Love the smell of fall!

Tip of the day: warm cider is magnificent on a nice fall day.

I got too distracted by all the bright, shiny new tv shows to remember to blog this evening.

Oops. Hazards of fall: my favorite time of year!

But every year I love to check out new shows to see what's hot this year. It seems that whatever is popular on TV eventually makes it's way to the Book World.

Loving that there's been a resurgence of comedies in the last few years (and dare I say it, but not as much dark stuff). Hopefully that's a good sign for books!

Some of my favorites so far:

• 2 Broke Girls: gotta say I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Set in a cafe, I wasn't so sure. And I was kind of on the fence about Kat Dennings, since I wasn't a huge fan of hers in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. But I think this is a great role for her, and I'm curious to see where they take this show. Had some great one liners!
  
• New Girl: they are pushing this one a bit and luckily they were showing fall previews On Demand. Funny enough show. Wasn't as good as I was hoping, but I think it's just because it was the pilot. Hoping this one gets better. And I'm curious to see how the new roommate works out due to the casting change of Damon Wayans Jr. (which I'm completely fine with...as long as they don't cancel his other show Happy Endings now--which I'm avoiding those rumors as much as I can in hopes they will go away, since I really enjoyed the first season of that show as well. Funny stuff.)
  

Is it a coincidence both of these shows start off with the girl walking in on their boyfriend's cheating on them, which causes a new living situation?

Hmmm...

Does that mean if I have a cheating boyfriend book that's a good thing?

Let's hope so!!!!

--Emily, Miss Loving that It's New Season Time


* No this is not me or my dog, but a stunt dog. Unfortunately my dog is not nearly as fond of TV as I am. Hopefully that habit will get broken soon. Because if he's to be a member of our family, he'll have to properly watch TV like this dog.

Keep Your Distance

Tip of the Day: Jennifer Hubbard explains narrative distance in this short and crystal clear blog post.

We are used to getting inside our character's head when we write. What does she see, what does she smell, how does she feel? Describing our viewpoint character from the outside, as if seen from a distance, is the cardinal sin. We want our reader to identify with our viewpoint character.

Except when we don't. Because sometimes we won't. (To quote Dr. Seuss.)

Sometimes we don't want readers to identify with the viewpoint character too closely. Sometimes we don't want readers to like the viewpoint character at all. That's when narrative distance comes in. Terms like "he thought" instead of just typing out the character's thoughts add some distance. And distance can come in handy when we don't want readers to think that our viewpoint character is important past their one viewpoint scene. Here's an example:

Zombie Thomas Jefferson paused. Life had been full of moral dilemmas, and now death was proving just as confusing. He needed brains--oh how he needed brains. But was it right?

Zombie Thomas Jefferson lurched down the hallway of Monticello, groaning, "Brains, brains," as if he were unaware of his grand surroundings.

Both samples describe the same moment in time. If I want you to eventually root for the zombie presidents, I would use example one. If my main character is going to be chased by Zombie Thomas Jefferson in a few chapters, I would use example two.

For a fun exercise, pull a few books off your shelf and open them to random pages. Read a paragraph from each book and rate them in terms of narrative distance, from "totally inside this character's mind" to "as objective as a newspaper article." Which characters do you like the best? In a multiple viewpoint novel, look at a paragraph from a "good guy" and a paragraph from a villain. Does the narrative distance change?

No, it really is a fun exercise, I promise.

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages

Fun Friday: Prepare Your Pirate Talk!

Tip of the Day: want to brush up on your pirate speech for International Talk Like a Pirate Day on Monday? Or planning on writing a pirate-themed book soon?

If so...check out this website.

Enjoy, Mateys!

I'm Such a Floater

Tip of the Day: If you're in the Chicagoland area and you're a young adult writer, librarian, or other publishing related industry type of person, come to the first ever Chicagoland Kidlit Drink night this Saturday. Details on the facebook page.

I'm such a floater. If you've ever watched Big Brother (finale was last night! Don't worry, I won't spill in case you've DVRed) a floater is the person who never really commits to one side, just bounces back and forth between the different teams in the house. And doesn't give any of the competitions their all. Because they know they can bounce back to the other side at any time.

Sigh. That's me this week. I can't commit to a project. I'm all geared up to write a new book but which one? I had started a YA before this last book that I wrote but put it aside to concentrate on said book. So it's still there, all pretty and outlined (chapter by chapter too I should add-- I spent tons of time on it). And the first three chapters are polished. I should just pick it right back up and go.

But, there's that new idea that's been nagging at me this week too. I think it would be a great hook and a fun book. But it's starting from scratch. So maybe I should hold off and go back with the one I already started.

Oh, but there's that middle grade too. I wrote a synopsis for it and it would be so cute and fun to write. And I haven't written a middle grade in awhile. I should definitely start there.

See what I mean? I've been bouncing between projects all week and can't seem to settle on one. Do you ever find that you're a floater with your writing?

Kristina, Miss Author in Action

On Holiday....

Be back in one week!

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

The art of writing the title

Tip of the Day: if you read Meg Cabot's blog, you've probably read this blog entry that she re-posts every year about her experiences on the day of 9/11. If you haven't, you should go read it. It's a great summary of someone's experiences in NYC on that horrible day and how it felt waiting to hear from a loved one working near the World Trade Center. And how it's important to never forget that day and all the people that lost their lives and loved ones.

Okay...moving on to something not as serious...

After trying this attempting-to-be-published thing for a few years now, I've grown to realize just how important a good title is to selling a book.

Not only to the public. But to an agent. And to a publisher. And so on and so forth.

If you have a good title, it helps everything.

You'll get more attention with agents. The interest will build. And everyone will want to read the book.

The writing then sells it. But the title get the interest.

But if you are anything like me, you are horrible at titles. Like really bad. You can come up with decent ones, but nothing that really gets the whole body of the book summarized in a cute, concise way.

So much so that I'm tempted to come up with titles before even starting my books. And until I come up with a good title, I won't even start writing page one.

Has anyone done this? Worked from the title first. I imagine lots of people have. But usually my titles start out as "Ally's book," "untitled," or "that one where something happens." Nothing that's inspiring or relatively likely to remain the title of the book.

And then coming up with a good title after the fact is hard. I usually put down random words and try to start making combinations. There there's lots of internet searching for common phrases that having anything to do with my topic that can be modified in a cute way. And 200 potential titles later, there's still no good options. Nothing that seems to fit exactly with the book in the best way.

And so the process continues.

If you are a master title maker, please share your wisdom with us!

--Emily

How Many Obstacles Are Too Many Obstacles?

Tip of the Day: Editor and writer Rhonda Stapleton has a great post up about what editors are looking for in your main character in the first three chapters. And Karen Berger at CreateWorkLive blogs here about getting rid of dead wood words in your final polish.

So here I am trying to get my characters from point A to point B, and like a good little writer, I am throwing in lots of obstacles. They've lost something important, they've gotten caught stealing, they've been tied and gagged, they've been chased. But it's obvious to me that they have to get to point B sometime, because point B is going to be an interesting place. My readers want to be at point B. How much patience are they going to have if I throw in yet another obstacle?

Because this could go on endlessly, really. Someone can twist an ankle, break a knee. They could get caught yet again. Do I keep letting them get just a little closer to point B and then yanking it out from under them? More importantly, how much of this will a reader tolerate?

I still remember trying to read Lord of the Rings. 150 pages for the hobbits to make it to the tavern to meet the wizard, and then the wizard wasn't even at the fracking tavern. I never picked up that book again.

See, the longer it takes me to get to point B, the more point B has to be Super Fantastic Awesome. But if it's too easy to get to point B, I have a boring book with no tension. How do you find the middle ground?

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages