Monthly Archives: August 2009

Teenage Wasteland

Updated on August 7, 2009 by megan

Ruh-roh. I totally forgot today was Friday, and therefore my time to speak here.

But with the sad passing of director John Hughes, I gotta talk about iconic pop culture, and what shaped people of a certain generation. Like a lot of people, I identified with many of Hughes’ characters, perhaps most tellingly with weirdo Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club. I liked her transformation, but also appreciated her pre-makeover look.

The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty In Pink–all three of those films define what it meant to be a teenager in the ’80s. But beyond the particular era-based specifics, they define what it means not to belong, which a lot of romance books touch on, also. How many of us (I am raising my hand!) love books about the not-as-pretty-as-her-sister heroine who somehow captures the attention of the handsomest guy around? Or sympathize with the too-smart-for-his-own-good hero who can’t believe she’s talking to him?

Those movies capture the poignancy of youth and teenage angst perfectly. I think that poignancy is what makes so many romantic books compelling, too.

Which Hughes character is most like you? Which of his movies are your favorite? What teenage angst pop culture item (book, movie, song, whatever) best describes your teen experience?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged John Hughes, Romance, teenagers | 9 Replies

Nubbled, pebbled, and plain worn out

Updated on August 6, 2009 by Janet Mullany

It’s time.

If you’ve ever had a conversation with me for, say, longer than three minutes, or attended the workshop Pam Rosenthal and I occasionally give, Writing the Hot Historical (or, as we call it, Pam and Janet Evening) you will have heard it:

The Rant About the Pebbled Nub.

To quote William Blake, I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand until I have achieved, not Jerusalem, but the eradication of this most overused, tired, and trite cliche. Yes, it was probably nice and boat-floating the first time it was used, but now it’s all over the place, shamelessly recycled and a great stumbling block in the boudoir.

Worse, it has spread from above the waist to below the female belt (if you know what I mean and I think you do) so that each heroine potentially has three of the darned things for the hero to lave. And that’s another one. Lave? Is something wrong with the good, old-fashioned, venerable and in-your-face lick, derived from the Old English liccian? Why resort to a Latin-based word? Latin lovers may be sexy, generally Latin-based words convey the opposite; just one of those strange English-language things. (Lave is next on the hit list.)

But let us return to the pebbled nub: 1594, variant of dialectal knub, probably a variant of knob: 1373, knobe, probably from a Scand. or Ger. source (cf. M.L.G. knobbe “knob,” O.N. knyfill “short horn”). Meaning “knoll, isolated round hill” is first recorded 1650, especially in U.S.

Then there’s the equally overused nubbin (ugh): “dwarfed or imperfect ear of corn,” 1692, Amer.Eng. dim. of nub.–to my ear it somehow suggests a piece of sewing equipment, like bobbin.

But it’s not the word’s origins I take exception to, it’s the use and misuse, the kneejerk laziness inherent in using a term that has long since lost its impact. The counter argument is that everyone knows what a pebbled nub (or nubbin) is; it’s a familiar reference term, a landmark on the way to the HEA. It keeps the story going. It doesn’t pull (most) readers out of the moment and the building sexual tension. In other words, within the context it works, or it can work. Substitute a stupendous and original metaphor and the reader will stop, ponder, gasp in awe and lose the flow. I think there has to be a solution. Instead of relying on tired old cliches, it’s our job as writers to create something so hot and squirmy-in-the-seat and relevant to the character’s voice that it pulls the reader further into the story.

Because it is after all the character’s voice and experience that make the story. Would your heroine really tell her best friend the morning after that the hero laved her nubs? No? I didn’t think so.

I’ve used here one of my very favorite sources, the Online Etymology Dictionar y . I wrote to them a few years ago trying to solve a language problem and I’m pleased to say that their research came up trumps, when I was trying to find a term for a particular item of the female anatomy that doesn’t really seem to have a vernacular. Search tickler and see what you come up with.

What are your least-favorite cliches? What pulls you out of the story or sucks you in? (No, Caroline, we don’t need the long s here, thank you very much.)

Over at The Good, The Bad and the Unread today with a CONTEST. Please stop by and say hello!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Online Etymology Dictionary, Rant Against the Pebbled Nub | 14 Replies

Vampyres

Updated on August 5, 2009 by carolyn

The last couple of days in the blogosphere there’s been some discussion about the origin of vampire novels. A lot of these little kerfluffles I don’t care much about, though I skim with amusement and a certain sense of horror through such Internet/writing tropes as Authors Behaving Badly and the like.

The vampire thing got me interested so I fired up Google Books and did some searching. The history is pretty much as you’d expect. Horace Walpole’s 1765 Castle Of Otranto is the first ghost story/supernatural story, though I would think that Mallory’s La Morte D’Arthur deserves a nod in that realm given all the supernatural elements. However, the latter isn’t a story about a ghost, and Castle of Otranto is.

I did not expect, therefore, to find any novels about vampires prior to 1765 and my somewhat cursory review of Google Books bears this out. There are, however, quite a lot of writings that mention vampires. I exclude, of course, discussions of vampire bats, botany and other vampire references that don’t refer to mythical (or are they?) blood suckers.

One fascinating finding was the sheer number of writings in French. My French is barely good enough to get a sense of the works, but essays and definitions abound.

There are any number of essays debunking the existence of vampires some of which are interesting in as much as the authors were not aware that a corpse shrinks a bit and therefore it can look as if fingernails, toes and hair have grown after death, when it’s really just corporeal shrinkage causing the effect. Attempts to explain this away can get your brain in a knot.

As an aside, the contextual ads that appear on the results page of such a search are tres amusant. Did you know you could meet local Vampire singles? Gauranteed Real Sexy Vampires!

As a warning, the old fashioned S that looks pretty much like an F comes into play in literary discussions of vampires. It’s a bit disconcerting at first to see phrases that are actually variants of the verb suck rendered with what looks like an F instead. Vampires: Blood Fuckers. Apparently I’m 12 at heart. Do you suppose anyone giggled uncontrollably back in 1712?

I say, George, let’s read Father’s essay on Vampires again.
Heheheheheh!

Noted vampire books:

The Nightcap by Louis-Sebastien Mercier 1784. This may be one huge boring essay but for the part about blood fucking, er, sucking vampires.

I was briefly thrilled to find a book about Charlemagne; Histoire de L’empereur. Alas, it’s an OCR error. The phrase l’empire has been mistaken for vampire. Imagine the thrill of find out someone thought Charlemagne was a vampire! I would have cracked out the French/English dictionary to translate that one.

Everybody’s favorite Regency bad boy, none other than Lord Byron himself had a bit to say about vampires. The Works of Lord Byron specifically, a non-fiction bit about Eblis, the Oriental Prince of Darkness.

Robert Southey also got in on the vampire thing, in Thalaba the Destroyer

And, last, I think, but by no means least, John William Polidori wrote The Vampyre in 1819. Polidori, as you may know was Byron’s physician and one of the ones who rose to the now famous challenge Hey! Let’s write a novel! that produced Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 1897. But that’s a whole other century (from the 1700’s) Edited to add: In case I type the numbers in the wrong order AGAIN, that’s Eighteen Ninty Seven!

So, who’s your favorite vampire? Charlemagne or Eric?

(Yes, that’s a joke. My love of Alexander Skarsgard as Eric on True Blood is well known in certain circles. I’m just widening the circle.)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alexander Skarsgard, Google Books, Vampire, Vampyres | 17 Replies

What Does “Romantic” Mean To You?

Updated on August 4, 2009 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

So, for the past week or so I was stuck at home with a bad throat infection. I couldn’t talk (except on Twitter!), or eat anything but soup, pudding, and tea (I’m thinking about writing a diet book). Not much fun. But here is what I did get to do:

1) Turn in the Christmas novella!
2) Write an “Undone” short story! (which is getting turned in today, hopefully)
3) Played around with a new “French Revolution vampires” story idea (and if the hero just happens to be tall, blond, and runs a scandalous gambling club in the Palais-Royal, that is entirely a coincidence…)
4) Read some of the books I picked up at RWA
5) Watched movies. Lots of movies. (And North & South again. Nothing restores health like Mr. Thornton’s dark glowering…)

One of those movies was a Bollywood production called Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. I confess to a crazed love of Bollywood films, though sadly I haven’t seen very many, being limited to whatever is on Netflix. I also have to be in just the right mood, with lots of time (these are long movies) and plenty of palak paneer and chicken vindaloo take-away. I love the bright, beautiful costumes (even heroines who are meant to be very poor have sequined saris–and back-up dancers whenever she needs them), the glittery song and dance numbers (which happen at the most giddy random moments), and most of all the unabashed romanticism. These characters have big, wild, passionate emotions, which they express in a big way, with lots of tears, shouts, and music.

In this film, our heroine Nendini falls in love with the cute, nice, but sort of goofball-ish singer Semeer, who also falls in love with her. But her father sends Semeer away and makes her marry cute, nice, but sort of intense lawyer Vanraj (who can’t sing at all). She looks like she’s going to the scaffold all during the ultra-lavish wedding scene, but poor Vanraj doesn’t seem to notice. He later finds out that the reason his new wife wafts around the house like a sad ghost is because she still loves Semeer, who has gone off to Italy to pursue his singing career. Vanraj takes Nendini to Italy to find her first love. It takes a while (and an accident or two, plus at least 5 musical numbers), but eventually Nendini learns the True Meaning of Love, and there’s a big, tearful reunion on a starlit bridge. I admit–it was totally, totally great.

It can be hard to find an American film this open to raw emotion, not to mention big production numbers. On Sunday, to celebrate my return to the land of the living, some friends took me to see the movie 500 Days of Summer. I loved this movie, too. I’m not generally a fan of the so-called romantic comedy genre, but this one doesn’t really fall into that category. It was entirely unpredictable, told from the male POV (Tom is madly in love with Summer, who likes him but says she will never marry), non-chronological, and even had a black-and-white musical number! Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars and says, “Summer remains mysterious all through the film, perhaps because we persist with Tom in expecting her to cave in. When we realize she is not required to in this movie, because it’s not playing by the Hollywood rules, we perk up. Anything could happen. The kaleidoscopic time structure breaks the shackles of the three-act grid and thrashes about with the freedom of romantic confusion.” (Maybe it’s a lesson to us writers to not “play by the rules,” too).

Is it “romantic”? Well–yes, in it’s own crazy way. I guess I was thinking about all this today because it’s the birthday of Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792–July 8, 1822). You know, the guy who helped invent “Romantic” poetry and said, “Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips” and “All love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love, and its familiar voice wearies not ever.”

But what does “romance” mean to you?? What are some movies or books you find particularly romantic? And what’s your favorite Shelley poem?

Posted in Risky Regencies | Tagged Uncategorized | 13 Replies

Writing “The End”

Updated on August 3, 2009 by Diane Gaston

No, I’m not finished the book, the one that was overdue and the one I was going to finish before RWA. I gave it a good try but finally had to email my editor at midnight the day before going to RWA that I wasn’t going to make it. I also realized during the conference that I’d made a misstep in the plot so I had to go back and fix that. Then I received the copy edits for Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady (Dec 2009)…So I’m just now back to writing the last 50 pages of the book. With luck, I will turn it in on Friday.

I’ve been thinking about what makes for a satisfying ending of a book. In Romance, of course, it is the Happily-Ever-After. I guarantee that will be a part of my ending. I see the ending of the book as starting with the “Black Moment,” the moment in the plot when it seems like the hero and heroine will never wind up together. The end, of course, is when the hero and heroine are together and nothing can tear them apart again.

Besides this happy ending, what else is important?

1. The ending should tie up loose ends. Subplots need resolving. Story questions need to be answered. This doesn’t mean that everything works out fine. In real life not everything works our perfectly so I like to leave some things imperfect. I think that makes the ending more memorable.

2. The hero and heroine should bring about their own happy ending. This is not the time for the friend to solve their problems for them. The hero and heroine have to figure it out and take action.

3. The ending should not be rushed. It has to be developed at a pace consistent with the rest of the book. I think this is hard to do. At this point in the writing process, most of us just want it to be over.

4. The ending should be logical and foreshadowed. This is not the time for a Deus Ex Machina to show up, the person or event created by the author to pop up and solve the ending, even though there was no inkling of this at the beginning of the book. The reader should be able to look back and realize the elements for the happy ending were in the plot all along.

5. Not an essential, but something I like to strive for is a parallel to the beginning of the book. I like to try to recreate that first scene in the ending.

What do you think is essential for a good story ending? What mistakes have you seen made?

I have absolutely nothing new on my website, but there is still time to enter the new contest.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Plotting the ending, Romance Writing | 14 Replies