Tara Maya
Author Archives: Tara Maya
Tara Maya
- by Tara Maya
Children’s Book Lengths
This blog post has a good summary of wordcount for children’s books.
http://literaticat.blogspot.com/2011/05/wordcount-dracula.html
- by Tara Maya
Three Reasons To Research Right
Writers can sometimes overdo research….
Ha.
I’m kidding. You can never have too much research.
Yes, fine, eventually you need to stop researching and start writing. But most writers stop researching far too early. There are three good reasons to take the time to do your research.
(1) You should never be wrong by mistake.
It’s not just that if you are writing a historical novel you have an obligation to get the history right, and if you are writing science fiction to get the science right. Actually, you don’t necessarily have to have accuracy in these things. (I know, I’m shocked I said that too.) The thing is, the story comes first, so yes, if you need to pretend that your imaginary early modern British coal mine already had a Thomas Savery steam engine in 1675 because you want it to coincide with the Great Fire of Northampton, go ahead, just so long as you know it wasn’t patented until 1679. Don’t get the details wrong out of ignorance.
In The Unfinished Song, I mix the flora and fauna of several continents. It was a deliberate move on my part, because I didn’t want my story to be considered merely “Celtic” or “Viking” or “Native American” or “African.” It has elements from all of those cultures, so I included elements from all of those places. Maybe if I were to do it all over again, I’d do it differently, but it was a conscious decision.
(2) A well-researched novel is less derivative and trite.
Have you ever read a book or watched a tv show and felt like the setting was “thin,” or you’d seen these cardboard characters a million times before, or guessed the “surprise” ending from the start? There are a lot of reasons for thin setting, shallow characters and poor plotting, but one reason is that when we are visualizing a scene in our mind, we are limited to what we know. Orson Scott Card
When you do research, ideas also pop into your head, and they might also follow closely on what you’ve read, but, if what you are “copying” is an original source, your fiction is ironically more likely to feel fresh. Let’s say you’re writing a regency romance. If you read only other regency romances, your book will read like a copy of a copy. But if you read a book of real letters from a regency lady, and let that inspire you, you are more likely to capture a unique and authentic voice.
(3) Research primes the pump.
The main reason to do research is that it is a wonderful source of inspiration. Whenever I feel writer’s block…now, for instance…I do one of two things: (1) read other people’s novels, (2) research. In fact, the number one reason I suffer writer’s block is because I don’t know my world and my characters well enough. Research isn’t just about dry facts. It’s about spending time with your characters, moving around in their space. But dry facts, believe it or not, can help you do that. Consider something as simple as handwriting.
I used to work for a national magazine and write an advice column. I received hundreds of letters and I could always tell how old the person was by their penmanship. If they were over 75 they wrote in the Spencerian method. It is a cross between what we would call Cursive writing and calligraphy. If they were over 85 they would write in the Spencerian style with a little bit of a quiver in the letters. ( see picture above)
If the writer was between 65 and 45 they wrote in cursive writing of the Palmer school which is a slanted writing with specific style to each letter.
If they are under 40 they wrote with a smidgen of cursive style and a smattering of printing.
If they are under 30 they often wrote in cursive and when they became anxious or tired by the end of their four line letter they often fell into block letters.
If they are under 20 then the writing is usually block lettering and then becomes larger and more scrambled when they are expressing an emotional thought. It often looks like the writing of “Son of Sam”,the paranoid schizophrenic who wrote to the newspapers in 1976.
How would knowing this help you? It might be of major import. Suppose you are writing a mystery, and the kind of handwriting in a note left in a coat pocket is a crucial clue. But this knowledge could also just help you know more about your characters, to describe the elderly aunt’s slanted Palmer letters and her young nice’s blockish, txt-like handwriting.
- by Tara Maya
Trends and Stuff
Author/Agent Mandy Hubbard has some interesting links on trends in MG and YA fiction. Also, if you didn’t catch it before, she breaks down how much an author makes with a traditional publishing advance.
Dystopian is the new hottie in YA. Agents and editors are prophesying that MG will be the new YA, and sci fi will be the new dystopian, so apparently the big money is a breakout sci fi MG novel. That’s great news for me, because I’ve got nothing remotely like that, although I am working on a chapter book about a Dragon Doctor.
Just remember, when you actually go to write, that the two things you must never, never think about are (1) Chasing Trends and (2) Making Money.
I don’t know about you but I obsess about those those things all the time, and it’s like eating ho hos to lose weight, which, yes, I’ve also tried. Nothing is more guaranteed to scare off my muse than demanding to know how much money she’s going to make me.
- by Tara Maya
The Typo Lois Missed
Smallville fans and copy editors everywhere, this one’s for you. Lois copyedited Clark’s paper…. but she missed one.
- by Tara Maya
Ten Tricks To Make Your Fight Scene Realistic
Today, I’m happy to present a guest post by Rayne Hall. Rayne Hall has many hats. In addition to being a terrific writer of both genre fiction (fantasy and horror) and non-fiction, she’s also a terrific teacher and writing mentor. She runs a writing group which I’ve belonged to for a couple years now, and has helped me immeasurably over the years with her thoughtful and incisive critiques. She was one of the Beta Readers for Initiate.
Rayne will be giving a workshop on ‘Writing Fight Scenes‘, which starts on 1 June 2011: www.romance-ffp.com/event.cfm?EventID=303 No matter what genre you write, if someone’s going to throw a punch, swing a sword or shoot a gun, this is a great class to get the fight scene juices flowing.
Ten Tricks To Make Your Fight Scene Realistic
Spacial restrictions.
Your scene will gain realism if you show how the available space limits the fighting: Perhaps the ceiling is too low to swing the sword overhead, or the cop heroine can’t risk shooting at the bad guy because he’s standing in front of the wall, which could lead to bullet ricochet and kill innocent bystanders.
Ground underfoot
Inject a realistic flavour with a single sentence: simply mention what the ground feels like underfoot. What’s the ground like: Persian rugs? Concrete? Lawn? Uneven planks of splintered wood? Hard, firm, soft, squishy, muddy, wet, slippery, wobbling, cluttered, sloping? The ground may even affect the fighting: the heroine may slip on the rain-slicked asphalt or stumble across the edge of a rug.
Close-up vision
During the fight, the point-of-view character sees only what’s immediately before him: his opponent’s face, his opponent’s hands, his opponent’s weapon. If he takes his attention off what’s immediately before him, he’ll be dead. Therefore, don’t show the distant sunset and an overview of how the fighting progresses at the other end of the battlefield.
Dialogue
Avoid dialogue during the fight. The fighters need to concentrate their attention on staying alive, and can’t spare a thought for conversation. Panting with effort, they don’t have breath to spare for verbal banter. Any talking should happen before the fighting starts. If you really need dialogue during the fight, use very short and incomplete sentences, because these convey the breathlessness and sound real.
Thinking
Your PoV doesn’t think while he fights. His mind is totally focused on the action. He can’t think about anything else: not about about his loved ones back home, not about the futility of war, not even about fighting strategy. Any thinking would be a distraction that costs his life. Share his thoughts about strategy before the fighting starts, and his profound insights once the fight is over.
Skills
The fighters can use only skills they possess. A heroine without martial arts training can’t defeat her opponent with an uppercut and a roundhouse kick. Unarmed combat and fighting with weapons requires practice. Establish beforehand what fighting skills the protagonist has, for example by showing her in an earlier scene dusting her shelf of karate trophies.
Sounds
Mention the noises of the fight: the pinging of bullets, the clanking of swords, the sharp snap of breaking bone, the screams and gurgles of the dying. Sounds create realism as well as excitement.
Real weapon
Make sure your fighters use weapons which existed in that period, and that they use those weapons in plausible ways. Not every sword can split a skull, not every gun allows accurate shooting at a distance. If you invent a weapon, model it on real weapons, and keep it simple.
Pain
Fighting hurts. Your PoV character must feel the pain of the blows and cuts. During the fight, the rush of adrenaline may dull the pain, and the real pain kicks in when the action is over. Real fighting also leads to injuries, and your hero needs to sustain some cuts and bruises, at least.
Aftermath
Once the fight is over, add a paragraph describing the aftermath: the survivors assess the carnage, mourn their friends, bandage their wounds, repair their weapons. The adrenaline has worn off and the pain kicks in. The air is filled with strong smells, including cordite in case of a gun fight, and urine and faeces because bladders and bowels give way in death.
How realistic should your fight scene be? Real fighting is brutal and gory, and too much realism may put your reader off. In a hard-boiled thriller, you can use a lot of realism, but in a gentle romance, it’s better to play down the gory aspects and create just enough realism to suspend disbelief. From these ten tips, select the ones which suit your reader and your story.
If you have questions about writing fight scenes, feel free to ask. I’ll be around for a week and will respond.
* * *
Even if you’ve never wielded a weapon, you can write an exciting fight scene. Rayne will show you how, in her workshop on ‘Writing Fight Scenes‘, which starts on 1 June 2011: www.romance-ffp.com/event.cfm?EventID=303