My mind has just enough room left for one big post this week, and I know you guys would rather I spend that brain power on tomorrow's Re-Write post, so here are some great links to stuff every writer should check out.
Alexandra Sokoloff has a fantastic series on the Three Act Structure. Her blog is chocked full of great info so stick around there and take in the sites.
Literary agent Rachelle Garden has one of the best posts on word counts I've ever seen.
Agent Nathan Bransford has a guest blogger who tells you everything you wanted to know about how your book gets sold to bookstores but were afraid to ask.
Brooklyn Arden gives you four techniques to get to the emotional heart of your story.
Moonrat over at Editorial Ass tells you exactly why you need an agent and shouldn't try to go this publishing thing alone.
Kristin Nelson's query pitch series is a must for anyone even thinking about writing their query.
Juliette Wade over at TalkToYoUniverse has a must-read post on the inciting event and world building. The questions at the end of the post just might change the way you look at POV and world building.
Editorial Anonymous gives 8 Rules of Rejection, another must read for those who finished Kristin's series and are sending out those queries.
And the gals at Bookends has a publishing dictionary that explains all those publishing terms.
Read, enjoy, tell your friends. I'll see ya'll tomorrow for Re-Write Wednesday and how to get over overstating in your work. Mini-excerpts from Shifter 2 and everything!
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Monday, July 06, 2009
Just the Facts, Ma'am
So the hubby and I watched a cheesy disaster movie last night. Impact.
Now, I love end-of-the-world disaster movies. I really love cheesy end-of-the-world disaster movies. Part of the fun is heckling the screen at the ridiculous plots and asking if a real scientist was anywhere near the script past idea stage. I can't get enough of these. (You'd cringe if you saw my Blu-Ray edition of 10.5, but hey, it was only three dollars!) Bad movies can be sooo good.
Impact is no exception to this. Good premise: An asteroid hits the moon, and a chunk of the moon hits the Earth. Hilarity...um...disaster...ensues. For a TV miniseries, it was well done.
But the science. Oh my stars, the science.
I've stopped reading novels because they blew the science out of the water and there's no way what they claim in the book is plausible. But I'll watch three hours of the now-twice-the-mass-of-Earth moon winging around Earth and not one single tide is affected. I won't even mention the other laws of physics broken here. Waves of anti-gravity? Seriously?
Why is that?
I think because movies are visual, and we don't expect much of them. If they entertain us for two hours, provide some eye candy, we're happy. But a book is more of an investment. It takes time to read, we have to give ourselves over to the story and we expect our authors to get the facts right. When they don't, we lose all faith and can no longer trust them.
Plausibility is a big thing for books. It doesn't matter how wild the idea is, as long as the author approaches it plausibly. We want to believe what they tell us, but as soon as they trigger our "wrong" flags, it's all over.
Think about that as you write your stories. Don't take the easy way out and say "well, it's that way because I said so," make us believe it. Because if you make us believe, you can tell us anything you want.
Now, I love end-of-the-world disaster movies. I really love cheesy end-of-the-world disaster movies. Part of the fun is heckling the screen at the ridiculous plots and asking if a real scientist was anywhere near the script past idea stage. I can't get enough of these. (You'd cringe if you saw my Blu-Ray edition of 10.5, but hey, it was only three dollars!) Bad movies can be sooo good.
Impact is no exception to this. Good premise: An asteroid hits the moon, and a chunk of the moon hits the Earth. Hilarity...um...disaster...ensues. For a TV miniseries, it was well done.
But the science. Oh my stars, the science.
I've stopped reading novels because they blew the science out of the water and there's no way what they claim in the book is plausible. But I'll watch three hours of the now-twice-the-mass-of-Earth moon winging around Earth and not one single tide is affected. I won't even mention the other laws of physics broken here. Waves of anti-gravity? Seriously?
Why is that?
I think because movies are visual, and we don't expect much of them. If they entertain us for two hours, provide some eye candy, we're happy. But a book is more of an investment. It takes time to read, we have to give ourselves over to the story and we expect our authors to get the facts right. When they don't, we lose all faith and can no longer trust them.
Plausibility is a big thing for books. It doesn't matter how wild the idea is, as long as the author approaches it plausibly. We want to believe what they tell us, but as soon as they trigger our "wrong" flags, it's all over.
Think about that as you write your stories. Don't take the easy way out and say "well, it's that way because I said so," make us believe it. Because if you make us believe, you can tell us anything you want.
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