books were a no-no. Since just about every book I'd ever read had multiple points of view, this was a shocker. But, according to RWA, romance readers wanted to concentrate on the hero and heroine, so that's what New York publishers were buying. Oops. In this particular case I struggled to remake my style—after all, we all like to make money, and the income from e-books at that time was pretty slim.  The almost immediate result, a sale to Kensington. And then at an RWA conference workshop, I learned that Signet (a division of Penguin Putnam) was looking for traditional Regencies, and, lo and behold, I'd found my niche. In that particular sub-genre of romance, I could write Regency and use multiple POVs!  [Of course that didn't last long. I was sailing along at Regency #6 when sex shoved the closed bedchamber door into Never-Never Land. Translate that as : both Signet and Kensington dropped their traditional Regency lines, and I was unemployed.] 

To get back to multiple POVs, over the last decade some publishers have become more flexible about POV, but the controversy hasn't gone away. Only a year or so ago, I had a Romantic Suspense rejected by a major e-publisher because it had more than four POVs. (Although another major e-publisher accepted it without a murmur.) Note to all authors out there - be careful you write in the style expected by the publishers to whom you're submitting.  

As you've guessed by now, I'm not a conformist. To laws of the land, yes, but not to traditions that need to be broken.

And then came the moment my mother, a very successful author of children's books, handed me a newspaper article on e-publishing. What? But it helped prepare me for what would happen only a year or so later. I had entered RWA's Golden Heart contest (for unpublished authors) with a Regency Historical titled Tarleton's Wife. Evidently, one of my judges was about to start an e-publishing company, and about two months before RWA's national convention, I was asked to help inaugurate the company by allowing them to publish Tarleton's Wife.  There was no way I was going to turn down such an offer, of course. I felt like a true pioneer. And, after all, if my highly knowledgeable mother thought it might be the wave of the future . . .

Tarleton's Wife finaled in the Golden Heart. I went to Chicago for the RWA convention (1999, I believe), where I met my publisher and her gal Friday. And on the night of the awards, my publisher was the person I chose to sit with me "down front." All finalists were asked to prepare an acceptance speech so we wouldn't be caught flat-footed before the microphone. And I did exactly that. Which is how I happened to stand before the entire assembly of Who's Who in RWA and proclaim that Tarleton's Wife had already been contracted and would be published that December by the e-publisher, Wings Press.  To tell you the truth, I had no idea I would provoke the enormous gasps that rang through the auditorium. No idea I was treading on sensitive toes or that it would be literally years before RWA recognized e-publishing, and even more before the true significance of e-publishing began to sink in.

Controversial? Oh yeah!

Those were tough years, while authors involved in the early days of e-publishing attempted to help others understand this great new medium of expression. I joined EPIC, the RWA of electronic authors. I wrote articles, which were posted to my website. (Blogs hadn't come along yet.) And everywhere we had to contend with put-downs from people who confused e-publishing with vanity publishing. No matter how frequently we told people we got royalties from a legitimate publishing company . . . Well, you get the message. To wean over readers, e-pubs had to go the paperback route as well as offering downloads, and to many skeptics POD (Print on Demand) became a dirty word. Poor e-publishers, they just couldn't win. 

But gradually e-pubbing grew, and in another effort to lure traditional readers, the e-reader was born. The first one, with its backlighting, was a marvel. I loved it. But like the legendary Tower of Babel, e-pub split into what seemed like a hundred directions, each new e-device putting out books in its own exclusive language. And causing e-publishers no end of anguish as they struggled to make books available in whatever computer language their readers needed. No wonder so many of the early e-pubs didn't make it.

But I get ahead of myself. I searched for some of my early articles on e-publishing and found them interesting, and sometimes amusing. How much I got right - and how much I got wrong!  Here are some excerpts from an article written sometime around 2000-2001 (unedited except for an occasional note):

"When Gene Roddenberry created the world of Star Trek, he envisioned a future where all information was retrieved from computers. Whether displayed on a monitor screen, a hand-held device, or spoken aloud, information on paper had become obsolete. Classic printed books were treasured artifacts.

TV viewers lapped it up; imaginations caught fire. A generation weaned on Star Trek set about making Roddenberry's vision a reality. Yet I doubt if anyone expected the changover to all-electronic information to gain a serious foothold in our lifetime.

But it's happening. Just look around. The Web, no longer tethered to a wire, surrounds us, providing instant worldwide communication and information. Is it the great marvel of our age? Or are we caught in an infinite spider's Web, irretrievably tangled with no hope of escape?

Do we want to escape? Do we want to escape television, airplanes, the telephone, cars, electricity, flush toilets—each, in its day, a startling innovation?

You get the message.

Bill Gates in his 1995 book, The Road Ahead, declared that the Internet—the Information Highway, as he called it—would become a dominant force in our lives. Not in the negative sense of Big Brother, but as a connector to a vast world of information, services, and communication. If you're reading this article, you are "online." You are already part of the Information Highway, the World Wide Web—the Internet. Would you give it up? Lose your ability to have instant communication with distant children, parents, your old school buddies? [Note: This was written, I believe, before Facebook.] Lose your instant ability to check the sports scores, research clothing in Medieval Times, print a map, order a gift basket for Aunt Tillie, download a book to read, chat with someone in New Zealand, even Anatarctica?

In 1997, when the Internet was a scant six years old, a group of experts got together to predict the dollar amount which would be generated by the Internet in 1998. They decided on a figure of eight billion. When the numbers were totaled at the end of 1998, the actual figure was one hundred two billion." [Note: What the figure is now, is beyond my imagination!]

[Several paragraphs skipped here about music downloads and What are e-books & e-readers.]

And then I wrote:

". . . . Until the major tech companies settle on a universal download format and produce e-readers at a reasonable price, most people who want to cuddle up with a book are going to stick to print."

[Note: I scorned the Kindle when it first came out because it wasn't backlit, but it was the device that won the blue ribbon from the public and pushed the e-book industry into an age of exponential growth. I've had one for more than two years now and never read books any other way.]

I went on to write:

"The catch phrase to remember? . . .

The Internet is not a fad. The Internet is the future. The future is NOW."

 I ended my highly controversial (at the time) article with a quote from Bill Gates:

"We are watching something historic happen, and it will affect the world seismically, rocking us the same way the discovery of the scientific method, the invention of printing, and the arrival of the Industrial Age did. . . . Some people will seize upon the setbacks and proclaim that the [information] highway never really was more than hype. But on the highway, the early failures will just be learning experiences. The highway is going to happen."

Gates, Bill. The Road Ahead. New York: Penguin, 1995. 

 ~ * ~ 

 "Reminiscences of Controversies" will continue next week.

Blair's Free Book Schedule on Amazon Kindle

Death by Marriage                                 Tuesday, May 14

Florida Knight                                       Tuesday, May 21

Limbo Man                                           Tuesday, May 28

Orange Blossoms & Mayhem                   Tuesday, June 4 

For covers and blurbs of the books above, click here.
 

Thanks for stopping by.

Grace

Click here for a list of Grace's books as Blair Bancroft 

INTERIM

To fill in the gap while I'm struggling with my next blog topic: "Reminiscences of Controversies," plus fighting to get my garden in, finish my novella (in a new genre), judge fifteen contest entries (for three different contests), edit a book for someone else, prepare a puppet play of Cinderella with the grandchildren, and provide soccer transportation . . . I'm going to settle for a couple of pictures today. Enjoy!

And, oh yes, I'm doing an Internet radio interview on PWRTalk.com 
on Tuesday, May 7, at 5:00 p.m. The topic: England's waterways

 ~ * ~

Below is a romance cover I've been hearing about for years, but only saw for the first time last month, when someone posted it to one of my author loops. Needless to say, it is the stuff of legends.

And, yes, the publisher did a reprint. Don't know what happened to the artist. Perhaps Sci Fi covers??

While my daughter was preparing a special photo celebration for her eldest daughter's tenth birthday on April Fool's Day, she ran across a bit of nostalgia from about five years ago . . .

 ~ * ~

Blair's Free Book Schedule on Amazon Kindle

Airborne - The Hanover Restoration         Tuesday, May 7

Death by Marriage                                 Tuesday, May 14

Florida Knight                                       Tuesday, May 21

Limbo Man                                           Tuesday, May 28

Orange Blossoms & Mayhem                   Tuesday, June 4 

For covers and blurbs of the books above, click here.
 

Thanks for stopping by.

Grace, who writes as Blair Bancroft

Coming soon: "Reminiscences of Controversies" - some of the occasions I've put my foot in it, occasionally by accident; more often, quite deliberately.


Click here for a list of Grace's books as Blair Bancroft 

How Does Your Novel Grow?

The following blog debuted on Savvy Authors in June 2012. I'm being lazy this week and repeating it here (without updating).

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells,

And little maids all in a row.

I’ve been working so hard to plant and encourage my garden this year—while finishing a novella and starting a new Regency, plus editing and formatting my next indie book—that I could scarcely escape the close analogy between growing a garden and writing a book.  And when searching for a blog title, the old nursery rhyme popped into my mind. 

Are we all contrary Marys? It’s certainly possible. Those who make a living wage with their writing have certainly turned their backs on the traditional nine to five. And those who hold down a job and still find time to write have to be blessed with a stubbornly contrary gene that keeps them going, no matter what.

Silver bells, cockle shells, and little maids all in a row? Surely a symbol of the creative imagination it takes to do what we do. 

So . . . how does your novel grow?
If it’s like mine, the answer is, painfully. With great time, effort, and determination.
Details? you ask. Well, now, let’s see . . .


Good soil - start with a solid foundation.  For a garden, it’s good soil. For a novel, I suggest the foundation is:

1.    Read, read, read, read, read! I have judged c. 400 RWA chapter contest in the last fifteen years, and all too often I can tell the entrant set out to write a romance without ever having read one. (Or if he/she did, they weren’t paying attention!) Or perhaps you didn’t quite get the concepts of Goal, Motivation, and Conflict when you read a “How-to” book about them. Hopefully, reading books by the most successful romance authors will bring the points home. Certainly, they should give you a feeling for the style.

2.    Research. Whether you’re writing Contemporary or Historical, you need to know what you’re talking about. Police procedure, raising horses, military service, Medieval times, Regency, Victorian/Edwardian - know the clothing, the proper terminology. Know the history/background of your chosen subject. Don’t try to “wing it.” Too many will know if you get it wrong.
   
The Seed. Once you have that germ of an idea, you need to plant it in that solid foundation of knowing what is expected in your chosen sub-genre and let it sprout from the inspiration of your fertile mind, supported by all that research you did.

Water.  A seed won’t sprout in dry soil any more than a novel can grow without Goal, Motivation, Conflict. You have to water that seed with a good flow of all the necessary ingredients. Water it with two Good Main Characters, interesting characters—likable characters, the kind readers want to root for. (Of course for a villain, you need to make him/her someone the reader loves to hate.) Those characters need physical descriptions, information about their personalities and enough background so we can understand why they do what they do. The main characters need to reveal their thoughts through introspection, not just through dialogue. But when your characters do speak out loud, be sure they have something to say! Clever dialogue adds color, but it must always move the story forward; i.e., no dialogue just for sake of being cute and no dialogue thrown in just because you’ve written five pages of solid narration and ask yourself, “What do I do now?”

Fertilize.  Your plants—pardon me, your story—will remain mediocre unless you add fertilizer (color) in the form of a well-delineated setting, well-drawn secondary characters (with descriptions), mixed with narration and dialogue that keeps the plot on track. Never get so wound up in your characters that you forget your plot or so wound up in plot that you fail to develop your characters. Make them grow, if you’ll pardon me hammering home the analogy.

Weed.  Every chapter or two, go back and take a good look at what you wrote. Weed out the typos, fill in the missing words, and—far more important—spot the places where you used twenty words when ten would have been more clear, more to the point. Where did you stray from your Goals, Motivations, and Conflicts? Where did you fall into kaffeeklatch nonentities, straying from the plot and your characters’ purpose in this story?

Am I done yet?

As any gardener knows, you’re far from done. Gardening is demanding and never-ending.

The same is true of writing. Creativity is insatiable, requiring constant tending. You have to keep Watering and Fertilizing and Weeding.  In a longer book you might want to add a sub-plot, perhaps a second romance or layer on another bit of conflict for the hero and heroine. Or perhaps you skimped on the fertilizer and find yourself with little more than an outline the first time around. Those pesky plants just won’t grow, hovering just above the soil like little stick figures. For those authors, I suggest mining your creativity for some super fertilizer. Expand each paragraph with more color, better descriptions, more clear motives, more internal joy or anguish, more sparkling dialogue.

Hopefully, by now you’ve found one of those new fertilizers that also keeps weeds at bay. Or maybe you’ve just become more skilled at spotting weeds and getting rid of them as you go along. For the great moment—the end of the growing season—is at hand. You’ve written, “The End.” But if you’re wise, you’ll ask yourself:

Am I done yet?

No!

Final Weeding & Edging.  Go back to the beginning and read the whole blasted book line by line. Yes, I know you’re sick of it, but this final editing is all important. If you do it right, you will be amazed at the things you missed during those chapter edits. Everything from improper punctuation to poor transitions, from failure to properly introduce new characters to lack of continuity.  In my case, I always end up making a number of insertions, clarifying points, adding more color, more emotion, etc. Others might find they have overwritten and must make numerous deletions rather than insertions.

Am I done yet?

Well, maybe.

 If you made only a few additions or deletions, you might be able to “get by.” You might take a chance on assuming your precious baby is ready for submission. But, frankly, most published authors consider three or four edits the norm. (Chapter by chapter edits, then two or three times through the whole manuscript.)  Never fall into the trap of thinking everything you write is perfect the first time. If you do, those pesky weeds will overwhelm your garden every time.

Picking Your Flowers and/or Vegies. Your garden has come to fruition. By George, you’ve done it! You have a colorful array of zinnias, marigolds, dahlias, morning glories, and whatever other glorious seeds you planted. Or maybe you’re chowing down on tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, and melons. Whether you chose flowers or vegies, you can finally pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

But unlike a garden that droops and fades each fall, your precious baby is just coming into full bloom, taking its first precarious steps out into the world. Will it catch an editor’s eye? An agent’s? Or will it faded into obscurity?

Dormancy.  Gardens and novels are endless battles with the forces ranged against us, from a struggle with our own laziness to dealing with the demands of others. Never give up. Whether polishing an old project or starting a new one, respect that tiny seed of an idea, nurture it. Water with creative juices, fertilize with new imagination, and attack those weeds with a vengeance. Like those dead-looking perennials who rise to life each spring, an author also experiences a renaissance with each new book, returning to the battle bigger and more hardy than the year (novel) before.

How does your novel grow?

Plant. Water. Fertilize. Weed.

Repeat Steps 2, 3 & 4 until manuscript is complete.
Then do it all again. 


The Author’s Motto: Determination, Perseverance, Endurance!
 

~ * ~ 

Blair's Free Book Schedule on Amazon Kindle

Airborne - The Hanover Restoration         Tuesday, May 7

Death by Marriage                                 Tuesday, May 14

Florida Knight                                       Tuesday, May 21

Limbo Man                                           Tuesday, May 28

Orange Blossoms & Mayhem                   Tuesday, June 4 

For covers and blurbs of the books above, click here.

Thanks for stopping by.

Grace, who writes as Blair Bancroft


Click here for a list of Grace's books as Blair Bancroft 

Florida Wild & Miracle in Orlando

Special note:  I've just updated Dictionary for Writers, Part 5, with a whole new category: New Adult.  Click here.

~ * ~ 

 

I'd like to share the cover for my Romantic Suspense, Florida Wild, to be published by Ellora's Cave Blush sometime in the not too distant future. Unlike my Golden Beach RS, this one is set in the greater Orlando area. Way, way in the background you can see the wooden rollercoaster that is featured at the beginning and end of the book.

 

Miracle in Orlando

When I submitted a workshop proposal to the Moonlight & Magnolias conference, I promised to have a new high res photo taken (the one I sent to M&M was more than a decade old). Truthfully, I'd like to use the one from twenty-five years ago, but . . .  

My proposal was accepted, I turned to my daughter for recommendations, and found a local photographer named Simo Drissi. My photos—an amazing number in constantly changing poses—were taken outside in a small shopping center park. Simo and I agreed on our #1 choice, the one I call the "Blair" photo. The smiling one (Grace) I added as an extra for Facebook & Twitter. The third was my daughter's choice, forcing Simo to grind his teeth to make my stubby nails look decent (the only French manicure of my life!)

I post the photos here as a recommendation for Simo because strict anti-promo rules on RWA author loops make it impossible to do it there. But every professional needs a good photo, whether for the back of the book, social media, or your business card. And I think you'll agree if he can make me look good at my age, just think what he can do for someone much younger! I would also like to give a hearty thank-you to my talented hairstylist, Ileana Arroyo, from Penny's salon at Fashion Square Mall. And to my daughter, my makeup artist. During the decade or so she sang professionally, she worked as a makeover specialist at the cosmetics counters of a several large department stores in both Sarasota and Orlando. She is now a real estate investment broker and mother of the three cherubs you occasionally see on this blog. 

Blair Bancroft

Grace

Grace & French manicure

 Hmm, did my daughter like the one above because it looks like

 Mom is about to say, "You're grounded!"?

Same photo session, no retouching

For link to Simo Drissi website, click here.

Thanks for stopping by.

Grace

Next week: "How Does Your Novel Grow?" 


Click here for a list of Grace's books as Blair Bancroft

A Different Mosaic - Recipes

I have to admit to an addiction - I have trouble saying no to a recipe book, almost any recipe book, any time, anywhere. I could not cook up a tenth of the recipes I own, given two or three lifetimes. And still, even after swearing "not one more," I can't resist. On the plus side - there's always something in the freezer, waiting to be eaten. On the negative - mass confusion on where to store all those books, magazines, and clippings. Sigh.

Today, in keeping with my theme of Mosaic Moments (a little bit of everything), I'm presenting three recipes. Two are not mine, but they stood out among the hundreds of recipes I've tried, and I felt they deserved more exposure. The third is my own version of how to make a package of fake crabmeat taste like a gourmet treat in under ten minutes.

BACON-CHICKEN CRESCENT RING*

2 tubes (8 oz. each) refrigerated crescent rolls
1 can (10 oz.) chunk white chicken, drained & flaked
1-1/2 cups (6 oz.) shredded Swiss cheese
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup finely chopped sweet red pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
6 bacon strips, cooked & crumbled
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon Italian salad dressing mix

Grease a 14-inch pizza pan (or pizza stone). Unroll crescent roll dough; separate into 16 triangles. Place wide end of one triangle 3 inches from edge of prepared pan with point overhanging edge of pan. Repeat with remaining triangles along outer edge of pan, overlapping the wide ends (dough will look like a sun when complete). Lightly press wide ends together.

In a small bowl, combine the remaining ingredients. Spoon over wide ends of dough. Fold points of triangles over filling and tuck under wide ends (filling will be visible). Bake at 375° for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Yield:  8 servings.

* Recipe from Taste of Home's Bacon Recipe Cards 

Note:  The above recipe is a tad fussy, but the taste is incredible.

STAINED GLASS COOKIES*

1 cup (6 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons butter
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 cups pastel miniature marshmallows**
½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1 cup flaked coconut

1. In a heavy saucepan, melt chocolate chips and butter over low heat, stirring occasionally. Stir a small amount into the beaten egg, then return all to pan. Cook and stir over low heat for 2 minutes. Pour into a bowl; let cool for 15 minutes. Gently stir in marshmallows and nuts. Chill for 30 minutes. (I stirred the chocolate mix into the marshmallow mix - no difference.)

2.  On a long sheet of waxed paper, shape dough into a 1½-inch-diameter log. Place coconut on another sheet of waxed paper. Gently roll log over coconut to coat sides. Wrap up tightly, twisting ends to seal. (I twisted & clipped with plastic clothes pins.)

3.  Freeze for 4 hours or overnight. Remove waxed paper. Cut into 1/4 - 3/8" slices. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

TIP: Stash a batch of cookies in a plastic container in the freezer for use anytime. They unfreeze very quickly.

*Originally, “Cathedral Cookies” - recipe from Taste of Home’s Best-Loved Cookies, December 2012.

**The only place I was able to find colored mini-marshmallows was a Wal-Mart Superstore.

Note: the above recipe is easy enough for a child to do much of the work (except melt the chocolate). It becomes fussy only because of the "wait" times. The result, however, is worth every bit of the fuss. An amazing confection.

IT ALMOST TASTES LIKE CRABMEAT

1 8-oz. refrigerated pkg. of fake crabmeat, cut into bite-size chunks
2-4 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
juice of 1/2 to one whole fresh lemon, to taste*
6-10 capers, to taste
fresh dill, chopped**

*yes, you can use canned lemon juice, if you don't mind the chemicals
**yes, you can use dry dill weed - again, to taste. But I advise picking up a dill plant at your local plant source - it's worth the extra effort.

Melt butter, add lemon juice & crabmeat; heat, adding capers & dill to taste. 

~ * ~

Thanks for stopping by.
Grace


Click here for a list of Grace's books as Blair Bancroft

DICTIONARY FOR WRITERS, Part 5

                         Romance and Related Genres           

Note: "Romance Genres" require an HEA ending.  (HEA =  Happily Ever After.)
 
In “Related Genres” a satisfactory wrap-up to the story is expected, but an HEA ending is not required.

ROMANCE GENRES

Contemporary - Category*
Books, usually 50,000-70,000 words, written to a certain “style” and “rules..”
Example: books published by Harlequin & Silhouette. See their guidelines H/S Guidelines for the many sub-genres they publish, featuring a wide variety of themes, from cowboys to doctors to hot sex. View points beyond Hero, Heroine & Villain (if applicable) are usually frowned on. Sex varies from none to graphic. [Harlequin/Silhouette are known for giving many beginners their start in the writing profession.] 

*It’s a bit tricky when “Category” refers to short Harlequin/Silhouette-style books but is also applied, particularly by contest coordinators, to each sub-genre of romance: i.e., "Select a Category," referring to Contemporary, Romantic Suspense, Historical, etc.  It’s a double use of the word “category” to which  every author needs to adjust. 

Contemporary - Single Title*
A work, usually of 85,000-100,000 words, with a contemporary setting. The plots are more complex than "Category," multiple points of view are allowed. Sexual content varies from little to lots. Example: books by Susan Elizabeth Philips

*Because so many Contemporary romances are aimed at the Harlequin/Silhouette “category” market, “Single Title” is used to distinguish longer books aimed at a somewhat more “mainstream” market.

Contemporary - Series
Books, often a triology, connected by a single theme. Each book has its own hero & heroine, plus HEA, but one major problem runs through all three books and is not solved until the end of Book 3.  Length - c. 80,000- 95,000 words. The style usually lies somewhere between Mainstream and Category. The books are often anchored around one special setting. Nora Roberts writes a lot of these, while also writing heavier “Mainstream” style Contemporaries. The level of sexual details varies, but characterization, romantic tension, and general ambiance are usually more important.

Contemporary - Mainstream
Authors are usually expected to work up to writing “Mainstream.” Mainstream novels are mostly 95,000+ words. They have many characters, complex plots & subplots, even secondary romances. Multiple viewpoints are common. They frequently involve extensive background research, specialized information, including technical vocabulary. Romance, including sex scenes, may be secondary to the complex plot.

Romantic Suspense
A very popular sub-genre of romance, these stories feature both a love story and a suspense plot. It is generally expected that the hero and heroine will work together to solve whatever the problem is. Basically, the divisions are similar to Contemporary - Mainstream, "Mid-stream," & Category. Harlequin Intrigue (55-60,000 words) is the best-known “Category” Romantic Suspense. In Category RS, the emphasis is expected to be about 50-50 between the romance and the suspense. Most mainstream RS authors, however, tend to emphasize the suspense plot over the sex scenes.  Examples of Mainstream RS: books by Tami Hoag & Suzanne Brockman (100,000+).
  
Historical Romance
When I first began to write, “Historical” stopped c.1900. Fortunately, that is no longer true. The Edwardian era, the 20s & 30s, World War II are now acceptable. But I’d be leery of submitting anything after that as an “Historical.”  Readers probably don’t care to have the well-remembered days of their youth described as “historical”! 

Historical Romances range from the squeaky clean to flat-out hot sex. The Regency era has been super popular for quite a while now, but any era from ancient times to the mid 20th c. is acceptable. “Traditional Regencies,” some Harlequin/Silhouette Westerns,” and Inspirational Historicals put sex behind closed doors. Almost all other Historicals have sex scenes which range from PG right through X.
   
Historical Romances can range from 75,000 words for a Harlequin Historical to around 100,000 words for non-category publishers.  The most popular historicals extend over a whole series, with recurring characters in each new book. Examples: Jo Beverly, Mary Balogh, Joanna Bourne. Blair Bancroft (that's me) writes both trad Regencies and Regency Historicals.

Paranormal
Paranormal encompasses a variety of sub-genres. In contests with no SF or Futuristic category, for example, these entries get lumped into Paranormal; i.e., anything that is not of our normal world on Earth. The most common sub-genres are: vampires, werewolves, psychics, ghosts, and witches. Examples: Charlaine Harris and Kim Harrison. Length depends on whether you are writing for an H/S series with a strict word count or aiming at publishers who are looking for longer novels.

Fantasy
Fantasy sub-genres can range from relatively simple tales of fairies, elves, etc., to complex series, such as the Ring stories. Two personal favorites are the dragon fantasy series of C. L. Wilson and the more “mainstream” dragon tales by Naomi Novik.  And then there’s Anne McCaffrey’s classic, and extensive, series, The Dragonriders of Pern. (See also Urban Fantasy below.)

Urban Fantasy
Urban Fantasy not only must take place in a city, it is generally “darker” and “grittier” than the Fantasy genre above. Humans and “not humans” wage wars in an urban setting, usually in a  contemporary or vaguely alternative universe, although historical settings do occur. The “not humans” can be allies or adversaries of the humans, depending on the plot. Characters, such as vampires and werewolves, may be drawn from the Paranormal also. Urban Fantasy tends to extend over a series of books with recurring characters. Length tends to be toward longer books, 85-100,000 words.

Steampunk
Many Steampunk novels could also qualify as Urban Fantasy - dark, coal-smoked cities suffering from invasion by dread diseases, mutants, robots gone wild. But Steampunk requires an emphasis on machines powered by steam. Clockwork mechanisms are also big for powering a wide variety of good and evil machines. The “punk” part simply means that although clothing tends to be exaggerated late-19th c., the alternative history of the Steampunk era allows creative genius from robots to atom bombs to computers,  which did not actually exist during the age of steam. Another requirement of Steampunk is the airship as the major means of long-distance transportation. Steampunk novels range from dark, serious, even "downer," to the romance version which may have lots of drama but still manage some kind of HEA ending. Steampunk, like Urban Fantasy, also tends to extend over several books with recurring characters. For examples of Steampunk Romance, see books by Meljean Brooks and Kate Cross. For Steampunk Futuristic, Lindsay Buroker

Futuristic
Futuristic is simply Science Fiction which emphasizes Romance. For example, Heinlein, Bradbury, and Azimov are renowned for their ability to add true science to the stories they tell. Less scientifically oriented people who want to write about romance in a setting far in the future write the genre called “Futuristic.” Having said that, my example is an author who gets her technical information so correct, she is often shelved in Science Fiction instead of Romance. Nonetheless, she herself told me she writes “Futuristic.” Check out books by Linnea Sinclair. Jayne Ann Krentz, writing as Jayne Castle, is also an excellent example of “Futuristic.”

Erotica
Books written with a strong emphasis on graphic sex are usually described as Erotica. The best have a plot, but most of the book is devoted to sexual details in a variety of forms. Erotica also includes multi-partner sex, bondage, sado-masochism, and GLBT sex. Why people got so excited about Fifty Shades when Ellora’s Cave and other major e-publishers have been presenting Erotica for years is beyond my comprehension.
       
Cross Genre
When an author combines two or more genres in a book, it’s called writing “cross genre.” It used to be really difficult to get an editor to accept these books - “Where are they going to shelved?” the Marketing departments would wail. But publishing is gradually growing up, and e-publishers can be more liberal about cross-genres. My favorite example: Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series, a superb blend of Steampunk, Vampires and Werewolves, with a goodly dollop of Gay.

Serials
Back in the 19th c. serials were common in magazines - many of Dickens’s books were introduced this way. Amazon Kindle has recently brought back the Serial genre. Whether or not it will catch on is still up in the air.  As presented by Amazon, a story is divided into c. 8 parts, with a hook at the end of each part. [Classic hook - heroine tied to the RR tracks with a train coming].  If this revival catches on, another genre has entered the romance market.  (And perhaps the general fiction market, as well.)


                                                  RELATED GENRES

Young Adult
Since books for Young Adults often include a romance, YA is frequently included in RWA (Romance Writers of America) contests. Again, there are broad varieties within this category, which ranges from Tween fiction, often humorous, to more hard-edged fiction aimed at fifteen and up. Even sex scenes are longer no-no’s in some YA titles. With the glaring exception of the Harry Potter series, most YA books are in the 40-75,000-word range.

New Adult - added April 19, 2013


This is a brand new category, and much needed. These books are geared to the 18 to early 20s market - stories about young people going out on their own, learning to cope with the world, including sex. Bonnie Lamer's Witch-Fairy series is a good example of this. I'd been trying to figure out how sex got into what seemed to be a YA series, and this seems to explain it. Authors take note - it isn't often a brand new category crops up for you to consider.

Mystery
Although Mystery/Suspense is considered a legitimate category by the Romance Writers of America, the emphasis is primarily on Romantic Suspense (see above), with the so-called “cozy” mystery allowable. Mainstream, hard-core mysteries don’t seem to fit too well into the Romance genre.  Cozy Mysteries feature an amateur sleuth, like Miss Marple. They tend to have a cutesy theme - the heroine runs a knick-knack shop, a cupcake bakery, etc. Cozies are shorter than most Romantic Suspense, c. 70-80,000 words.  They can be written in first or third person. (First person is definitely more acceptable in mystery than it is in Romantic Suspense. The reason? Probably because romance readers want to see inside the hero’s head as well as the heroine’s.)  Cozies seldom have blood “on the page.”

Mainstream mysteries feature professional sleuths, police, PIs, etc. They can be, and often are, violent, with multiple bloody acts happening right before the readers’ eyes. These books range around the 100,000-word mark.  Although an HEA ending is not necessary, the murder(s) must be solved by the end of the book. Other, perhaps more personal, problems can extend over a series of books. Examples of outstanding Cozy authors: Rhys Bowen, Blaize Clement, Julie Hyzy. Example of Mainstream Mystery: James Lee Burke and the Regency mysteries of C. S. Harris.

Suspense
Darker, often longer version of the Romantic Suspense mentioned above. The action is front and center, although there is often a romance on the side. The word count is usually c. 100,000 words. In Mainstream Suspense - often written by men - there may be no romance at all. Examples of Mainstream Suspense written by a female - Tami Hoag’s Ashes to Ashes series and the almost agonizing suspense of books by Karen Rose.

Thriller
A Thriller is similar to Suspense, but the problem to be solved is much bigger - widespread annihilation of some kind, whether by bomb, biological weapon, superstorm, etc. Romance is not a given. Example: the works of Jack Higgins.

Historical
An Historical novel emphasizes the historical aspect of the book, not the romance. Since history does not always turn out the way a reader might wish, an HEA ending is not guaranteed.  Historicals are usually 100,000+ words, well-researched, and aimed at those who want their history correct instead of bent to fit a romantic plot. 

Alternative History
Steampunk, even Paranormal, can be Alternative History, but a more strict definition is a story set on our own earth but with some basic ingredient altered. The author makes that one drastic change to history, then writes about what our world might have been like if this change actually occurred. For example, in my Steampunk Romance, Airborne - The Hanover Restoration, I have the Duke of Wellington seize the British government in 1830.

Chick Lit 
A bright, breezy, first-person style of writing, featuring mostly girl-talk, fashion, and female crises. Although a novelty popular for a short length of time, the writing style of this sub-genre is now mostly used to spice up other genres. Example: Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum mysteries.
 
Women’s Fiction
Women’s Fiction defines itself. These are books which tell women’s stories to other women. They involve romance only peripherally, recounting women’s joys and sorrows, anxieties and tragedies. They do not have to have a Happily Ever After ending. These books seem to vary considerably in length.

Romantic Fiction
I came across this genre only recently. Evidently, some people use it to describe contemporary novels that describe the details of a woman’s life (as in Women’s Fiction) but allow more room for romance. The emphasis is still more on the female in the story than on the male.

~ * ~

This is the last installment in the DICTIONARY FOR WRITERS series. Please don't hesitate to contact me about omissions. Adding another definition is never a problem.

Thanks for stopping by.

Grace

Click here for a list of Grace's books as Blair Bancroft