 Diana Pharaoh Francis
After the Red Wedding episode of Game of Thrones (which I did not watch), I posted a blog about character killing. I was responding, in part, to an interview GRRM had done on what he writes and why. I had a lot of fascinating responses to it. But then on the heels of that, I saw a tweet by Saladin Ahmed about how he writes escapist fiction to give his readers a chance to escape the real world. Now, what does that have to do with today’s post? I know I like to tell a good story. I like a captivating story that holds me tight. But when I read, I like a happy ending. Or at least not a terrible ending. I could never really read the Oprah book picks because they were inevitably depressing. Maybe they were realistic and gritty, but they were also lacking hope, or [...]
Continue reading What I Write
Diana Pharaoh Francis
Two things converged for me this week to bring home the fact that I don’t know enough. First, I’m writing on something where in which in the first few pages I’ve run across a number of things I need to dig up: kinds of spiders in Tennessee, and what sorts of poisonous spiders do people keep as pets; who can obtain police complaint information and how and how long is that information kept: What do you call someone who is a deputy sheriff but not the elected sheriff (I figure deputy is the title, but do people in the town just call him Sheriff anyhow?). There were some other things I dug into also and more that I can see coming down the road soon.
Then the tornado hit in OK. As I’m watching coverage and trying not to think too hard about the devastation, I’m asking a lot of [...]
Continue reading You have to research to write
Diana Pharaoh Francis
What do you do when you read a book (or start reading it) that everyone on the planet seems to like and get and you don’t?* Stop reading is the obvious answer, but I’m a writer, and I can’t stand the idea of giving up on a book. I also hate thinking that I’m not getting the book somehow. That I’m at fault, because if everyone else is falling in love with the book, why can’t I? It’s also a writerly quirk where I want to dissect the way a book works. I don’t dissect books that I like because I enjoy them and because it’s easy to see what works (for me, that is). It’s really tough to figure out how a book works if you don’t like it. Especially that hard-to-define something that captures the heart and imagination of a reader. That something that we all want to [...]
Continue reading Only Words Will Show the Way
Diana Pharaoh Francis
One of the things that this investigation following the Boston bombing has reminded me of is character building. This is the writing disease, to connect even awful things to writing. Graham Greene said every writer has to have a splinter of ice in his heart, that he has to be able to be inside a terrible situation and still observe and record. As I look at how the cops are trying to piece together these men and understand the how, why, when and so on, I realized how similar that is to what writers do.
Don’t think she’s not got a motive and means. She’s just looking for opportunity.
I have a character in my WIP. (Wow, how crazy is that? Having a character in my WIP? Moving on, Dr. Obvious . . . ). Anyhow, I began with what she looks like and her name. As I started [...]
Continue reading Writers as Cops
Diana Pharaoh Francis
While at Norwescon, I was on a panel talking about rogues, heroes and anti-heroes. Apparently the subject is still bugging me, because I feel the need to continue it here, talking about anti-heroes in particular. The usual anti-heroes that I think of when the subject comes up is Elric of Melnibone and Thomas Covenant. I hate Thomas. Never liked him. Couldn’t get through the first book even. But I loved Elric. It’s been so long since I’ve read those books, though, that I can’t tell you why. They are all packed up and waiting for my eventual move that I can’t get to them either and have another look.
The conclusion of the panel was that anti-heroes do good accidentally or only selfishly. They frequently cause chaos. We talked about how heroes and anti-heroes can both be dark and do horrible things, sometimes for good, sometimes for not so good [...]
Continue reading Hero or Anti-hero?
Diana Pharaoh Francis
You may or may not have heard about the recent tug-of-war (emphasis on war) between Barnes and Noble and Simon and Schuster (for clarity, I’m published with S&S under the Pocket umbrella). In a nutshell, BN is slowing down on carrying S&S books. As in, almost none. It seems to be they will be carrying the Big Names, because they don’t want to cut off their noses that much. For more on this, I blogged about it the other day, and so have many others. (feel free to post links for more info and the damage it does to authors in the comments). As I point out, this hurts authors, especially midlisters like me, and most of the others who write this blog. But that isn’t what I want to talk about. I want to talk about when you get run over, whacked with a clawhammer, drawn-and-quartered, or whatever metaphor [...]
Continue reading And so publishing goes
Diana Pharaoh Francis
I told you last time around that I would address how to plan a series or a trilogy. I should probably confess, I don’t know. Or rather, I do it one way and I think there must be better ways. Which is why I’m hoping some of my compatriots here will chime in. How is Faith handling the Jane Yellowrock series in terms of planning? Will David’s Thieftaker books be a trilogy or longer? How do you decide? How do you know how many books will be available?
The first thing is this: It isn’t always about what you want. Publishers sometimes buy 2 books or 3 books, and then play the “we’ll see what the numbers do” card. Well, that means if you’re planning on five books or six, then you may not get to finish out the series because your numbers aren’t good enough for the publisher to [...]
Continue reading Planning trilogies/series
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