A Secret Celeb I Based a Male Lead on

 This week at the SFF Seven, we're talking about real life people (or celebrities) we've based characters on. 

That phrasing makes me laugh a little because I'm pretty sure celebrities are still real life people. It puts me in mind of some of my ongoing themes of reminding readers that their favorite authors are still people who get sick and have life drama. But I digress.

I don't know if I've talked about this openly, but in UNDER HIS TOUCH, the second Falling Under book (and this series is contemporary erotic romance, not SFF, fair warning), I totally based the male protagonist on a celebrity. I wanted a Brit man, one who was brooding and not conventionally handsome, full of smoldering sexiness. Guess who I based him on?

Neil Gaiman.

Yeah, yeah - I know. Only a book nerd like me would pick someone like that. I don't think it's at all obvious in the text to the reader, but he was the guy I envisioned when I wrote it. I even threw in a little Amanda Palmer easter egg, just for fun. 

Living the Dream

I used this photo (Thanks to Craig Chrissinger for taking it!) a couple of weeks ago, but it's too appropriate for this week's topic to pass up using it again. Our topic at the SFF Seven is our fantasy dinner party. We're asking which SFF authors and characters you’d invite to a soiree. 

The thing is, one of the best perks of being an author is getting to make other authors be your friends. So my fantasy dinner parties have mostly happened! Case in point: above I'm having dinner with Martha Wells, Darynda Jones, and Kelly Robson. Yes, it was a great conversation. I feel so blessed and fortunate that I pretty much get to have my fantasy dinner parties on a regular basis now. 

Last week I got to have dinner with Amanda Bouchet, Maria V. Snyder, Jennifer Estep, H.R. Moore, and Maria Vale. On another evening, I sat between Juliette Cross and Chloe C. Peñaranda, later joined by Carissa Broadbent. 

The one person I have yet to meet in person - and hopefully have dinner with! - is Neil Gaiman. But I do have his cell phone number and have chatted with him on the phone, which gives me all kinds of happiness right there. Since it's a fantasy, Anne McCaffrey, Tanith Lee, and Vonda McIntyre could all come back from the dead and join us. 

My younger self would be thrilled. 

 

Does Boring Writing Mean Boring Reading?

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week takes a look at the oft-quoted advice for writers: “If you’re bored writing, the reader will be bored reading.” And we're asking is this true or false?

Okay, I'll confess: it's me asking. This was totally my topic suggestion because this advice really irritates me - I think it's wrong, even dangerous - and I want to know what everyone else thinks about it.

So, I feel a little bad kicking off this topic, as I know I'll be setting the tone here.

But... whatever!

The reason I think this advice is flat wrong is threefold. 

First of all, the process of writing a book takes HUGELY longer than reading a book. Let's say it takes 5 hours to read a novel. (It seems like my Kindle often reports something in that neighborhood when I open a new book.) I'm a fairly fast writer, and I keep track of my numbers, so let's use my writing time for an example. It takes me, on average, 55 working days to draft and revise a novel. In general, I spend 3 hours/day actively writing to get that book finished. That's 165 hours of writing, at a conservative estimate. That means it takes a reader approximately 3% of the time to read what it takes me to write. And I'm a fast writer! The percentage will only go down from there. 

Put another way, a reader will read at least 33 times as fast as we write. Comparing the two experiences is ridiculous, particularly when it comes to a subjective quality of feeling bored, which is time-sensitive.

Secondly, the experience of boredom is entirely subjective. What I find boring is not what you may find boring. I get bored with fight scenes, in books and movies. I know that's a me thing, but they don't hold my attention. Lots of people love fight scenes, which is cool. But there is no objective qualifier of what is "boring."

Finally, writing is a job. It might be an awesome job - it is! - but it's also work, which means it can be a slog. Especially writing novels. Working incrementally for ~75 days (my total time to produce a novel, including days off) on one story can get dull. Some days I'm tired. Sometimes I'm writing stuff I already know, like backstory from previous books, or stuff that isn't particularly exciting, like transitions, but that I know the reader will need to understand the story. I don't know ANY writer who is 100% excited and invested in what they're writing every moment and every word. Sometimes, people, it's going to be boring - and that has nothing to do with how the reader perceives it.

I promise you this. Test it for yourself. Make note of some part of your work in progress that you found boring to write and find out later if any of your readers find it boring to read. I'm sure they won't.

That's why I find this advice dangerous. It implies that only the writing we find exciting in the moment is valid - perhaps even suggests that anything we find boring to write should be thrown out. This is bad for getting words written, which is our primary job. If a section of the story is boring to read when you revisit it? Sure, edit that puppy! That's what revision is for. But don't let feeling unenthused in the moment stop you from moving forward in the story. 

Neil Gaiman says that writing a novel is a process of laying bricks in a long road. Some days the sun will be hot, the work mind-numbing, the process slow and grueling. But the bricks have to be laid. Do the work and don't worry about how you feel. 

Book Length = Word Count Genre Guide

That heady moment when you pick up a new book and leaf through the pages—maybe even stick your nose into them—checking out the back, cover and…the page count. 

I know I’m not the only bookworm that does that. And before, as an oblivious bookworm, I never gave much thought to how long a book was beyond noting if it was too short—especially if I was holding a fantasy. 

And there it is: your book's genre dictates its length. 

Why is that? Maybe it’s a little bit chicken or the egg, but readers have expectations of how long a book is depending on what type they’ve picked up and the publishing industry—including agents—have word count expectations depending on what genre is being handed to them. 

Wait…word count?! We were talking about book length—as in number of pages—right? 

Readers look at book length in number of pages, but that’s not a standardized metric. Font, letter size, page size, they all factor in, so publishing looks at a manuscript in word count. 

Word Count: estimated at 250 words per page

It’s fun math. You can pick up any book in your nightstand stack, peek at the last page, and multiply that by 250 (I’m reading a copy of GOOD OMENS which clocks in at 474…so that means it was a 118,500 word manuscript). I did an entire spreadsheet of books in varying genres when I was writing my first book to get the average for my genre. 

Though let me tell you, there are easier ways to find the industry standards. Jeffe did a great post on Sunday listing generalized lengths to differentiate short story, novelette, novella, and novel. As for the differences in genres, let me help you by sharing my genre guide!

YA (not SFF) 50,000 to 80,000 words

Cozy Mystery 70,000 to 85,000 words 

Horror/Mystery/Thriller/Suspense 70,000 to 90,000 words 

YA Sci-fi Fantasy 70,000 to 100,000 words 

Mainstream Romance 70,000 to 100,000 words 

Historical Fiction 100,000 to 120,000 words 

Sci-fi Fantasy 100,000 to 120,000 words

Yes, there are always exceptions. But there’s also always a reason for the rule. While discussing a fantasy book with my agent she mentioned that any word count over 120,000 bumps up into the next price level for binding (putting the physical book together). A good reason! 

As you’re writing, or NaNoing, keep in mind reader attention spans and publishing expectations—even if you’re planning the self-pub route. When in doubt, 80,000 to 90,000 words is a good range to shoot for!Even Writer's Digest recommends 80,000 to 89,999 as the golden zone. 

So...where does your book land?

Which Should Jeffe Vote For?

Our topic here at the SFF Seven this week is: books vs movies vs games vs comics.

I suppose that, with everyone hanging out at home, social distancing all responsibly, we've all been indulging in our media of choice.

For me it's books and movies. I tried comics - grudgingly - and they just never quite grabbed me. In college a couple of my artist friends set to convincing me to love graphic novels. I still have the copy of Maus by Art Spiegelman that one gave me. I found the combination of drawings and stories powerful. One of my roommates took me out for dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant as a bribe for me to sit and read a graphic novel. (One of the Dark Knights? I don't remember.) I enjoyed it, yes, and groked why he loved it. (Plus, the crab Rangoon was amazing.) But it never led to me picking up more.

Much later in life, I acquired the Sandman Box Set by Neil Gaiman, which I also love. At least, I love the first book, Preludes & Nocturnes. I confess - with a fair amount of chagrin - that I've never gotten around to reading the rest. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that... I haven't felt compelled. I've found it takes a while to wrap my brain into reading text that weaves around images. I enjoy it, but I love plain reading more.

Because it's not that I don't read at all. I've read 41 books so far in 2020, and I've read all or part of all the 2019 SFWA Nebula Finalists for Novels. (I'm still reading as I have until the 31st.)

Games... I just have never gotten into them. I don't know why. Could be for the same reason as graphic novels? I'd rather have text than images. Even with movies, I think I don't appreciate them visually like many film buffs do.

In fact, this is where you all can help me. I have no idea which game writer to vote for in the Nebulas, and have no way of deciding. Which should I vote for from these?

Best Game Writing 

Outer Wilds by Kelsey Beachum, published by Mobius Digital
The Outer Worlds by Leonard Boyarsky, Kate Dollarhyde, Paul Kirsch, Chris L’Etoile, Daniel McPhee, Carrie Patel, Nitai Poddar, Marc Soskin, and Megan Starks, published by Obsidian Entertainment
The Magician’s Workshop by Kate Heartfield, published by Choice of Games
Disco Elysium by Robert Kurvitz, published by ZA/UM
Fate Accessibility Toolkit by Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, published by Evil Hat Productions

Feel free to offer suggestions in the other categories, too. Cheers to you all!

A Better Answer to: Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Last week I attended SFWA's Nebula Conference and got to meet our 2018 Grandmaster, Peter S. Beagle. I legit teared up when we talked and he signed my battered old copy I received forever and a day ago. I felt like a teenager again and all those feelings that led into my early love of fantasy rose up and swamped me.

The conference in 2019 will be at the Marriott Warner Center in Los Angeles. I highly recommend it! It's become my absolute favorite gathering of SFF writers and industry professionals.

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is "Where do you get your ideas - the least popular question ever."

Whoever suggested this topic added the subtitle because a) writers get asked this question a LOT, and b) it's really hard to answer. One reason is because we don't actually KNOW where we get our ideas. We often laugh off answering it, or glibly say something like "Getting the ideas is easy; it's having the time to write them that's the challenge."

Which is a really terrible way to answer an earnest question. People who ask this get nothing from us assuring them that ideas are common as grass. They want to know where we get GOOD ideas. How to know which ideas to run with. What story to tell when they're looking at a blank page or screen. They also want to know how they can get an idea like Twilight, or Harry Potter, or Hunger Games.

Something we'd ALL like to know!

I recently listened to an interview with Neil Gaiman where he talked about this very thing. (Yeah, it's a few years old. So what? The internet lives forever!) He was asked to talk to a group of schoolchildren and one asked this question. And Gaiman said it occurred to him that it wouldn't be fair to give them the usual non-answer, because kids deserve better than that. Really, anyone who asks this question deserves better than that.

So, where do *I* get my ideas? Here's three.

I pay attention to my dreams and write them down. If there's an image/feeling powerful enough that I remember it clearly when I wake, I know there's something to it. THE MARK OF THE TALA, the first in my Twelve Kingdoms/Uncharted Realms series started with a dream. So did ROGUE'S PAWN from my Covenant of Thorns trilogy.

I enjoy my daydreams and give them time to spin. As we grow up, we're talked out of daydreaming, like it's a bad thing. We're told to pay attention and engage with others. But daydreaming is where a lot of my stories come from. They entertain me and give me good feelings, so those naturally become stories I enjoy writing. This works especially well with erotic fantasies. PETALS AND THORNS, SAPPHIRE, and UNDER CONTRACT came from erotic daydreams.

I get a lot of ideas from reading other people's books. No, it's not plagiarism if someone inspires you. I once heard a Famous Author on a panel proclaim that she doesn't read. (She called it a dirty, little secret of authors and seemed to think others thought the same way. Spoiler: we don't.) She believed reading somehow spoiled her own creativity. In the bar after (where all the best writer conversations occur), another author said "We're rich because we steal from the best houses." And, no, it's not really stealing. Art inspires art. Good books - and great movies - suggest ideas to me all the time. Don't go and replicate someone else's plot, but if something inspires you, run with it!

As much as we may riff that we get ideas all the time, most writers are always looking for new and better ones. They may be common as grass, but there's a lot of grass out there. We're all looking for something more special than that. Don't let any writer convince you otherwise.

What Blender Setting Do You Go For?

We've been on a long road trip this last week, seeing all kinds of family. And leaving the cats behind, like the monsters we are. Here is Jackson showing off his best Pitiful Abandoned Kitty face.

Thus, I'm late posting today. But so it goes!

I've shared this news elsewhere, but I'm happy to share again here! Many of you have asked what I'm up to with various writing projects, including a few delayed ones. (Yes, the next Sorcerous Moons books are coming - I promise!) Basically what happened is that I changed agents back in February/March. And then I worked up something entirely fresh for New Agent Sarah Younger. Basically I gave her a list of ideas, we debated them, and I wrote 100 pages of one of her top three choices - the one I loved best. We went back and forth on it with several revisions. That's a great benefit of working with an agent as sharp as Sarah. She gave me great feedback on the book, tightening it up and making it the best it could be. Basically we spent three months working on this.

Which meant I kept setting aside other writing projects to work on the next round of THRONE OF FLOWERS, THRONE OF ASH. Thus my entire schedule getting delayed and shuffled. The beautiful part is, when Sarah took this out on submission, we had tons of interest, multiple offers, and a sale two weeks later. And here it is!!

These books won't start coming out until 2019, so now I can go back to a regular schedule. Which absolutely means finishing both the Sorcerous Moons and Missed Connections series. The other thing that happened is that Kensington, who published my Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms books, started up a new SFF (Science Fiction and Fantasy) imprint called Rebel Base Books. They wanted to publish THE SHIFT OF THE TIDE, but that would have delayed its release until March of 2018 and I knew you all would have fits. (See? I do love you and want you to be happy. I really do!)

So, we said no on that, but they really wanted me to be part of this new imprint, so we settled on me writing a trilogy for them set in the Twelve Kingdoms world. It will be high fantasy, which means less of a romance arc. BUT, I'm pretty sure it will be Jenna's story. For those of you who know what that means! We finished talking about that right before the other submission, so that got announced at the same time.








All that taken care of, our topic this week is Scrapbooking—taking stories from real life as the springboard for your stories and subplots. I'm going to keep this short, mostly to kick off the topic. I love Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman's thoughts on "blender settings." Basically they say that all creative types take our real life experiences and metaphorically put them in a blender which produces the smoothie of our art. The big difference is what "setting" we put the blender on.

They've had to figure this out in their marriage, because they have such different blender settings. Amanda, a singer/songwriter and performance artist, has a very low blender setting. What she experiences, she turns around and shares in big chunks that are recognizably her art. Neil, as a writer of fantasy, has a very high setting - you almost can't recognize his real life in the final stories.

Neither is right or wrong - both of them are accomplished artists - but it took some doing for them to come to terms with how they each processed experiences. Especially for him with her putting so much of her - now their - personal life out there as part of her art.

What's most important is to find what works for you. My standard advice: discover your process and own it!