Which Prize Would You Like?

If I were to, say, run semi-regular contests around here, what sorts of prizes would you be most interested in, do you think?


For those suggesting their own prizes in the comments, remember this is for science; try to be mostly serious. Emmet, I'm looking at you.

Daddy, Where Do Crit Partners Come From?

I don't technically have a critique group. I don't meet with other writers on a regular basis, and the only person who sees my chapters as they come out is my wife. Part of that is there just aren't a lot of sci-fi/fantasy writers in Chiang Mai (though admittedly I haven't looked very hard, what with my abject terror of new things).

So I don't have a group, per se, but I do have critique partners -- those hardened souls committed to reading through the garbage I send them. I collect them the way other people collect Pokemon (though my crit partners complain a lot more when I try to stick them in those little balls).

Whenever people ask how to find good crit partners, I want to make a chart. Actually, that's misleading: I always want to make a chart.


DEFINITIONS
Blogging: Either they found my blog or I found theirs. We commented. We discovered common interests. Then one day, one of us tweeted or e-mailed The Question, and a crit partner relationship was formed.
Real Life: I hope this is self-explanatory.
Twitter: Similar to blogging, except I either never knew this person had a blog or I didn't follow it until later.
Through Agent: Not a road everyone can take, but I have recently collected crit partners because we share representation.
Critters.org: A great site if you want to exercise your critting muscles. And every once in a while, a stronger relationship is formed.

Conclusions? Well, blogging and reading blogs has been ridiculously profitable for me in terms of crit partners, but it's not the only road. And it's certainly not the fastest (I've been blogging for 4 years now).

If you're curious what my crit partners look like as writers, well . . . I made that chart too:


What's interesting to me is that, when we met each other, most of my crit partners were at the same spot as I was, and none of them were published. But 4 years later, I now have Real Live Published Authors who will happily read my stuff. That's kind of crazy to me, but I guess this is how it happens -- not by approaching the unapproachable, but by forming long-term relationships and sticking with them.

Where do you find your crit partners? Have any advice for people who have none?

You Know That Fantasy Novel is Really the Author's D&D Game When...

(Remix)
  1. It starts in a tavern.
  2. There is one protagonist and his 3 or 4 friends, who are different from him in every way.
  3. The protagonist is awesome, because every other character tells us so. He also seems the only one capable of making decisions.
  4. Dark-skinned elves are always evil, and always dual-wielding.
  5. The only limitation on magic is that wizards must sleep before they can cast more spells.
  6. Character names contain apostrophes in unneces'sary and inexplicab'le pl'aces.
  7. The villain is immensely more powerful than the main characters, but despite their obvious bent on stopping him, he doesn't face them until they are strong enough to defeat him.
  8. The main characters are referred to as a "party."
  9. The "party" consists of a fighter, a thief, a cleric, and a wizard (alternatively: warrior/rogue/healer/mage, barbarian/burglar/priest/sorcerer, etc).
  10. They take on a quest to either save the world or aid the village, for no other reason than that it's right.
  11. Despite the fact that there are many characters more powerful than the protagonists, no one else is willing or able to take on the quest.
  12. Anyone, anywhere, uses "adventure" as a verb.
Got more?

Books I Read: Closed Hearts by Susan Kaye Quinn

You may recall I talked about Open Minds last year, about a world where everyone can read minds, except for this one girl who discovers she can actually control them. Susan Quinn (crit partner, Author's Echo regular, and giver of the BEST gifts) is releasing the sequel today.

So if you liked Open Minds, go and get Closed Hearts. And if you haven't read the first one, you might as well go do that first. The world building alone is worth it (and I think there's some kissing or something, if you're into that).

Title: Closed Hearts
Author: Susan Kaye Quinn
Genre: YA Sci-Fi
Published: 2012
My Content Rating: PG-13 for make-outs and tense situations

After Kira outed the presence of mindjackers on national TV, things got difficult. Paranoia about what jackers can do is sweeping the mindreading population, complete with anti-jacker politicians and laws. As the most famous jacker in the world, Kira has to stay hidden from readers and angry jackers who liked things better when they were hidden. She thought she was doing okay, until an escaped jacker criminal kidnaps her and forces her to face the thing she fears most: the FBI's experimental torture chamber for jackers.

I love where this trilogy (yeah, there's one more) is headed. There's no easy answers for anybody, which is just how it should be.

And I love how Susan is still exploring this world (without going everywhere). Turns out things might not be as black and white as readers vs. jackers. There are other things too . . .



Because Closed Hearts comes out today, Susan also has a virtual party going on at her site and a giveaway. Use the form below to win some cool stuff!

Rafflecopter giveaway
Other books by Susan Kaye Quinn:


Mind GamesOpen MindsClosed HeartsIn His EyesLife, Liberty, and PursuitFull Speed Ahead

Revision: How to Add a Whole New Character

So when Tricia asked me for revisions, one of the things she wanted (which I totally agreed with) required adding one or two new characters. I'd never actually done this before, and I was afraid the new characters would feel flat or tacked on. Here's what I did to avoid that:

1) Define the character. This is the novel that got me my agent, so the existing characters were pretty fleshed out. I wanted to make the new characters as deep as I could -- goals, motivations, even voice -- before I changed a word. (Yes, I planned. What a shock.)

2) Plan what needs to change. I skimmed through the entire novel, making a note of every scene where the character could appear, and maybe what that would do to the scene or the whole plot if they did. Sometimes this led me down some really interesting roads, though other times I realized it would mess things up too much if they were around.

3) Write the character. For each scene in my notes above, I had to decide whether or not they did appear. This was tricky. I didn't want them to appear only in the scenes where they mattered (no chance for development that way), but I also didn't want them to have a cameo in every single scene just because I could. In the end, I decided to keep them in most scenes rather than make excuses for why they weren't there.

Ah, but how to add them . . .

           3a) Dialog. Sometimes the new character had new things to say, but most of my story was already set. Honestly, about two-thirds of the time, the new character just said things that other characters had said. I just changed the tag and the flow of conversation to support it. You'd be surprised how often -- especially in group scenes -- you can swap lines of dialog around without affecting things.

           3b) Narrator descriptions and thoughts. Whoever's head we're in needs to notice the character. Not just notice them, but have feelings about them that affect things. Otherwise why have them there at all?

           3c) Let them shift the plot a little. I wasn't about to rework whole plot points for these characters, but their presence did change things a bit. Partly, this is what they were being added for (to add emotional weight to certain of the protagonist's decisions), but a couple of events took me by surprise. It's usually good to let these things happen.

           3d) Treat it like a first draft. It's so, so hard to add words to a novel that I know works (see the part where it got me an agent). I want the new words to fit seamlessly with the old ones and to be just as awesome. But it's better to accept that they won't be at first. You'll make them good in a second.

4) Read the whole novel again. Slow. Now that the characters are in there, you have to make sure everything still flows. It's not just about continuity and details, but you have to look at the emotions of the scenes. Do the character's words and actions fit what's going on around them? Is she being flippant when she should be scared, or crying in a relatively tame moment? (Mine was).

I also realized there were places where the protagonist could be thinking about the new characters, even though they weren't in the scene. The new characters were now part of the protagonist's life, and I think this helped make them even more real.

5) Send it to a beta reader who hasn't read it before. You can send it to betas who have read it too, but I wanted someone who knew nothing to tell me which character(s) they thought I had added, which felt the most tacked-on.

I was kind of excited when my beta reader named characters that had been in the novel from the beginning. It did make me wonder about those old characters a little, but the new characters felt like part of the story to her, which means I did it right. And honestly, now I can't imagine the story without them either.

Have you ever added a character in revision? How did you do it?

On the Ridiculous Idea that You Can Steal an Idea


Stop me when you know what famous book this is:
A young kid growing up in an oppressive family situation suddenly learns that he is one of a special class of children with special abilities, who are to be educated in a remote training facility where student life is dominated by an intense game played by teams flying in midair, at which this kid turns out to be exceptionally talented and a natural leader. He trains other kids in unauthorized extra sessions, which enrages his enemies, who attack him with the intention of killing him; but he is protected by his loyal, brilliant friends and gains strength from the love of some of his family members. He is given special guidance by an older man of legendary accomplishments who previously kept the enemy at bay. He goes on to become the crucial figure in a struggle against an unseen enemy who threatens the whole world.
If you said Harry Potter, you're right. But if you said Ender's Game . . . you're also right. This quote is from an article Orson Scott Card wrote, berating J.K. Rowling for this one time she got mad at someone for "stealing" her ideas.

Guys, you can't NOT steal ideas.

Don't believe me? Visit TV Tropes for like two seconds (if you dare). Such a site wouldn't even exist if the tropes listed there hadn't been done time and time again. Not because people are unoriginal, but because we are original, but that does not mean what you think it means.

Being original means we all take the same raw materials -- life -- and turn it into something unique. But it's because of those common raw materials that we all come up with chosen ones and special powers and wise old mentors and unlikely leaders. Because those are the things that move us.

Don't worry about someone stealing your idea, and don't worry about stealing someone else's. Ideas cannot be copyrighted and no one can win a lawsuit because you also made references to the Bible. If they could, the Tolkien estate would own Hasbro by now, and C.S. Lewis's benefactors would have a number of things to say to that guy who tried to sue Assassin's Creed.

Keep moving forward, taking people's ideas and letting people take yours. It's all good, and it'll come back around anyway. Because the goal is not originality or even money. The goal is to show people old things in a new way.

Your way.