Molotov Hearts by Chris Eng

Trying on a pair of pants isn’t a subversive act, is it? For a teenage girl who sees another world—a world of friendship, authentic self-expression, freedom, ideas, and great music—in a group of punks who hang out downtown, the first step to changing her life is buying a pair of jeans. Jenn manages to find new friends and an escape from her home life, but her escape is based on deception, and eventually it can’t continue. How can Jenn escape her controlling mother and take control of her life?

This book is very much about identity, and the importance of finding a way to be yourself. The book has a lot of heart. It’s about the importance of taking action to change your life, but it acknowledges the power of a generous act by a stranger. In the end, Jenn manages to finds a way to solve her problems herself in a way that doesn’t match violence with violence. Although a romance acts as the catalyst for Jenn’s transformation, there’s no message here that love fixes everything. In fact, the boyfriend is almost an innocent bystander while it’s the women who really make things happen. Love may or may not happen, but you have to fix yourself first.

Part of the reason this book speaks to me is because I know the author. Chris and I went to the same high school in Victoria, BC, and the physical and psychological setting of the story is vivid in my mind. However, even if you’re not a Victoria native, I can recommend this story about identity, love, and the power of punk.

Molotov Hearts is available from Powell’s Books or Amazon. Buy the PDF at Chris’s webstore, or read it for free at HoodieRipper.com. Check out Chris’s new series, Switchblade Queens.

Reviewed from my own (paper) copy of the book.

Editing fiction: The author-editor relationship

I attended a workshop recently on fiction editing, taught by Caroline Adderson. One of the best parts was getting her perspective on what makes for good author-editor communication. Here are some things she talked about.

Be enthusiastic

The author has worked on this book for years. They want to hear that you like it.

• Say that you like the book.
• Show that you care about the book and are committed to making it a success.
• If you’re given a manuscript to work on that you don’t like, find something positive to say about it.
• Hearing the editor say things like “I’m really excited to be working on this project” means a lot to the author.

The process of working together

A meet and greet phone call is helpful to establish rapport. Don’t leave the author in suspense. Tell them when you’ll start work, and let them know if there’s a delay so they aren’t left wondering whether you’re working on it yet, and what you think. When you do start work, let the author know and, again, say something positive about the manuscript so far (“I love the first chapter”).

Asking for changes

• Always show respect for the author’s hard work first. Start by talking about what you liked.
• Don’t follow a positive statement with “but.” It will cancel out the positive value of what came before.
• Don’t let your comments take on the tone of telling the author where they’re going wrong; explain that you had trouble understanding something and ask if they can make it clearer.
• Be very specific. Refer to exact spots in the manuscript and explain clearly what you think could be done differently. It’s even better if you can refer to another spot in the manuscript where the author has done what you’re asking for.
• Suggest the change in a query instead of making it yourself. Marking up the text, even with track changes, comes across as far more heavy-handed than asking for the change in a comment.

Photo by Qbert88. Some rights reserved.

A good writer wants to write a good book

A good writer cares most about producing a good book, so if you phrase your suggestions as ways to improve the manuscript, not the writer, the writer will find it easier to get on board. When you suggest that material be cut, soften the pain by emphasizing that the material is good, it’s just not right for the manuscript. You can suggest that the material be saved and used somewhere else.

Caroline said, “When you have a wonderful editor, you write the book for the editor.”

More on the author-editor relationship

• Some further thoughts on nonviolent editing
• Review of Author & Editor: A Working Guide (a book that Caroline quoted from in the course)
• Review of The Artful Edit, about self-editing and working with editors

Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James

I finally got around to reading Fifty Shades of Grey. I thought that when my name finally came to the top of the library’s hold list I’d read the first chapter and put it down with a sneer, but that’s not what happened.

Yes, the writing is clunky and the book lacks polish. There are plenty of little things that don’t ring true (Anastasia doesn’t have a computer; she trips over a clean, well-lit floor; the dancing in the nightclub scene), and I could have done with a bit less of the inner goddess. But overall I found the book fun. Everyone in the book is nice, including the brooding Mr. Grey. The story is quite upbeat, and it’s easy to read. If you’re in the right mood to fantasize along, you can have a good time.

Photo by jessdamen. Some rights reserved.

A voyage of self-discovery and transformation can be a great story, especially in the erotica genre. But the book failed for me—and I suspect this is at the root of many the complaints about Ana—by not being that. Ana shows bravery when she ventures into Christian’s world. She faces some pretty daunting challenges, and she does a good job in negotiating her boundaries. But instead of realizing that she’s kink-curious and exploring her own interests and needs, she makes it all about the man, and she gets stuck in a loop of “I want him so much, but I don’t know if I can give him what he wants.” The story comes off as being about her picking and choosing between different options offered to her instead of being about her taking action to discover who she is and what she wants. The ending is also seriously disappointing. It looks as if the author noticed she was running out of space and cobbled together a weak climax at the expense of making Ana do something that’s both ridiculous and inconsistent with her earlier actions.

The book probably isn’t going to win any awards for the Most Realistic Depiction of Kinky People. The kinky person here is high-functioning but emotionally damaged. Of course that’s necessary to raise the emotional stakes in the story—if Ana were having a relationship with a happy, well-balanced person who happened to like spanking, the conflict wouldn’t be nearly big enough—but it’s still disappointing. The BDSM is rather mild—I was kind of waiting for it to start. Some BDSM-themed books (Sleeping Beauty Trilogy, Story of O) plunge quickly into activities that would endanger life and limb, but Fifty Shades keeps things tame. Where Anne Rice’s masters hang their slaves up by their wrists all night, Christian Grey “aims for pink.”

The book combines easy reading, romance, erotic spice, and better writing than your average pulp romance with some kind of genre-busting spark. I hope it will help open the door to distinctive, well-written, entertaining, and well-produced erotica hitting the mainstream.

Reviewed from a library copy of the book.

Strange Flesh by Michael Olson

One thing the internet reveals is that the world contains multitudes of people just like you . . . Some people are looking to share their thoughts, others are looking to share . . . other things.

As heartbreak leads to loneliness, which leads in turn to net porn and no-strings dating sites, the wear and tear on James Pryce’s body and soul are beginning to build up. When the Randall twins, rich acquaintances from college, hire him to go undercover to find their brother, it seems like an opportunity to step off the path his life has taken recently. Instead, it leads to an online world defined by the escalating demands of the Fever, orchestrated by an artist who likes nothing better than to see his virtual creations bleed into real life.

I loved it. The ongoing themes of compulsion and addiction, secrecy and shame make for a satisfying underpinning to a well-plotted story of digital trickery and a feuding family. The technical detail rings true (although I’d never heard of using foot pedals for your modifier keys). Best of all, the writing is very good indeed, and the narrator’s dry delivery makes certain grotesqueries funnier than perhaps they should be.

So is it Neal Stephenson plus titillation? Not really. There’s geek service, but our hero is a social engineer, not a brain. And social though he is, don’t expect to find too much erotica here. It reminded me more of Chuck Palahniuk, with maybe the slightest whiff of Less than Zero. Call it a thriller with geek appeal. Transgressive geek appeal.

Publication date April 3, 2012
Strange Flesh excerpt

Reviewed from a free copy sent by the publisher.

The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself by Susan Bell

Be your own editor

You won’t always get the perfect editor for your book, and you can’t rely on editors having time to do all the work they’d like to. Be your own editor as much as you can.

Susan Bell’s The Artful Edit is a guide for writers to help them edit their own work and to get the most out of their collaboration with an editor. Bell considers different strategies for editing during the writing process and suggests ideas for getting a fresh view of your draft. She then deals with the nuts and bolts of what to look for when editing. Later in the book, she steps back to look at the role of editing in art by interviewing non-print artists about how editing has improved their work and looking at some famous writer–editor relationships.

The book contains a lot of practical advice and examples. There are checklists and exercises to help you focus on specifics. Bell quotes from letters between F. Scott Fitzgerald and his editor, Max Perkins, to show how they worked on The Great Gatsby and quotes passages from different drafts of the manuscript to show the changes they made.

Although the book has some concrete stylistic advice (remove excessive “be” verbs, watch out for redundancy), this is not a style guide. Read it if you’re interested in larger issues (intention, structure, theme) and if you’re interested in thoughts about the role of the editor in creative writing.

Be a mechanic, not a judge. When you edit, do not ask yourself: Do I like this? Ask instead: Does this compel me and can I follow it? If the answer is no, figure out why.

—Susan Bell, The Artful Edit

Tips for getting distance from your draft

From The Artful Edit

• Read it aloud, with or without an audience
• Print it in a different font
• Read it in different surroundings
• Take a long break: don’t look at the manuscript at all for a few weeks
• Go through the manuscript with someone else
• Hang the pages on a line or lay them out on the floor to help you visualize the flow and layout
• Send it away: giving your manuscript to someone else can make you see it with new eyes

Reviewed from a library copy of the book.

Screenwriters can teach you a lot about fiction editing

I’m not a big movie watcher. When people ask me “Have you seen—,” the answer is usually “no.” Why then the interest in screenwriting? Because I am fascinated by stories, and good screenwriters know how to tell a story. (They also write a pretty good how-to book.) Here are some books on the subject, as well as an introductory note or two on writing screenplays. Thanks to Melva McLean for information about screenplay structure, scriptwriting software, where to find scripts online, and the screenwriting gurus (but any errors are mine!).

The screenplay format

Don’t mess with the format: twelve-point Courier on standard letter-sized paper. Character names and scene headings are in all caps, dialogue and action in upper and lower case.

Screenplay style guide

The Hollywood Standard by Christopher Riley.

Screenplay writing software

Celtx is a commonly used tool. It handles the formatting for you and saves you a lot of typing. A “movie” project will store the script, the novel, and the schedule, and integrates the screenplay with the schedule so that you can see which locations and characters are needed on which days. Best of all, there are a number of sample projects loaded, including the Wonderful Wizard of Oz screenplay and novel. Besides the movie project, there are a number of other project types, including novel and comic book.

I hear Final Draft is good too. Demo version available.

Sample scripts

Unlike novels, which tend to be guarded by their copyright holder, screenplays are often made available online. Fill your boots. I just hope you like monospaced fonts.
Simply Scripts
Script-O-Rama

How to structure a screenplay

This is where the gold is. How long should a screenplay be? What makes a satisfying story arc? Where does the climax go? How soon should the inciting incident come? Following the right structure in developing your story is essential to creating a satisfying experience for the viewer.

Of the authors I list below, Blake Snyder is the one who provides the most step-by-step formula for putting together a movie. Just to give you an idea, here’s a rough outline of a script, mostly based on Snyder’s beat sheet:

• Length: about 90–120 pages. The rule of thumb is that one page of script comes out to about a minute of screen time.
• Three acts: Act 1 introduces the situation; Act 2 complicates the situation; Act 3 resolves the situation.
• Inciting incident (page 12 in a 110-page script): If it’s a murder mystery, a corpse has to be found. If it’s a love story, the lovers have to meet. In a hero’s journey story, the hero is presented with the call to action.
• The transition into Act 2: The hero accepts the call, or something else happens to turn the plot in a new direction.
• Fun and games, first half of Act 2: Action that results from the premise of the story. Most of the stuff that’s in the trailer comes from this part of the movie.
• Second half of Act 2: Complications build until the crisis.
• Transition into Act 3: Hero confronts their demons and turns the situation around using tools and lessons from earlier in the story.
• Act 3: Climax and resolution.

See “Three Acts or What?” for a nice comparison of the Syd Field, Blake Snyder, and hero’s journey story structures.

Books about screenwriting

• Save the Cat!: The Last Book On Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need—Blake Snyder. He has a nice list of genres and screenwriting devices (like the title “save the cat” trick), always with examples, and then discusses in detail his plan on how to set up the three-act structure that he believes is essential to delivering a satisfying experience. I certainly notice the structure he describes jumping out at me in movies like Avatar and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. A very fun book.
• Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting—Robert McKee. Excellent book. McKee is another script guru who consults and runs workshops. He’s also got a good list of screenwriting resources on his website.
• The Definitive Guide to Screenwriting—Syd Field. Interesting, not as fun as Blake Snyder’s book, but it covers some different points, including more on the nuts and bolts of selling scripts.
• Adventures in the Screen Trade—William Goldman. Very entertaining. An analysis of the workings of the movie industry, from what makes a star (it’s someone who will bring people in to see the movie open) to the role of producers (he hasn’t the foggiest, although he knows they’re essential). There’s also plenty of concrete advice on screenwriting: how to write beginnings, how to write endings, how to protect the star—and how to protect your soul.
• The Great Movies—Roger Ebert. He goes through about 100 movies that he thinks are important and talks about why they’re good and what they mean to him.

Terry Pratchett on getting a book written

I love Terry Pratchett and was excited to find Once More: With Footnotes. Why is reading an author writing about his writing so much fun? Are all great fiction writers even better non-fiction writers?

Just a little way into the book I was struck by something he says in his essay “Paperback Writer”: “And if you think you have a book evolving, now is the time to write the flap copy . . . Getting the heart and soul of a book into fewer than a hundred words helps you focus.”

This reminds me of Blake Snyder’s advice to nail down the “logline,” or short pitch, for your movie script first.