Intro to MyRWA-Part Three by Elizabeth Schechter

If you've been following along in this series, you are now signed up for MyRWA, subscribed to your chapter mailing lists (Again -- not Forums. They are mailing lists, regardless of what RWA calls them!), and you have possibly explored the other mailing lists that are available. There is more that you can do with MyRWA; in this final entry, we'll explore both the social networking aspect of MyRWA and the functionality that you'll find yourself using.

MyRWA is built on the Socious platform, which is a social networking system in a similar vein to Facebook or Google +.  You can use MyRWA for social networking inside the RWA membership, and if you want to do that, you need to set up your Profile page. To do that, sign into MyRWA, and go to the My Profile link on the right side of the screen (under Quick Links). You'll find yourself on a screen that looks like this: 

This is not the social networking part. This is YOUR private page. No one see this but you. If you need to update your contact information, you would click the button that reads "Update Full RWA Profile." To get to the social networking page, look at the right side of the screen and click on "My Page" That will bring you to this screen:

There's not a lot to this before you play with it, which you do by going to the Actions tab. You can add links to Facebook, to Twitter, to your personal website, as well as images of your covers.

This is my personal page, to give you an idea of what you can do:

Take a look at the left side of the page, under the user picture. See where it says Connections, Following and Followers? That is the social networking part of the page. Connection are just that -- people you choose to be connected to. They can be other chapter members, friends, people who share a publisher or agent -- anyone with which you share a connection. You can be connected to someone without following them. You can follow someone without being connected to them. And, if you don't want to deal with this at all, you can turn it off.

If you don't want to use the social networking function, go back to My Profile.

 Go to the tab that says "Preferences," then click "Users." You'll find this screen:

Using the drop down menus, change Connection Notifications to Disabled. Change Allow Users to follow you to No. Click Ok, and you will have turned off the social networking. If you wish to turn it back on, you can undo it easily.

The last bit of functionality is the ability to pay dues online. You can pay your national dues through the website (which is existing functionality), and you may already be able to pay your chapter dues. FF&P has this functionality, and other chapters will also eventually have this ability.

First, for National dues, let's go back to your MyRWA home page. Under Quick Links, you will find Pay Dues and Invoices.

If you have a membership renewal due, it will be listed on the next screen.

To pay your chapter dues, go to the FF&P website. From the MyRWA home page, click on My Chapters, then click on Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal. You'll get this screen, with Join or Renew your FF&P Membership as the first choice.

Click that button, then choose Register for Event and follow the directions.

The changeover to MyRWA has been fairly drama-filled, with confusion and frustration running rampant since the beginning. Hopefully, this series has brought you into MyRWA without a minimum of forehead meeting desk and language that would make your mother look at you sternly (unless, of course, your mother happened to be a New York truck driver, in which case, she might have taught you some stronger words than I know!)

If you have any other questions, please drop an email! You can reach me via my WEBSITE.

PS: RWA? They are not forums. They are mailing lists. NOT FORUMS. Kthnxbye

The Making of a Sexy Were Beast by Terry Spear

When creating a world that’s out of this world, we need to set it up so that readers feel they are part of that environment. That even if it’s totally unreal, they can visualize it.

So how do we do this? If it’s a totally new world, we have to describe it well enough that readers will feel they exist in the same realm.

I wrote a futuristic otherworld existence for one story—based on the premise that book stores are important. Someone had asked for short stories using the idea, but this was way before ebook technology. I wrote the story, was promptly rejected—didn’t want romance and was told that this was by invitation only—so why it was on the Web for everyone to submit to, I haven’t any idea. I loved the characters and the premise of the story and turned it into a novel. I’m still revising.

Can you have a dragon brother and a panther sister?

In my current works, I try to make them as realistic as possible. My werewolves are based on real wolves. They live in packs or as lone wolves using real wolf dynamics. Yet they aren’t real wolves. They’re humans who shift into wolves. So they have the human aspect also. They aren’t strictly humans either as they have their own wolfish personalities. They are one with their two halves and the two halves make them whole.

There are exceptions to every rule. So though the norm is one way—wolves mate for life—there are exceptions. Some wolves do take another mate if theirs dies. One male had two female wolves for his mates. Because there are exceptions in the real world, I use that to make exceptions in my world.

For the wolf tales, I’ve used some true wolf stories, research houses that I think will be perfect for the homes they live in, the perfect kitchen, the perfect den, the perfect ocean view, lake, island, etc. I learn the kind of plants, woods, terrain that are in the area. Researching weather can help to make the story more realistic, and makes it easier if you’re trying to set up a situation that turns out not to be viable because the weather wouldn’t cooperate. I make up towns sometimes when I want to instead of using an existing one.

In the new jaguar series, I started the first of the stories in the Amazon jungle. That’s where the big cats are. So I wanted the jungle feel to the story. Not humans running around purring and what not. I wanted to show they had real bite.

Setting can be really important to help create your world. Even though the stories focus on character as well as plot, I always have to think of how I can make the story as real as possible, and creating a scenario where jaguars are running around NYC would be hard to do—for my kind of cats. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist. But that I’d have to come up with a reasonable explanation of how they’d get around the city if they had the urge to shift.

Some authors have worlds where their were-creatures coexist with the human population. Instead of the secretiveness that my world requires, their worlds are more based on the prejudices of were-creatures trying to live with humans.

No matter what kind of world we create—vampires, psychics, ghosts, time-travel, were-creatures, we have to have conflict. Conflict is what makes the story riveting to read.

So back to my earlier futuristic world. I have were-animals in that “book-stores-are-important” story (who knows now, eh?)—the panther and a dragon shifter, sister and brother. How in the world did I come up with that? I don’t know. I just liked the idea. The story is full of adventure, world-building, mystery, fighting, loving, you know, all that good stuff. But essential to the story is character and plot and world-building.

We can do anything we set our minds to do if we have a good enough reason for it. Any world that we set up can work if we know why we’re doing it that way. If we know the backstory, how they existed before this, what motivates them, what their goals are and why, we can make it work.

Creating the characters that fit with the otherworldly part of them, creating the world that does too, it has to seem real, no matter how far out it is.

The Rainforest

In my wolf stories, which were first? Red werewolves or gray? The debate goes on.

In my jaguar-shifter story, how did the shifters’ family become jaguar shifters? How far back in the family tree? How do jaguar-shifters come to be?

I haven’t answered all these questions. Sometimes leaving some of the mystery in the story gives you the opportunity to create scenarios in new books that you wouldn’t be able to if you’d already locked yourself into the world.

Except when you make exceptions. There are always exceptions. You just have to come up with a plausible enough reason why.

The key to making any kind of a world that isn’t of the norm, or even when it is, is to make YOUR story unique. What editors will ask you is—what else is on the market like this? Is your story unique enough? BE the trendsetter.

I was reading a book by one author who talked about a character who is a were-rat. Okay. My former manager wants me to write about a were-sea otter. We can do anything we set our minds to do if we have proper motivation. Just remember your potential audience. Will you have enough readers who are interested in a sexy were-rat of a man?

Hey, zombie romance exists now!

The key to success is to make your world unique, set some standards and stick by them, unless there’s an exception, and create a world your readers can believe in. Make characters that your readers will love, enough conflict to keep them reading, goals and motivation to make the story plausible, and the world is yours to create.

If your poor witch, or zombie, or were-creature isn’t interesting agents and editors, come join me in a workshop on Rejection! Rejection! Rejection! And how to deal with it.

The wolves….

A SEAL IN WOLF’S CLOTHING, March 6, 2012

Her instincts tell her he's dangerous...

While her overprotective brother's away, Meara Greymere's planning to play—and it wouldn't hurt to find herself a mate in the process. The last thing she needs is one of his SEAL buddies spoiling her fun, even if the guy is the hottest one she's ever seen...

His powers of persuasion are impossible to resist...

Finn Emerson is a battle-hardened Navy SEAL and alpha wolf. He's a little overqualified for baby-sitting, but feisty Meara is attracting trouble like a magnet...

The jaguars….

SAVAGE HUNGER, October 1, 2012

Kathleen McKnight is on a dangerous mission to help her army team take down a drug lord. She's a tough as nails recruit, but when she's caught in the crossfire, she has to rely on a mysterious man to save her. She has no idea that he has big plans for her...

Connor Anderson is a jaguar shifter who is looking for his mate. When he rescues Kathleen in the jungle-twice—he can't help but be intrigued. Will a bite or a scratch turn Kathleen into the perfect jaguar mate?

I hope you will join my class

How to Deal with Rejection

&

Do What You Love Most-Write!

Hosted by

Fantasy-Futuristic & Paranormal

Romance Writers

This 2 WEEK class starts September 10th

For more information click HERE 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR, Terry Spear

USA Today bestselling author, Terry Spear has written over three dozen paranormal romance novels and two medieval Highland historical romances. An award-winning author, Terry’s Heart of the Wolf  was named a Publishers Weekly’s Best Book of the Year in 2008. A retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry Spear spends every spare moment writing paranormal romance as well as historical and true life stories for both teen and adult audiences. Spear lives in Crawford, Texas, where she is working on her second book in the jaguar shifter series! For more information, please visit:

www.terryspear.com

www.facebook.com/terry.spear

www.myspace.com/terryspear

http://terry-spear.blogspot.com/  

http://twitter.com/#!/TerrySpear

PACING with Shannon Donnelly

PACING...

What speeds up a story or slows it down? There are actually gas pedals and brakes in story telling that help you control the story’s pace. Why do you need pace control?

Too slow a start and you never really hook the reader into the story—it’s boring before it’s even begun. Same goes for slowing things down in the middle—the reader may put down the book and never go back to it. And if the ending is slow, that reader may end up thinking the story was weak, even if you had a killer beginning and middle.

Too fast a pace and you can wear out your reader—or, worse, lose them with confusion and a lack of caring. The biggest danger of this is at the beginning of the story. But this can happen any pace where the story takes off like a rocket, leaving readers behind.

Now getting the just right pace is a unique task for each story.

Some stories need a little more leisurely opening because they are relaxed, intimate character studies—the pace needs to tell the reader to slow down and enjoy the world.

Other books need more speed. Thrillers or action stories have to sweep readers away.

To carry off the pace you need, you have to know the tools to control pace.

What slows a story:

• Backstory
• Flashbacks
• Narrative Description
• Lyrical Prose

Notice that the words “backstory” and “flashback” both have the same word within—BACK.  That tells you these techniques take the story backwards—to do that, they stop the forward pace of the main story. Put a flashback in too early and you risk losing a reader who is not yet fully engaged. Put in too long a flashback and you may also lose the reader—or you could end up with a reader more interested in the flashback than in your main story.

Backstory also stops a story’s forward pace—but you can use a little backstory (at the right place, which means not in the middle of a critical scene) to slow the pace just a touch. Backstory generally fits more comfortably into just before or after a scene—or in places where you need a sentence or two to give the reader vital information to clarify action/events, but not so much that you completely stop the forward momentum. If you think of backstory like brakes, you want to tap lightly instead of slamming the pedal to the floor and holding it there.

Narrative description and lyrical prose are also tools that can help ease a reader into scenes or smooth transitions. But they slow things down. Long sentences do the same thing. So you want to be careful with these. Put a lot of this into a scene and you’re dragging down your pace. But, if you don’t have enough, or leave them out, you can end up with incredible fast pace and utter reader confusion. I see this a lot with fledgling writers who are striving for a fast opening—they get that, but there’s so little description that the reader doesn’t get a chance to meet the characters or settle into the world. There’s not enough for the reader to have reason to care about the characters, and not enough information to start buying into and seeing the world.

Both narrative description and lyrical prose also can be a great way not just to ease readers into a world—particularly into a historical or alternate reality setting—but to also set the mood. If used wisely, they can help you slowly build tension and set the tone of the entire book.

What speeds up the pace:

• Dialogue
• Conflict/Tension
• Showing (Action)
• Clean, tight sentences

As you can see, all the things that speed up pace also create strong scenes. The trick here is not to weave in things that will drag your scene’s pace down. And this means:

* Action needs to have emotion. If you just show a character doing stuff without any emotions underneath, it tends to fall flat and leave readers not really understanding why the characters are doing what they’re doing.

* Conflict needs to matter. Tension in conflict comes from either the reader having more information than the characters have, from an uncertain outcome, or from the suspicion of a bad outcome pending. This is why misunderstandings offer such weak conflict—the reader knows the misunderstanding will be cleared up so there’s no tension. The best conflict always carries within it dire consequences that really matter to the main characters.

* Dialogue has to be punched. Fictional dialogue has to be better than the way folks really speak—you need those lines that we all wish we’d said but only thought, or only thought about later. Instead of watching your favorite movies, turn up the sound, look away from the picture and listen. Better still, go to some plays where dialogue matters more than anything else. Or listen to some great radio dramas. Listen for how the dialogue is dramatized—how every word is made to count. Snappy dialogue with layers of subtext under the words, with wit and strong characterization, takes a lot of work—but nothing moves a story faster.

The biggest danger to beware is putting backstory into any character’s mouth—you can do it, but remember you’re risking slowing a scene. (You also risk the character sounding stiff and awkward since very few folks go around talking backstory in real life.)

Some backstory in dialogue may not be a problem if it’s crafted to fit the character’s voice, mood, and comes with emotions attached. Also, if you’re at a place in the story where the reader needs a little bit of a breather, or if you’ve made the reader wait so long that the reader is ready to kill to finally get that backstory. But do this too early in your story and you could kill your story’s pacing.

This is obviously a lot to think about, and you can’t really manage all of this in first draft. This is why I do an edit to read the story aloud and look at the pacing (of every scene and of the overall story).

Am I moving too slow, too fast? Am I pushing too much detail in (too much lyrical prose or narrative description)? Are there too many characters around (meaning more description to introduce them to readers, which slows things down)?

It's easy to tell a sagging story—it gets boring and my attention wanders. If I’m bored, it’s going to be worse for a reader. I flag scenes and spots that need work—the pacing read is not the time to fix things or I’ll lose the sense of pace that I have for the overall story.

If the pace is too fast, the reader can't follow events and characters—it becomes a confused mess. That becomes another spot to flag (I also have early readers and if they flag spots as confusing, I know I need to look not just at the words, but at the overall pace in that scene).

When the pace is right, the story clicks.  The reader can follow with enough interest to keep going, and it all has an inevitable feel to it.

Shannon Donnelly's writing has won numerous awards, including a RITA nomination for Best Regency, the Grand Prize in the "Minute Maid Sensational Romance Writer" contest, judged by Nora Roberts, RWA's Golden Heart, and others. Her writing has repeatedly earned 4½ Star Top Pick reviews from Romantic Times magazine, as well as praise from Booklist and other reviewers, who note: "simply superb"..."wonderfully uplifting"....and "beautifully written." 

Her work has been on the top seller list of Amazon.com and she recently published Paths of Desire, a Historical Regency romance, of which Romantic Historical Lovers notes: “a story where in an actress meets an adventurer wouldn’t normally be at the top of my TBR pile; but I’ve read and enjoyed other books by this author and so I thought I’d give this one a go. I’m glad I did. I was hooked and pulled right into the world of the story from the very beginning…Highly recommended.” Paths of Desire and her other Regency romances can be found as ebooks with on all ebook formats, and with Cool Gus Publishing.

She has had novellas published in several anthologies, has had young adult horror stories published and is the author of several computer games. She lives in New Mexico with two horses, two donkeys, two dogs, and only one love of her life. Shannon can be found online at:

sd-writer.com

facebook.com/sdwriter

Twitter/sdwriter

I hope you will join my class

POV: It’s Not Just a Point of View

Hosted by

Fantasy-Futuristic & Paranormal

Romance Writers

This 4 WEEK class starts Sept. 3rd

For more information click HERE

GIRL OUT OF TIME-Play it for Laughs .................by Melodie Campbell

“Is that a broadsword on your belt, or are you just glad to see me?”
 

Is there anything more fun than screwball comedy?  I’m thinking of the old days of Rock Hudson and Debbie Reynolds, Hepburn and Tracy.  Boy meets girl.  Boy is attracted to girl but something crazy happens that makes girl so mad at him, they spend the entire novel or movie getting revenge…until the last scene, when they get each other.  A well-written romantic comedy is delightful and makes you feel good all over.

Author Melodie Campbell

Behind all novels, there is conflict.  In Romance, we are looking to get a man and a woman together.  But there must be conflict, there must be a reason why they can’t get together or there is no story.  Otherwise two people meet and their relationship grows smoothly.  A nice happy life for them, but not much for a reader to get excited about.

So how does one sustain a romance plot that will last at least 60,000 words?  Somehow, you have to come up with conflict.  There has to be a reason why the man and woman can’t be together, or refuse to be together, even when everyone else knows they belong with each other.

When writing historical fiction, it’s easy to find sources of conflict.  The man is the wrong religion, or the woman is not the same class…the father can refuse to allow it…lots of reasons.  Shakespeare made an industry of it. But today, anything goes.  It’s enough to make a grown writer cry.  Drat that sexual revolution.  Drat that our earlier taboos are now so much history.

How can a romance writer find enough plot to make the romance conflict fresh?

 

1. USE COMEDY.  Here’s how I do it: I call it my law of the ‘worst thing’.  Take a situation, and ask ‘what’s the worst thing that could happen now’?  Or the most embarrassing thing?  Example:  A seventeen year old girl moves to a new town and is the new girl.  First day of school, very nervous, she drives her mother’s car into the school parking lot.  What’s the most embarrassing thing that could happen?  She hits another car in the lot with everyone watching.  And the worst thing?  It’s the prize car of the most popular boy in school.  Whammo.  Instant disaster.  Later, she’s driving home on a country road, and her car breaks down.  Who comes by in the next car, and stops to help?  The same guy.  He can’t believe it’s her.  She wants to die of embarrassment.  They never stand a chance as a couple, right?

Move it to an adult romance novel.  The new girl at the advertising agency drives into the company parking lot on the very first day and hits the gorgeous eligible bachelor’s new car…you get the drift.

2. USE FANTASY.  If – like me - you find it a challenge to sustain believable conflict that would separate a man and a woman in modern times, how about switching to a different setting?  Put her in a ‘girl out of time’ situation and watch the fun appear.  Create a fantasy world where the rules are different and your heroine has to push past a whole bunch of obstacles to get her man.  Make these obstacles ones that don’t exist in 21^st century North America.

Add comedy, and you’ve got a winning combination.  What’s the funniest thing that could happen to your girl out of time?  Then, what’s the worst thing?

In my books, I follow the ‘worst thing’ rule to the maximum.  What’s the worst thing that could happen to the heroine when she walks through that classroom wall?  Or the wackiest?  My gal goes through lots of ‘worst things’ until she finally gets the man she wants in the last chapter. 

Here’s the key, as I’ve discovered it:

The trick to combining humor and conflict is to play each against the other.  Taut suspense is broken up by bathos, making the suspenseful parts seen more dramatic.  And – as I have learned from writing my own novels – one can make humor seem more funny by juxtaposing it against gripping danger.

In fact, a steady diet of unrelenting wacky humour can make one grow blase, just as a steady diet of porn might dull one to sensuality.

But that is another column entirely.  On a slightly softer note, can you combine humor with sexual passion?  Read Rowena and make your own decision.

Melodie Campbell is the author of three novels, including the comic time travel novel Rowena Through the Wall.  Melodie got her start writing comedy.  In 1999, she opened the Canadian Humour Conference.  She has over 200 publications, including 40 short stories and has won 6 awards for short fiction.  Melodie was a finalist for the 2012 Derringer Award and Arthur Ellis Award, and is the General Manager of Crime Writers of Canada.

www.melodiecampbell.com

www.funnygirlmelodie.blogspot.com

 Rowena Through the Wall

““Is that a broadsword on your belt, or are you just glad to see me?”

When Rowena falls through her classroom wall into a medieval world, she doesn’t count on being kidnapped – not once, but twice, dammit. Unwanted husbands keep piling up; not only that, she has eighteen-year-old Kendra to look out for, and a war to prevent.  Good thing she can go back through the wall when she needs to…or can she?

Writing Workshops: An Important Tool for a Delusional Breed of Winners by Melissa Arroyo

Every writer is perfect when we write our first story. At least we think we are.

We strut like Jagger and move like Elvis when it comes to presenting our masterpiece. Our delusion is such, we can’t see right from wrong. But then after one month, more or less, of sending out queries and entering contests, rejection letters from editors and agents start coming in, and judges’ critiques tear us apart.

Taking more hits than a UFC fighter, our pride falters waiting for the knockout that will never come for we are a stubborn breed. A breed that I believe has the right ideas and imagination from the beginning, yet knows very little about writing fiction.

Did I know about Deep POV? Nope.

Did I really know my grammar? Apparently not.

A writer’s world is as crazy and upside down as the ones we create for our stories. It can be scary; especially when we haven’t developed the crucially important thick skin that will help us survive rejections while learning new skills.

I was lucky Nalini Singh gave me wonderful advice. She suggested I join special interest groups where I could meet fellow writers and participate in workshops. Following her tips, I found the FF&P Chapter and realized I had a lot of homework to do, literally.

During my first year of writing my skin grew thicker, my characters and plot stronger. Assertive criticism and superb workshops helped me improve. However, the most important lesson I learned is being delusional is good for writers. It is what made us begin in the first place. It gave us the confidence to get out there and show those first steps.

Needless to say, my first story was and is awful. I keep it close to remind me of how far I have come and where I want to be. And even though my stories have not been published yet, I’m sure they will be.

Now, all I have to do is stretch out my days and abduct that pesky little thing called privacy. Easy right? Oh well, that’s another blog adventure.

Melissa Arroyo is an English teacher who loves reading and writing sexy stories with kick-ass heroines and super handsome and unconventional heroes.

Finding Your Audience by Suzanne Rock

Marketing your book can be an overwhelming task. There are so many options out there, some that cost money, others that cost time, and many that cost both. How do you know which one to choose? Well, before you do any book marketing campaign, you need to establish clear goals. What is it that you hope to achieve?

For most of us, the answer is easy: we want to sell books. Lots of books. Heck, we want to sell so many books that we retire from our day jobs and buy a sailboat and take off into the sunset. Am I right? (If I am, shout AMEN!)

It's important to get out of that small-world view, however. If you are in this for the long haul, then you want to write more than one book, which means that you want to sell more than one book, and that leads to building a fan base.

Instead of trying to push a particular book, it's more resource efficient to push your author brand. An author brand is a theme or slogan that goes across all of your writing. It's what people think of when they see your name.

Many writers think that this is genre specific (she writes dark paranormal romance), but this is not necessarily true. It can be a style of writing, or a theme. (She writes humorous, feel-good romances. He writes how one person's actions has a ripple affect in a community.). Before you begin any marketing campaign, it's critical to establish an author brand.

Once you have a brand, it's important to build an author platform that will promote your brand to readers. While your brand is your slogan, a platform is the tools you use to announce your slogan to the world. I'll be talking about the different things an author can use to build a platform over the next few months.

Promoting your author brand as a whole is much more effective than promoting an individual book. The hard truth is that it is tough to measure whether any promotion has worked or not based on book sales. Many won't buy your book, but your name will be cemented, or "sticky," in a reader's mind, and may cause them to buy your book over another one at a different point in time. For example, the next time the potential buyer wants to read a good cozy mystery, they'll think of you. When they browse Amazon looking for something to read, they'll recognize your name and read the blurb.

Things like this are difficult to measure. Take heart, however. The more you get your brand out there, the "stickier" it becomes in people's minds. Promoting an author brand is a compounding effort, meaning marketing that you do for your first book will help sell the second, third and forth. Marketing for your fourth book will help push your backlist, and so on.

Promoting a brand is more about promoting you as a person, rather than a story. People are online to make personal connections, not to hear a sales pitch. Forming these relationships is the first step to gaining a fan base who will not only buy your first book, but keep coming back for more.

For example, take my author brand. People know that I write dark, erotic romance. If they want a light-hearted chick-lit book, they know they won't find it there. If they want an emotional, fast-paced, sexy read, then they'll check out my books.

Who are your favorite authors? Do they have a brand? Are you an author with a brand? What is it? I want to hear about it!

~~~

Award winning and bestselling author Suzanne Rock resides in central Massachusetts with her college sweetheart and two daughters. She started writing paranormal erotic romance in 2009 and sold her first story, Spyder’s Web, to Loose Id in June of that year. She has recently added erotic contemporary stories to her list of works. In addition to writing, she teaches courses on craft and the publishing industry through Romance Writers of America and Savvy Authors. She’s also is the social media coordinator for Pink Petal Books.

Website: www.SuzanneRock.com
Blog: Romance on a Budget: www.suzannerock.wordpress.com
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/SuzanneRockAuthor
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Suzanne_Rock
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/Suzanne_Rock

Class:

Ebook and Digital Publishing: Is it for me?

Digital books are becoming more and more popular. Devices such as the Kindle, iPAD and Nook have brought ebooks into the limelight and provided many new and exciting publishing opportunities for writers. Despite this, many are still confused about the epublishing process. This course is for beginners who want to learn more about digital publishing and determine if it’s a good fit for them. We will touch on big vs. small epress, self-publishing, vanity publishing, contracts, promotions and dealing with epirates. By the end of class, the student should have a good understanding of the options available and have the tools they need if they wish to move toward digital publication.

Here's the link for more info on the workshop:  http://my.rwa.org/p/cm/ld/fid=377

Skinwalking: Worldbuilding Beyond The World by Renee Wildes

              Independence Day got me thinking about my approach to worldbuilding. July 4^th is uniquely American – I guarantee they aren’t closing federal institutions elsewhere in the world on this day! We celebrate with parades, fairs, picnics, fireworks.

We watch The Founding Fathers and The Patriot and Independence Day.

I write fantasy romance. Worldbuilding is my life’s blood, because I truly build something from nothing. But I’ve discovered worldbuilding is more than geography & technology, religion & politics. It’s the beliefs & customs & traditions & relationships of both society & individual.

SKINWALKING, living inside the character’s skin. The woodcutter in the forest and the blacksmith in town lead very different lives, but they’re interdependent. The blacksmith makes the ax the woodcutter uses to cut the wood that fuels the fires the forge needs to produce the ax.

Worldbuilding is how everyone lives and gets along.

Conflict arises when they don’t, and conflict is story.

SKINWALKING is how the characters see & interact with their world.

I adore the movie Romancing the Stone. Heroine Joan Wilder leaves her NYC world of tailored suits & Italian high heels for the jungles of Columbia, but she brings along her suits & heels. They’re all she has. They’re what she is. Hero Jack Colter tosses her suitcase of tailored suits off a cliff and lops the heels off her shoes with a machete. All she sees is he’s wrecking her things. He’s destroying what she believes she is. He’s just trying to be practical, but she makes it personal.

Conflict!

SKINWALKING. Your world is developed and maintained by the view and experiences of your characters. A character only knows what he knows. What they want and how they view things differ depending on their experience, needs and background. A shepherd traveling cross-country looks for open grasslands for his flocks. A warrior traveling cross-country looks for ambushes & cover. He’ll avoid that shepherd’s paradise like a plague. A healer will test unfamiliar plants for healing properties. An assassin will look for the deadliest poisons. Same methods, different goals.

Take a werewolf from the inland mountains to the coast. (I did in Lycan Tides.) Imagine his awe at entire racks of seawater drying to salt. The locals take for granted one of his greatest luxury items. It takes weeks of hard travel to bring salt back to the mountains – every pound measured in blood, sweat and tears.

Put a character in a different environment than he’s used to, where none of what he knows applies. What does he notice? What does he miss most? What does he use? What does he adapt to suit his own needs? What does he learn to do that he never did before? What old beliefs/truths fly out the window and what new beliefs/truths take their place?

 What if a peace-loving miner discovers a new metal to makes tougher tools—but also stronger weapons? Does he reveal his secret and take the bad with the good, or does he hide it? How does his family, his village, his country view him either way? What makes a villain a villain and a hero a hero? When is a villain a hero and vice versa?

Think Robin Hood.

We are shaped by our family, our friends, our jobs, our experiences. So are our characters. Worlds build our characters, but never forget that our characters build their worlds, too.

In my newest fantasy romance released from Samhain, Riever’s Heart, my hero Aryk defies tradition and his best friend Valkyn in order to unite warring clans into a peaceful nation. A warlord hellbent on peace? Because he’s tired of women starving and children growing up only to die in battle. He has a son, and visions of Joro being slain with his own sword haunt him. Heroine Verdeen is assigned to him by her king to help him in his quest for peace. But they fight an uphill battle against hardheaded traditionalists who fear laying down arms turns them from wolves into sheep for the shearing. Weapons turned into plows? Warriors turned into craftsmen and farmers? It’s really personal beliefs vs. traditions, the one vs. the many, that’s at the heart of my worldbuilding.

SKINWALKING.

Independence Day is here because a few determined that what had always been was no longer good enough. They took on the impossible because they thought it was right. And they changed their world—and ours.

Worldbuilding is so much more than the world...

My SKINWALKING class is being run here at FFP next month, from August 13-19, 2012. Prepare to go in-depth, and learn how to walk in the character’s skin, BECOME the character. I hope you’ll join me!  Here's the link:  http://my.rwa.org/e/in/eid=26

Renee Wildes is a local Wausau writer who grew up reading fantasy authors Terry Brooks and Mercedes Lackey and is a huge Joseph Campbell fan, so the minute she discovered romance novels it became inevitable that she would combine it all and write fantasy romance. Renee is a history buff, from medieval times back to ancient Greece and Sparta. As a Navy brat and a cop’s kid, she gravitated to protector/guardian heroes and heroines. She’s had horses her whole life, so became the only vet tech in a family of nurses. It all comes together in her Guardians of Light series for Samhain – fantasy, action, romance, heroics and lots of critters!

Visit Renee at:
www.reneewildes1.wordpress.com
www.guardiansoflight.wordspress.com
Yahoo group: www.groups.yahoo.com/group/reneewildesromancefantastique
Website: www.reneewildes.net