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Monthly Archives: January 2011

Backstory, Info Dumps and Character Intros

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I recently edited the beginning of my mess-in-progress, pruning out some backstory that didn’t need to be in the first scene.

When I first joined RWA, the standard advice for newbies was to avoid the Dreaded Info Dump in the first chapter and just trickle in details from the characters’ past as needed. And I generally follow this advice, as I did this time.

But I never became No-Info-Dump Purist (or a Goal-Motivation-and-Conflict Purist, or a H/H-Must-Meet-On-First-Page Purist) or really bought into any of the hard and fast rules beloved by some critique groups. The reason is early in my RWA education I also read some amazing books that broke rules. Intelligently, of course.

On one end of the backstory spectrum is Loretta Chase’s LORD OF SCOUNDRELS. It starts with a summary of the hero’s life from birth onwards. I have heard NID Purists protest—maybe they are just jealous. Readers in general and the judges of the 1995 RITA didn’t care. I think the beginning works because 1) it’s fast-paced and entertainingly written and 2) it really does help prepare the reader for Dain’s beastly behavior.

I found the opposite extreme in another favorite, Laura Kinsale’s FOR MY LADY’S HEART. The most heartwrenching details of the heroine’s backstory are held back until near the end of the book. Readers who love this book sense that there is something tragic that caused the heroine to develop such strong and sometimes sinister defenses. When it is revealed, it makes for a very powerful scene.

Anyway, how do you like your backstory served up? Any favorite rule-breaking stories?

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Frozen Friday

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So we got a little snow over the past couple of days–maybe you’ve heard? My son got a snow day yesterday, in fact, and NYC public schools NEVER have snow days, so it was a big deal.

But that did not stop me from finding the romance! Last night, I went to the book launch party for Eloisa James at WORD in Brooklyn, a romance-friendly bookstore. Eloisa talked about her books, including her new release, When Beauty Tamed The Beast, and then signed books for fans. Despite the evil weather, the event was standing-room only, and it was cool to hear Eloisa’s inspiration for this book, a mash-up of “Beauty And The Beast” and House.

And speaking of mash-ups, here’s an NSFW video of a sign language student signing Cee-Lo Green’s amazing song:

I love mash-ups. For me, juxtaposing the high culture with low is just brilliant. Perhaps one of the first ones of those I ever encountered was Alexander Pope‘s poem “The Rape Of The Lock,” which equates cutting a piece of hair from an object of affection with something much more serious.


Other than that, however, all I’ve done lately is work at the New Day Job and try to navigate home life so all the Framptons have clean laundry and such.

So–what crazy mash-ups can you think of? Are you a fan of mash-ups? Do you ever get the chance to go to book launch parties, or if you’re an author, have them yourself?

Stay warm!

Megan

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Top Ten Things I Learned From Romance

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Yes. There will indeed be Ten Top Things, but before we get there, here’s some blatant self promotion for the release next week of Mr Bishop and the Actress:
A CONTEST!
And here’s the cover. Isn’t it pretty! You have two ways to enter: go to my Facebook page, read the excerpt and then share it and post me the link on the comments. And/or, sign up for my mailing list here.
THE PRIZE
Your choice of a book from my backlist (with the exclusion of Dedication, which is selling for ridiculous prices online and which will support me in my imminent old age. Sorry).

Although the official release date is February 4, those naughty scamps at bookdepository.com have Mr Bishop & the Actress on sale now–free shipping worldwide!

And now back to our regularly scheduled program….

Last week I talked about the challenges of writing contemporaries. This week I want to tell you what I’ve learned from reading (some of) them.

It is a fact universally acknowledged that…

  1. You can qualify as a doctor within one year.
  2. If you’re teaching English at college level and feel like a change of pace you can avoid all that agonizing search committee stuff by calling a friend because he’ll have an opening in the department.
  3. If a single woman moves to a small town there will always be a hot, single sheriff/bartender/mechanic/rancher. Occasionally there’s a squad of white-collar single hot guys too.
  4. If a white single woman moves to a small town there will be no other ethnic groups there.
  5. If a black single woman moves to a small town there will be no other ethnic groups there.
  6. Most heroes are mysteriously rich (but not through illegal means) and their flair for interior design does not impugn their masculinity.
  7. If the hero tells the cops the heroine has been kidnapped, they immediately spring into action, even if it’s just a hunch (and to give them credit, she’s never just gone out to the convenience store. He’s right).
  8. A voluptuous heroine is a size 10 (US). Ha.
  9. If a heroine loses ten pounds she immediately has to go shopping with her best friend for a new wardrobe.
  10. And the final and most exciting one: All heroes wear boxers except for cowboys who apparently can’t risk all that fabric bunching up around their manly bits in the saddle and wear jockeys. It’s the law.

The great thing about this is that it makes the Regency view of history seem well, almost realistic. Twenty hot rich single thirty-year-old dukes in London at one time? Why not?

What have you learned from reading romance?

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Famous Ancestors, I Fancy

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I’ve been researching horse racing for an Undone story, checking through Google Books, finding
Royal Ascot: its history & its associations by George James Cawthorne and Richard S. Herod. I had to chuckle when I read this:

No one did more to promote the interests of the Turf and to establish horse racing as a national pastime than Tregonwell Frampton, of Moreton, in Dorsetshire. “The Father of the Turf,” as he has been called, was born in 1642, and was keeper of the Royal Running Horses….Mr. Frampton was the cunningest jockey of his day, but his methods were not always above suspicion. In the celebrated match between North and South…Mr. Frampton attempted to deceive his rival by adding 7 lb. to the agreed weight

Who knew Megan’s “ancestor” was a jockey, a sometimes crooked one?

That got me thinking….If I searched Google Books what sort of “ancestors” would I find for the other Riskies?

I decided to search Full View only, between the years 1700 to 1900, but it quickly became apparent that “McCabe” was only going to yield authors named McCabe. I altered the plan to include only Google Books in “my library.” There were no McCabe ancestors in “my library” and no Mullanys either.

Here’s what I found for Greene in A History of the Peninsular War, Volume 5 By Charles Oman and John Alexander Hall:

Gardiner’s, Douglas’s, Lawson’s, and Elige’s [now temporarily under 2nd Captain W. Greene, Elige having been killed at the Salamanca forts] companies were present at Salamanca, as was also the Reserve Artillery, but the last-named was not engaged. Elige was shot through the heart on the second day of the siege of the Salamanca forts. 2nd Captain W. Greene commanded the company at the battle of Salamanca

Leave it to Elena to have a heroic “early relation.”

But what of Carolyn? I found Jewel immediately in Nimrod’s Hunting Tours

There are three bitches in Mr. Villebois’ kennel which must not be passed over—namely, Priestess, Madcap, and Jewel; …Jewel is by Foreman (sire of Lady)out of Jezebel. Jewel is the dam of Juryman and Jovial, two uncommonly fine hounds…Jewel has got a bone in the mouth of her stomach, which she cannot get rid of, and which prevents her hunting; but from her blood and shape she is invaluable in the stud.

Somehow I don’t think that Jewel could possibly be Carolyn’s “ancestor” (and OMIGOSH did you notice one of the dogs in the painting is relieving itself????).

Do you use Google Books? Do you have a favorite? I think mine is Waterloo Days by Charlotte Eaton.

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Creative and rambling minds.

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Today I have nothing to talk about because I’m Getting Creative. Oxymoronic? Well, yes. Everything goes inward and the mind rambles. For instance, in the false starts that began this post, all mercifully deleted, my mind wandered on the following topics: Bill Nighy, Facebook, Goodreads, Voldemort, grammar, Judging the Big Contest That Shall Not Be Named, lunch, houseplants, and back to Bill Nighy.

I really like Bill Nighy.

But this Getting Creative thing: What do I want to do next, what might sell (I’m clueless), what will stop me getting bored. This time around I’m approaching from the opposite direction to my usually haphazard process. I’m planning. I will be messing with file cards and diagrams and pencil scribbles. I might actually get to know characters before I pluck their names out of the air and drop them into a story.

And I have the books to read for the Contest That Shall Not Be Named. I have a clutch of books I’ve never even heard of and even though it’s only a handful it reminds me how many thousands of books are out there and how easy it is for a good book to be overlooked. This is a scary, inexplicable business.

I’m happy to mention, though, that I’ve done some things I decided on at the beginning of the year: I went to the National Gallery in Washington DC to see the exhibit The Pre-Raphaelite Lens which I enjoyed. I started tidying my office. I started thinking about getting ready to tidy the house. I might, even, gasp, sort out my books and decide which ones I really am never going to look at ever again to make more space (and not buy again).

So I pose a challenge to you: track your thoughts and see where they go, as I did at the beginning of this post, and see what you can come up with.

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