A Couple of Links to BVC

Something that has come up in class lately:

Do you write about horses? Do you know the subject inside out?

This is a book you might find extremely helpful.

Available here or on
Amazon or where other ebooks are sold.

How far can a horse travel in a day? What does a horse eat? When is a brown horse really a sorrel (or a bay, or a dun)? What do tack and withers and canter mean?

In this long-awaited and much-requested book based on her “Horseblog” at Book View Café, author and horse breeder Judith Tarr answers these questions and many more. She looks at horses from the perspective of the writer whose book or story needs them as anything from basic transport to major plot device, and provides definitions, explanations, and links and references for further research–leavened with insight into the world of the horse and the humans who both use and serve him.

How fast can a horse run? What happens when a foal is born? How have humans and horses evolved together over the millennia? And above all, what mistakes do writers most often make when writing about horses, and how can the educated writer avoid them?

Here is a guide to the fine art of getting it right.

You can find Judy's books here at BVC, and also where other ebooks and print books are sold.

Also, I've been asked about Doranna Durgin, whose fiction is often about dogs and horses, both of which she knows a lot about.

Not your average glamour shot.
 (Stacy Keach with Miss P, from the 
Westminster site.)

She regularly blogs at Book View Café. You can find her dog-blogs here, in reverse order, most recent first.

Her most recent post is about Miss P, the recent Best of Show winner at Westminster.

Doranna shows beagles at agility trials so has a real affinity for the breed.

You can find Doranna's books here at BVC and also where other ebooks and print books are sold.

Entries on dogs by all BVC authors.

Entries on horses by all BVC authors.

About Writing Women

Kate Elliott, whose writing I love, has knocked this one out of the park. Read it and think about it and incorporate it into your writing.

At the most basic level, one-dimensional, shallow, and cliched characterization comes about because of poor craft on the part of writers whatever the gender of the characters. If a writer can’t be bothered to dig deeper than a commonly deployed trope (defined as a literary or rhetorical device), their characters aren’t going to be well drawn.

If the clichés and tropes they use belong to a subset of character types that is currently valued and commonly agreed upon as “typical” or “realistic” in the popular culture of the moment, then some readers may not notice the shallowness or cliché because it is a portrayal they EXPECT to see and have seen a thousand times before.

Its very familiarity comforts and feels right.

[skipping some really strong examples you should read for yourself]

The Evil Seductress With Her Sexually Tempting and Irresistible Wiles; The Slutty Girl Who Pays For Her Sexual “Freedom” With Her Life; The Girl Too Ugly To Get Married; The Passive Bride who will either Be Crushed By Life or who will Find Her Strength; The Withering Old Woman Who Hates Her Youthful “Rival” Because There Is No Meaning For Women Beyond When They Cease Being Sexually Attractive to Men; The Peaceful Matriarch Whose Nurtures All Because It Is The Essential Nature of Womanhood To Nurture.

They write themselves.

This is why I feel it is important to carefully examine your women characters as you conceive and begin to write them. Consider if they are individuals or types. Sometimes the cliché or the “type” might work well in a plot; there can be reasons to use two-dimensional characters in certain roles. But be sure you’re doing it deliberately, not unthinkingly.

Much, much more here.

My head exploded.

But fortunately Chuck Wendig's head exploded first and he shared his admittedly foul-mouthed/penned but spot-on reaction to a former creative writing professor's true confessions about his students.

And I think you'd benefit from reading it.

Here.