Lori Sizemore

Sorry for the lack of updates. (A month?!) I went back to work and it’s been keeping me busy. Add to that a little disenchantment after some no, thank you’s and some critiques… I kind of needed a break.

In my new manuscript, my heroine is a romance writer with a list of ten characteristics she expects her heroes to live up to.  I think she uses it a little bit for a personal measuring stick as well.  Anyway, for your reading pleasure:

Skye’s Ten Traits of a Hero

1. Always keeps his word/promises.
2. Respects the heroine as an individual with intelligence and many other ass-kicking qualities.
3. He loves her brand of crazy.
4. Once they begin their own mating dance–even if it involves slammed doors and acidic wit–he doesn’t/can’t sleep with another woman.  If he does, he finds the experience hollow and unsatisfying.
5. Even if he’s a “bad boy” he has his own brand of morals that he doesn’t violate.
6. He sees qualities in her no one else does and doesn’t get why everyone else doesn’t see her the same way.
7. He laughs with her.
8. He’s willing to make sacrifices for and compromise with her, which isn’t necessarily true of others.
9. He cares about what she cares about or, at least, cares that she cares.
10. He recognizes her either has his soul mate or that he has never and will never love anyone else in the huge, world-shattering way he loves her.

I found this hilarious widget at The Frisky, an edgy and awesome website about love, relationships, and sex.

POV (Point of View). For a long time, I thought this only meant two things. First, whether you’re using first or third. Second, headhopping is bad. I knew I used third unlimited (more than one character gets a POV) and I did my best not to headhop. At least consciously.

Turns out, there’s a world more information about POV that I was in dire need of. Here’s what I’ve learned about POV from a couple of really great books (I’ll include two of my recommendations at the end of this post) and the wonderful critique group I joined. Boy, they keep me honest about POV. (For the sake of my sanity, I am only referring to third person. If you don’t know what that is, check this out.)

1. A character can’t know something they don’t experience. They can’t know who came into the room behind them until they turn around, they can’t know that another character is confused (unless you SHOW them behaving in a confused way), and they can’t tell you what another character is experiencing. Sorry, not possible. Unless your character is psychic, I suppose. But mine aren’t so… moving on.
2. It’s important to delve into what’s called deep POV so you can express what the character is feeling, thinking, etc. If we’re going to be in someone’s head, and we can only experience what they experience, we should be getting the full treatment, at least.
3. No headhopping. Yeah, I already said that, but it bears repeating. The temptation to headhop is to tell the reaction of a different character to what is happening. So, really, it’s the temptation to tell instead of show. I don’t need to hear that Sue is angry. She can storm from the room and slam the door. Hey, I get it. Sue is pissed.
4. POV characters have to matter. This from Orson Scott Card’s Character & Viewpoint. It’s easier for the reader to make the transition in POV if they already know the character and know the character is important. So be careful not to hand out POV scenes like candy. This is serious business. It’s more like handing out your credit card.

I got my first no from an agent today.  It’s actually more frustrating than soul-crushing.  They didn’t say no to my writing or to my manuscript.  They said no to a one page description of my story.

I’m going to work some more on that one page description.  It’s only bad when everyone says no, lol.

A friend (an awesome friend who I love, fyi) bought this book, Revision & Self-Editing, for me after I featured it on Material Girl.

I was correct in my assessment that it would be helpful.  It is, in fact, extremely informative.  James Scott Bell covers all the elements of writing: character, POV, scenes, plot & structure, etc.  Each chapter offers valuable exercises and techniques.  I couldn’t recommend this book more.

(Thanks again, Jen!)

This is the song I’m writing to today.  Just a little FYI, in case you’ve been dying to know

Not advocating the writing of such, but I found this Erotic Thesaurus - A Guide to Purple-Prose for the Literary Artist.