Mad Scientists and Evil Geniuses

This week the writers at Book View Cafe are blogging about Mad Scientists and Evil Geniuses.

I want to point out a particular entry (which is actually a re-post) where the Evil Genius is a horse.

For Amanda and anyone else who loves horses.

Smart Horse Tricks.

Enjoy! 

Pavlov's Soundtrack

I assume you know about Pavlov's dog.

If you don't, go check this out; I'll wait.

::whistles politely::

::provides illustration for the rest of us, while you're reading::

Back?

All righty, then.

I have learned to create soundtracks for my writing, because once my brain associates music with the writing process, it becomes easier to actually--you know--get into it.

Do you know what a blog tour is? (Does this sound like one of my typical digressions where I wander away from the topic and leave you going "wtf?" Well, this is exactly like one of my typical digressions--because it has a point! Wait for it.*)

(*Well, you always wait for it, and when you're lucky, I still remember it when I get there.)

(This is the best advertisement for my teaching EVER. Because clearly everybody will want to take a class from someone who can't stick to the topic without wandering around the world taking sidetrips, right?)

(Right.)

A blog tour is when an author promotes a new book by taking a tour of other people's blogs and writing new entries for all of them, so that a wide new potential audience of readers will be exposed to them, their work, and hopefully go buy their new book.

(See, even though this is a digression, it's still educational. But, I digress.)

I mentioned Marie Brennan's new book before, when I mentioned it's an illustrated novel. Well, I'm mentioning it again, because she's on a blog tour promoting the new novel, and I keep tripping over interesting things she's written.

Which is when we get back to the soundtrack theory. She describes the soundtrack she created for a "Natural History of Dragons" here.

She describes the process she used in choosing music.

The first time I had a soundtrack was quite by accident.  I discovered that playing Christmas music helped me write a script that took place on Christmas Eve, even though I was writing in July. It was quite brilliant, really. Plug in the earbuds and suddenly I'm in my imaginary world where it's always Christmas Eve... until midnight, I mean, when it's Christmas. Yay!

Next project was about a group of women from South Carolina who end up in England. That was trickier, until I discovered Carolina Beach Music.  Not only did I have a new view of the world I was writing about, but I also had a kind of music that joined four generations of South Carolina women and the secrets they were hiding.

And since then, the beat goes on. I now always create a soundtrack. This is no guarantee that the muse will cooperate, but it certainly pleases her more often than not.

What about you? Do you use music to tempt the muse?

Chills.

In class we touched upon--merely touched upon--the ability of an image to inspire an entire world of possibilities for story and character. Hopefully you found that fun.

Today I was googling for something else and stumbled across this image.

I saved him, because seriously, how creepy is that? Of course I know who it is and where it came from, but that doesn't mean he can't show up in my own fiction in an entirely different way.

What about you? Can a person's picture inspire a thousand words? A world? A universe?

That Kiss

Another thing we touched on in class.  Three-act structure. Even in commercials.

This one prompted this response from Laura Anne Gilman on twitter:

@LAGilman: As an Audi driver, I hope the girl was the one who socked that kid for grabbing-without-asking. #commercials

Grabbing without asking. I think I know where they got that inspiration from, and there is still discussion over whether this was an inappropriate reaction or not. I loved it. I also understand that it could be seen as demeaning, that an Academy Award-winning actress, Halle Berry, is reduced to "the prize" that is available for manhandling. Although she was pro enough to go along with it.

On the other hand, it was a beautiful acceptance speech.

So. What do you think?  Inappropriate, inexcusable, or part of the game of show biz?

And which commercials did you find that had a three-act structure?

An Illustrated Novel

This subject came up in class last week and lo and behold, what should come across my screen but an illustrated novel that happens to be written by one of my fellow authors at Book View Cafe.

Here is a guest blog Marie wrote about her new book, A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent.  I haven't held it in my hands, yet, but I intend to. It looks fun.

What is Middle Grade? What is Young Adult?

Leviathan is one of my favorite novels from recent years. It happens to be a young adult novel, but there's nothing childish or immature about it. Some of the best fiction written these days is written for the younger markets.

What is Young Adult? What is Middle Grade?

SFWA and Malinda Lo will tell you the difference between MG and YA fiction here.

Here's some of the top YA fiction of 2012.

Harry Potter started it. Twilight picked up the baton. The Hunger Games sealed the deal. You don't have to be a young adult to buy, read and love YA fiction any more.

But you do need to read today's YA and see what today's readers want in a novel.

This is true of any kind of novel, though. You must read the new material that's out there, the books written by new writers who don't sell books just because they are already popular writers.

You need to see what readers want to read today and then decide if that's what you want to write, can write. And believe me, there are a lot of wonderful new writers out there waiting for you to discover them.