Category: Archives

Home > Writing > Archives

Romance in A Time of Tragedy by Monica Stoner Member at Large

January 19, 2010 by in category Archives tagged as ,

How many of us wonder, as we’re pounding out the lives of our hero and heroine, if there can be justification for Romance writing such times as terrorist attacks in war zones the tsunami in the Indian Ocean or the earthquake in Haiti. Can we justify spending so much time at our keyboards with, to be honest, very little hope of remuneration? Shouldn’t we be doing something?

The same questions come up for anyone deeply involved in what some might call a non productive hobby or career or avocation. And we who feel deeply worry the most about our place in the world. We each do what we can in our own way.

Spinning tales out of mid air is a time honored method of dealing with difficult times. “Tell me a story,” whispers the frightened child, looking for distraction from the sounds in their closet. “Tell us a tale,” commands the King when a new Bard comes to visit. “Make our heroes bigger and braver, our villains more evil, and our princesses even more beautiful.” Tell us a tale, and take us away, if briefly, from our every day world. Give us something else to think about, if only for the next few minutes.

I know I’ve certainly thought this more than once, and said so to someone whose opinion was very important to me. She asked back: “If you stopped writing or showing dogs or riding horses would those tragedies go away?” She did have a great way of cutting an issue down to basics, and also reminding me very few people are so important their actions influence the world. A lot of people might think they are that important but that’s a matter for another time. None of us can stop the ocean or earth from expressing themselves.

Andre Norton wrote of heroes from the unlikeliest backgrounds, mostly what might be considered “throw away” people in the slums left over from horrific intergalactic wars. I wonder if this was her method of dealing with the lost children and lost people after governments have rolled over top of citizens? Certainly her “ordinary people” did extraordinary things, once they recognized their own value. Could some of this also have to do with why some of us create characters who can stop the ocean and who can communicate with the earth to convince her not to shrug so hard, or in such a vulnerable place?

We each do what we can, in our own way, to deal with tragedy. Whatever we do, we also reach out to each other, to the other spinners of tales, for the comfort of at least a few hours of relief from the unrelenting worry. And perhaps our words are read by someone who needed that particular story at that particular time. Hug your loved ones.

Monica Stoner
tsent@ix.netcom.com

0 0 Read more

e-maginings: Passion, Heat & Ecstasy

January 16, 2010 by in category Archives tagged as , , ,

Next month, I’ll be teaching an online class on writing erotic romance with Dee Ann Palmer w/a Carolina Valdez. Passion, Heat & Ecstasy: Writing the Erotic Romance is sponsored by the Yosemite chapter of RWA and runs from Feb. 1 to 26. Details are at http://www.yosemiteromancewriters.com/6.html; scroll down to find our class.

I’ve been compiling my section of the bibliography for the class, and decided to pull out a couple of books to recommend here. Both books are available at Amazon.com if you can’t find them in the bookstore.

Passionate Ink: A Guide to Writing Erotic Romance by Angela Knight, Loose Id, LLC, 2007. In my opinion, this is the best book to get if you want to write erotic romance. Knight understands the genre and has some useful tips, like her “romantic conflict” chart.

Knight distinguishes between sensual and erotic romance by looking at what drives the story. In her opionion, what drives sensual romances “isn’t sex, but not having sex”. In order to maintain sexual tension between hero and heroine, the writer devises external and internal reasons why going to bed with each other is a bad idea. The actual act of making love often signals a significant drop in sexual tension and the writer then has to find a way to make the conflict kick in again.

Erotic romance is driven by what she calls “romantic tension”, in other words the central conflict that makes the HEA ending seem problematic. This means strong conflict, esp. in a full-length novel.

Conflicting Desires: Notes on the Craft of Writing Erotic Stories by Han Li Thorn, Velluminous Press, 2007. A good how-to book geared to mainstream erotica but not romance. Chapter 4 on The Erotic Promise is particularly useful and there are several appendices, including an Erotic Lexicon.

In the above chapter 4, Thorn posits that writers of erotic literature make three promises to their readers: to arouse, to entertain and to offer something deeper, whether in depth of charaterization, complexity of plot, or eliciting an intellectual or emotional depth. In erotica, the first promise must be kept, but if you can deliver on the other two promises, you work will stand out.

He also states that “erotic conflict is at the heart of erotic story”. Otherwise it’s a spiced-up romance or mystery or whatever, but it doesn’t qualify as “erotica”. This is often easier said than done.

If you’ll forgive a bit of blatant self-promotion, I think my novella Alliance: Cosmic Scandal is a good example of erotic conflict. Here’s the blurb:

When Myrek, heir to the Ziganese throne, becomes ambassador to the planet Mhajav, he hopes to find a cure for his son’s hereditary illness. Then he meets a lovely young geneticist and passion overwhelms his sense of duty. All he can think of is making Khira his own.

Khira is a rarity, a Mhajavi virgin of 25. A child prodigy, she skipped several grades and was underage when most of her classmates went off to sex camp before attending university. Though hopelessly in love with Myrek, she knows their love is doomed. Under Ziganese law Myrek must wed a virgin, but Mhajavi law forbids virgins from marrying.

An erotic encounter in a brothel leads to a fateful decision that defies the laws of two worlds and causes a cosmic scandal.

In this story, the couple fall in love but are unable to marry because of the respective laws of their worlds. Prince Myrek is legally required to wed a virgin, something prohibited by Kira’s world Mhajav. Their solutions to the problem are creative as well as sensual.

As the title of our class says, erotic romance calls for Passion, Heat and Ecstasy.

Have a good weekend.

Lyndi Lamont
website: http://www.lyndilamont.com/

(Disclaimer: Both writing books recommended in this blog were purchased by me personally, not provided gratis for endorsement. LL)

0 0 Read more

Blogging in Victorian England by Jina Bacarr

January 11, 2010 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , , , ,

Imagine if Queen Victoria twittered (“We are not amused today…”) or Dickens posted a Facebook Profile (Relationship Status: married with ten children, Employer: law clerk turned freelance writer) or Jack the Ripper updated his status on his MySpace page (Mood: agitated. Headed over to Whitechapel).

What if you wanted to blog about Victorian England as your character? What challenges would you face? It was a different lifestyle back then with a different manner of speech, decorum and way of life. A world without Blackberrys and YouTube, yet a very civilized and fascinating world.

And more of a challenge than I realized when I set out to write a blog in the voice of my heroine in my February 2010 Spice novel, “The Blonde Samurai,” the story of an Irish-American heiress who weds a British lord then falls in love with a handsome samurai in 1873 Japan.

I was determined to offer readers an amusing and witty look at the world of Victorian England and Japan in the late nineteenth century. “A Naughty Victorian Lady tells all…” launched at the eHarlequin.com website with A Naughty Victorian Lady’s Christmas Stocking.

Everything was going well until–

I wanted to blog about the video I made in the voice of my heroine, Lady Carlton, showcasing “The Blonde Samurai.” Not plausible, since the first celluloid film (a few seconds long) wasn’t shot until the late 1880s, years after my novel takes place.

Fortunately, the idea of “moving pictures” wasn’t as outlandish to Victorians as one might believe. Several patents were applied for during this time, including a British patent for “…moving images optically combined with a reflected ‘background’ ” and another for “Improvement in the Method and Apparatus for Photographing Objects in Motion.”

Interesting, but not the amusing and romantic tone I wanted for my blog.

What was a writer to do? Go with what I know best: romance. I combined Victorian England and Japan in a romantic setting to describe my video about “The Blonde Samurai.”

Here is an excerpt:

Believe that I have fastened together silk paintings and that I shall make them “move” by flipping through them; or that I have painted scenes on the ribs of a folding fan, then I shall open it slowly to make the scenes change from one to the next.

Imagine, if you will.

So I request that you transcend the world of London with its insufferable saffron-colored fog and the bone-chilling weather this time of year that makes you don flannel petticoats to keep the cold from darting up your backside–

And come with me back to the warm Spring of 1873 as I tell you the story of The Blonde Samurai in a most unique and charming manner…

February 2010: meet The Blonde Samurai

“She embraced the way of the warrior. Two swords. Two loves.”

0 0 Read more

Best Movies of 2009

January 8, 2010 by in category Archives

The best movie I saw in 2009 was also the last movie I saw in 2009 – The Time Traveler’s Wife. I loved this movie!! I was a big fan of the book (once I figured out what on earth was going on, about a third of the way into the story), but I would have to say this is one of those rare occasions where the movie was arguably better than the book. My husband would never read a book like that, but he loved the movie, too. It’s funny, sad, all those great things.

Other great movies of ’09: Last Chance Harvey, Young Victoria, Ghost Town (or was that 2008?). Great movies of 2009 that I haven’t seen yet but will make sure I do: Julie & Julia, Avatar, District 9, Hangover. Movies that I had high hopes of but which disappointed: 500 Days of Summer, The Informant. Movie that I never wanted to see, but got talked into and wished I hadn’t: The Class.

What were your movie highs and lows in 2009?

0 0 Read more

Happy New Year, OCC!

January 6, 2010 by in category Archives

As always, I’m excited to face a whole new year of opportunities. Will I achieve them?

Will you?

I just finished the rough first draft of the first book in my new mystery series about Lauren Vancouver, Pet Rescuer–a spin-off from my Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter series. I’m facing a deadline to turn it in, plus another in the series this year, as well as a Silhouette Nocturne. And, I hope, even more.

Can I do it? Sure.

What else do I want to achieve this year? Lots, including in my co-career, as a lawyer.

Another thing I want to do is to attend as many OCC meetings as I can. As always. There’s nothing greater than sharing experiences and ideas with people who are as enthusiastic as our wonderful chapter members!

I’ve blogged on my weekly blog–KillerHobbies.blogspot.com–about New Years resolutions for pets, since I tend to break mine pretty fast each year, so I’m not phrasing anything as an actual resolution this year.

How about you? Are you making resolutions? It’s now the sixth day into the New Year. Have you broken them yet?

How much writing do you intend to accomplish this year???

I rather like Deb Mullins’ idea of making All-Year’s Resolutions, especially about writing. You can read her ideas as posted here on A Slice of Orange on December 28.

By the way… Happy New Decade, too!

And as always, if there’s something you’d like me to address in a future Slice of Orange, please say so! See you here on the sixth of each month…

0 0 Read more
«‹88899091929394›»

Copyright ©2017 A Slice of Orange. All Rights Reserved. ~PROUDLY POWERED BY WORDPRESS ~ CREATED BY ISHYOBOY.COM

>