Don't worry, we're sure to spot Faith first. She's like this cleavagy slut-bomb walking around 'Ooh, check me out, I'm wicked-cool, I'm five-by-five.'

Willow ,'Get It Done'


The Great Write Way, Chapter Two: Twice upon a time...  

A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.


deborah grabien - May 27, 2006 8:06:27 am PDT #6788 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

Erin, totally go team you. And this isn't my normal output level either - that's the whole point. I'm looking at nearly 400K words of fiction this past year - not including song lyrics or drabbles - and thinking, the FUCK?....


Strix - May 27, 2006 8:13:54 am PDT #6789 of 10001
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger

I keep tapping out more sentences.

Can't...stop...writing...bitchy...character!

I have 27 1/2 pages! 3 and 1/2 chapters!

Woo!

And a headache. But I am chuffed.


Typo Boy - May 27, 2006 8:19:23 am PDT #6790 of 10001
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.

Deborah. BTW I note that Cruel Sister can now be pre-ordered at Amazon. If any of your Beta readers want to write a review there, I understand this can improve sales, and that pre-orders sales can affect how publishers promote your stuff.


Strix - May 27, 2006 8:24:28 am PDT #6791 of 10001
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger

Technical types questions:

1 -- Potential saleable novel formatting: Double-spaced? page Numbers?

2 -- AmyLiz, et. al. -- Any idea of average/desirable page length for contemporary setting paranormal romance with a lot sex and the use of the word "fuck" in it? Ideas for publishers whose sites I could look at for ideas on this? Potential publishers? Jumping the gun, I know, but I'm a Virgo, and I like ahead-of-time info.

3- Dialogue: I'm leaning towards minimum use of "He said "Blah"/she argued "Yaddah." Going more for back and forth, except when need to use "speaking" verbs to indicate who's talking, and mood. Thoughts?


Amy - May 27, 2006 8:29:24 am PDT #6792 of 10001
Because books.

Erin:

Page numbers -- YES

Double spaced -- YES (OMG yes)

Length -- Should be in the at least 85,000 word range, 90,000-100,000 words more likely. (Shorter stuff could possible go to Harlequin, which has a new paranormal line coming out, I believe.)

Publishers -- Anything from Harlequin to Dorchester to Kensington to all of the others. Paranormal is hot right now, and so is sex. Best thing to do is putter around the bookstore, find some books you think are like what you're writing, and check the publisher. Caveat: Many of the biggies will accept only agented submissions.

Dialogue -- You need tags when dialogue has gone on a while, so readers can keep track, and always when more than one person is talking.

Other questions, just shout. You have my email, yes?


Typo Boy - May 27, 2006 8:33:29 am PDT #6793 of 10001
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.

3- Dialogue: I'm leaning towards minimum use of "He said "Blah"/she argued "Yaddah." Going more for back and forth, except when need to use "speaking" verbs to indicate who's talking, and mood. Thoughts?

Deborah helped me with this last one when I was having problems in a drabble. You can indicate the speaker in other ways: Body language, tone of voice, etc.

Mike's clenched fists relaxed, palms opened. He look earnestly into her eyes. "I'd never lie to you".

(Wanna bet Mike is lying through his teeth?)

(Actually this feels like a good spot for a rare "he said" - but you get the idea.)


Strix - May 27, 2006 8:36:02 am PDT #6794 of 10001
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger

Profile addy, right?

Cool. I read like a mofo, so I'll scour my shelves today and look at sites later.

Not used to thinking of word range -- must adjust thinking. Less tham 9200 words now, so won't even think about words like "agented" till I'm down 40K, I think.

And I know para is hot now, but it's what I'd write anyhoo, so woo. And I think I'm actually pretty decent, so writing this thang is my job this summer. And I'm tired of hypocritically reading something and thinking "I can write better pararomance than this!" and not doing is. So, money where my big fat mouth is.

Thanks, doll.


deborah grabien - May 27, 2006 8:37:18 am PDT #6795 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

TB, I don't think Amazon allows reader reviews up before release; they only take them from publications. Memo to self, ask Marlene to keep an eye on pub reviews.

1 -- Potential saleable novel formatting: Double-spaced? page Numbers?

What AmyLiz said. You leave it numberless and not doubled, it won't even get looked at.

2 -- AmyLiz, et. al. -- Any idea of average/desirable page length for contemporary setting paranormal romance with a lot sex and the use of the word "fuck" in it? Ideas for publishers whose sites I could look at for ideas on this? Potential publishers? Jumping the gun, I know, but I'm a Virgo, and I like ahead-of-time info.

What AmyLiz said.

3- Dialogue: I'm leaning towards minimum use of "He said "Blah"/she argued "Yaddah." Going more for back and forth, except when need to use "speaking" verbs to indicate who's talking, and mood. Thoughts?

My own take - and habit, and tastes - run to "tell them to shut the fuck up and do something". If there's going to be a lot of dialogue, please to do something to break up the gab and bring them to life by having them move their arms and legs and bodies. Bit of a soap-box issue for me, but honestly, I've found too many books these days are pure talky-meat. Very few people in the real world do nothing but talk; people live. It's writing them living that makes a book interesting to me.

But for breaking up dialogue, I go for tagging with action, not direction. So I'd go for

"You want to do what?" Her eyebrows were all the way up. "Are you kidding me?"

rather than

"You want to do what?" She (said, exclaimed, gasped, insert other overused verb here). "Are you kidding me?"

I like dialogue that illuminates a character or scene, rather than illuminating the writer. Your tastes may vary.


Amy - May 27, 2006 8:38:51 am PDT #6796 of 10001
Because books.

Profile address, yeah.

Easiest way to calculate -- 250 per page, no matter what your computer count is (this is based on how publishers calculate expected printed length, with white space and margins and blah blah). So a 100,000 word manuscript is 400 pages. You can subtract from there.


Amy - May 27, 2006 8:40:16 am PDT #6797 of 10001
Because books.

But for breaking up dialogue, I go for tagging with action, not direction. So I'd go for

"You want to do what?" Her eyebrows were all the way up. "Are you kidding me?"

This, as TypoBoy also pointed out, is a Very Good Thing. You want to *see* the people in the scene, too.