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Doing Due Dilly Dilly Diligence for Faux Medieval Fantasy

If you know me at all, you know I get a bit twitchy when it comes to what I like to call ‘faux medieval fantasy.’

It’s not that I have a problem with dragons, magic, or even princesses-in-disguise (okay, well, yes, I have a problem with that). What makes me turn into a biter is the way so many writers take the easy way out with world-building.

You now what I mean. It’s the fantasy where everything is vaguely medieval, as if The Princess Bride, Shrek, and Lord of the Rings had a threesome that they really, really regretted in the morning.

There are stone castles and towers, flowing gowns, crowns, kings, warriors, sorcerers, the systematic oppression of women into traditional gender roles, etc. You know, the usual.

I think one of the reasons writers pick this model is because instinctively, it feels like it should be easy. I mean, from Errol Flynn to Flynn Ryder, we’re constantly exposed to effortless interpretations of medieval culture.

The thing is, to build a faux medieval fantasy world that is compelling, unique, immersive, and most importantly MEMORABLE, we as writers need to stop taking the EASY way and start taking the RIGHT way.

The easy medieval way and the right medieval way

Walk with me through a hypothetical situation here.

We’re writing a scene where Seraphina, a thief-princess-in-disguise *twitch*, is tending Sir Taylor’s sword wound. For our purposes, the scene requires some description of the healing process.

The EASY way to handle it is to fall back on a spurious mix of the BBC’s Robin Hood, Harry Potter, and maybe the Tudors if we’re feeling highbrow. The description would go something like this:

Seraphina took some willow bark from her pouch of herbs and dropped it into boiling water to make a pain-relieving tea for Sir Taylor. She fetched clean bandages and wrapped up his wound as best she could.

First of all, why is it ALWAYS willow bark? It’s like that’s the one fact about old apothecary practices that writers have picked up, and they toss it into their manuscripts so often, it’s practically a  ye olde opioid epidemic.

The RIGHT way might not require us to spend half-a-day researching 13th century wound care, but, just a simple Google search immediately yields a great Wikipedia article. Another Google search for medieval folk remedies turns up a few more useful articles.

Fifteen minutes of skimming later, I haven’t miraculously become an expert in medieval medicine, but I’ve gleaned some good details that will make my descriptions more vivid.

I know that dressing a wound might involve grease, honey, stuffing it with absorbent dressing, turpentine (I know, right?), and clay. Hot oil was often used to cauterize wounds, especially in cases of amputation. There were many herbs and plants used as painkillers, not just willow bark. Also, remedies available were highly dependent on geography and economic resources.

So, if I were to rewrite Seraphina’s loving care of Sir Taylor the RIGHT way, it would go something like this:

Seraphina carefully packed the tufts of wool into Sir Taylor’s wound and smeared honey around the edges, all the while praying the surgeon would arrive soon to stitch him up. She then held to his lips a cup of wine to which she added a few precious drops of pain-killing extracts of poppyseed and belladonna.

Okay, I know we’re all cringing a bit at this point, but we can now visualize tastes, textures, movements more clearly. Our reader brains have glommed onto these details as a subconscious affirmation that this world is believable, and we settle even deeper into the story.

but magic! fantasy!

But if it’s fantasy, we can do what we want, right? We don’t have to worry about accuracy. We don’t have to worry about details like that. Right?

Ehhhh….

Technically, no. But, we can’t pretend to be surprised when our books don’t get long-term market traction.

There are several reasons why skating by with a working knowledge of The Princess Bride just won’t work in the long run.

The most fundamental rule of fantasy is that….there are rules. Magic must have limits. Kingdoms must have borders. Dragons must have soft underbellies.

Without rules and limits, there is nothing for the characters to struggle against, no odds to win over, no room to grow or become wiser.

How does this apply to the application of wool, honey (and possibly turpentine) to Sir Taylor’s wound by Seraphina? It’s nuanced, but work with me here.

We can change out the pain relieving herbs (if absolutely necessary – see my next fundamental rule of fantasy), and we can add magic to the healing (if it fits with our world-building). BUT, in addition to creating limits to healing magic, we also need to know the limits of whatever medicine and medical techniques our characters are using.

Why do we have to be so specific about the medicine and medical techniques? Because that is the craft: adding details to descriptions that turn the illustrative into the evocative.

Maybe it’s not medicine. Maybe it’s the fletching on an arrow, or the design of liveries for footmen and pages. It could be how long it takes to bake bread, or what kind of cheese travels best for weeks-on-end without refrigeration through varying climactic conditions. (Because it seems like no self-respecting fantasy ever has anyone traveling without bread and cheese.)

Skip these details, and the result are bland, cookie-cutter, forgettable settings with characters who subconsciously annoy us with their anachronistic behavior.

I’m not saying we have to become professorial-level scholars. However, I am saying that to write good faux medieval fantasy, we should become excellent lay scholars.

Yes, it’s a pain at first because it feels like we have to look up all kinds of little things. It makes us feel like writing is less a flow and more a stop-and-start process. The thing is, though, like all good habits, the more we do this, the more knowledge we acquire, and the more knowledge we acquire, the less we have to look up.

I probably won’t ever need to look up general wound care for the 13th century again. I might need to research sleep remedies, amputations, and fever treatments, but again, once I learn about those, I’ve got that knowledge, and it’s one less interruption to the writing flow.

just because we can fantasy! doesn’t mean we should Fantasy!

The next fundamental rule of fantasy (whoa, way to bring us back to the point, right?) is that we only change and create that which is absolutely relevant. 

There is no need to create a whole other word for apple if apples have nothing to do with the plot or the climate/geography/world-building…especially if we are working in a faux medieval fantasy setting.

If we were on an alien world, then maybe there might be a reason. But if we are looking to add dragons and magic to a faux medieval northern European setting, then apples can stay apples.

Just to prove I’m not a total raving bitch when it comes to world-building and history (oh, who am I kidding? I totally am a raving, twitchy bitch about this stuff), let’s look at a case where apples might be something else.

I’ve just spent ten minutes digging around Wikipedia, online old Norse dictionaries, and following a couple of footnotes. I can now tell you that if we wanted to write a story about a quest for golden apples of immortality (à la Idun in Norse mythology), we could use the word ‘epli‘ for apple.

Without going into a minor diatribe about etymology (though, that’s another post coming soon), let’s go with the idea of ‘epli.’

First of all, I would probably have the term ‘golden apple’ be the common usage vernacular for everyone in my faux medieval world. It wouldn’t be the first word to have a casual nickname. We do it all the time – even to this day…like the new additions to M-W of ‘googling’ and ‘facebooking.’

I might change up the actual spelling of epli for fun and to keep it from being strictly identifiable as old Norse (again, the etymology beast pokes its head up, but I tuck it back down for later). Let’s go with eppele because it keeps the general feel and sound of the original.

In my little world-building, the word eppele is a formal, sacred word, used only to refer to the ‘golden apples of immortality.’ Only nobility and religious figures would use it, and probably only on formal or nonsecular occasions. It would be the equivalent today of using ‘prithee’ in conversation. Awkward. Not done. Saved for drama or religious services. Unless you do have a habit of using ‘prithee’ in everyday life, and if so, bonus points for you!

Now…let’s make things even MORE fun. Yes, this is fun. Seraphina and Sir Taylor are closing in on what they think is the end of their quest, the orchard of golden apples. Except…PLOT TWIST! When they get the apples, the apples don’t do what they’re supposed to do. No rush of immortality, no instant healing of Sir Taylor’s wound.

That’s when they meet the guardian of the orchard who reveals their mistake. By just taking the term ‘golden apples’ at face value, they’ve chased down the entirely wrong object. If they had researched the term a bit more, they might have discovered that the formal world eppele actually referred to any fruit or nut. What Seraphina and Sir Taylor are really searching for is the golden acorn of immortality in the next sacred orchard over.

How did I come up with that? Easy. In my little ten minute skimming, I read that the old Norse word epli was often used to denote any fruit or nut.

So…pulling this all back to the point I’m trying to make (yes, there is one), we can change the word for apple if it is relevant to our plot/world, but by using a solid grounding in medieval history and mythology, we not only embed details that help the reader sink deeper into our world, but we discovered a cool little plot twist.

proof i’m not a total bitch about faux medieval fantasy

I’m here to help. No, really, I am.

I’m also here to attempt to insidiously inculcate a love of non-fiction in writers…and the public in general.

To that end, I now give you a very special Cait Reynolds Catalogue Raisonné: Ye Olde Before it was Olde.

This is a collection of general medieval history (and a little fiction) that ranges from the deliciously quick read to the super-dedicated months-long study.  Reading order and Amazon links below.

medieval, faux medieval fantasy, history, middle ages

Reading order:

The Year 1000 by Robert Lacey and Danny Danzinger

1215: The Year of the Magna Carta by Danny Danzinger and John Gillingham

Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman

The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis

In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F. Cantor

The Edge of the World by Michael Pye

A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchmann

God’s Philosophers by James Hannam

Want more reading? Check out my whole PAGE of Catalogues Raisonnés!

want to see what else i’m a bitch about? Check out my class this week!

FROM FIZZLE TO SIZZLE: THE SECRETS OF WRITING SUPER HOT ROMANCE ( <— CLICK TO REGISTER)

Instructor: Cait Reynolds
Price: $65.00 USD
Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom
When: Friday, March 9th, 2018, 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST

We all know that book…the romance novel where we skip over the bits of description and the actual plot until we get to the next part where the romantic protagonists interact again. We also all know that other book…the romance novel where we devour every word because every piece of it is so hot, it should come with a flammability warning.

It’s not hard to notice the differences between the two types, but when it comes to articulating them, and what’s more, putting them into practice, we often find ourselves struggling against ‘Fizzle Factors’ such as trite dialogue, trope-y characters, and a plot that is so doughy, it’s mushier than the trite dialogue.

In this class, we will take apart and analyze piece-by-piece the ‘Fizzle Factors’ and then learn how to use the ‘Sizzle System’ to turn the heat allllllll the way back up!

Topics will include:

  • The two super-secret elements of every single mega-successful romance novel;
  • How to create a plot that doesn’t interfere with and actually supports the romance;
  • The easy way to create truly memorable characters that readers will care about;
  • ‘Russian’ literature: the problem of rushin’ into conflict and rushin’ out of it in romance writing;
  • Coming up with an original and unusual ending that STILL fits the Happily Ever After requirement.

Note: If you have taken one of my ‘How to Dominate Your Sex Scenes’ classes before, this is going to be different in that I won’t be covering specifically how to craft a sex scene. I will be talking at a bigger picture level about plot structure, character development, and fine points of the genre.

REGISTER TODAY!

***A FREE recording is included with purchase.

About the Instructor

Cait Reynolds is a USA Today Bestselling Author and lives in the Boston area with her husband and small, neurotic dog. She discovered her passion for writing early and has bugged her family and friends with it ever since. When she isn’t cooking, running, reading nonfiction, or enjoying the rooftop deck that brings her closer to the stars, she writes.

 

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Editing the Concept of an Editor

editing, editor, editors, writing

The editor.

The dreaded arbiter of your writing. The judge and jury of your style. The only thing standing between you and publication. The unrelenting taskmaster. The sensei of craft to your grasshopper of words.

An editor should be all these things, yet all too often, many freelance editors are not much more than glorified beta readers. They catch inconsistencies, make some suggestions, and run your manuscript through an automatic proofreading software program, all for less than a penny per word and a guaranteed quick turnaround time.

editing, editors, editor, writing

Ask yourself when was the last time an editor really dug into your story from a conceptual and structural point-of-view, demonstrating a solid understanding of plotting, world-building, character development, and pacing? When was the last time an editor pushed your development as a writer? I’m not just talking about nagging you about using too many adverbs. I’m talking about challenging you to sharpen your prose and cultivate your unique voice.

Don’t get me wrong. Not all freelance editors out there are bad. But, to be perfectly honest, the good ones are few, far-between, and usually booked up or running behind. They are also expensive.

Editing is one of those things where you really do get what you pay for. A fraction of a penny per word is great for your budget, but probably not so great for the quality of your book. It’s worth delaying publication and saving up to afford a really top-notch editor.

The Editorial Checklist for Editors

How do you know you are getting a good editor? Well, here are some things to look for:

  • Look at their website. Is it clean, professional, and well-written?
  • Look at the other books they have edited. Take a read through one or two sample chapters. Does the author still overuse adverbs, trite descriptions, and too much stage direction? If so, move on. This is not the editor for you.
  • See what the editor has to say about developmental vs. line-editing. Developmental editing means the editor knows the science and art of plotting and structure inside and out. Developmental editing means the editor has the ability to understand your world-building and think logically about what is missing/inconsistent/inaccurate – especially with genres like epic fantasy, historical, and science fiction. Developmental editing means being able to spot where the story slows, where to slash and burn, and what to put in its place…and being unafraid to make these suggestions to the author.
  • Line-editing has some absolute basics than any editor MUST demonstrate: knowledge of correct vocabulary usage, grammar, and punctuation. It’s a total turn-off and disappointment to read a book that has been “edited” and find words used incorrectly. Editors should also be able to point out areas where you can improve your writing overall. Is your dialogue stilted? Your editor should be able to help you learn to write better dialogue. Do you spend too much time on description? Your editor should be able to demonstrate and teach you how to write more concise descriptions.
  • Do you have an authorial ‘voice?’ If so, a good editor works with your manuscript in a way that keeps your voice conceptually and helps you refine it on a practical level. If you don’t have a real style or voice, a good editor can help you develop one by identifying your strengths and weaknesses, and helping you experiment with different styles until you find what fits.
  • How long does it take an editor to turn around edits? Beware the fast turnaround. Serious editing is hard, time-consuming work. Reading the manuscript as an editor takes much more time than reading it as a lay reader. Working through the plot and concepts takes thinking time, struggling time, and writing time. Line-editing, if done right, takes a high degree of concentration and time to work and review. But, in the end, you get a better book, and isn’t that worth it?
  • Will the editor provide a sample page or chapter of edits? Will they critique a synopsis? Can they articulate a clear philosophy of editing, standards for their working relationship with the author, and expectations for a project?
No Pain, no gain…and no bargain, either

This probably makes working with an editor sound more daunting. It should. Editing should be a daunting process, a crucible that burns away the useless in your manuscript and leaves a cleaner, purer story. Editing shouldn’t just be accepting changes in track changes mode. Every time you work with an editor, you should come away with a little more polish to your writing, a better technique for approaching your weaknesses, and a sense of a battle well-fought.

editing, editors, editor, writing

Does this mean you have to work harder to find an editor? Yes. Does this mean that editors need to up their game? Absolutely. But, in the end, holding everyone involved in a book to higher standards is the only way that self-publishing is going to survive as an industry.

(Full disclosure, I do provide developmental editing services, but this is not a pitch for business…these are opinions I’ve come to after years of working in publishing, both as a writer and an editor.)

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Unsticking the Sticky Middle of Your Book

Sticky Middle - Cait Reynolds
Sticky Middle - Cait Reynolds
Actual photo of Cait Reynolds emerging from the Sticky Middle. Photo by Nathalie SPEHNER on Unsplash

We’re two weeks into NaNoWriMo, and I’d wager that a bunch of us are stuck in the morass that I like to call the ‘Sticky Middle.’ We have made it through the first heady 5,000 words. Maybe even 15,000 or 20,000 words. But, now?

The words are coming slower.

The ideas are coming even slower than that.

Sticky Middle - Cait Reynolds
Photo by Niklas Hamann on Unsplash

We are in the vast wasteland between the OOH of the beginning and the AHH of the end, where it’s mostly…

MEH

EH

BLAH

ARGH

In other words…the Sticky Middle.

Why do we get stuck?

The Sticky Middle is mushy, amorphous mass of words that unfortunately form the bulk of a book. For a body of words that is so unwieldy and difficult to structure, the Sticky Middle unfortunately carries the weight of providing order to the plot while keeping the reader deeply engaged.

In a three-act plot structure, the Sticky Middle is Act II. Therein lies the problem.

Sticky Middle - Cait Reynolds

Most of us can take a wisp of an idea and fake it ’til we make it with Act I. Beginnings are relatively easy to set up and rough draft (yes, yes, I know that according to Dune, beginnings are a delicate time, but Irrulan never tried writing genre fiction, so she can suck it).

Even Act III isn’t a complete mystery to us when we start, no matter whether we are plotting or pantsing. The final product might change, but most of us have at least a sense of how we want to dole out the happy endings, prison sentences, and golden apples of immortality.

But, Act II?

How the hell do we figure out everything that has to happen? Even worse, how do we know when we have done enough and it’s okay to move onto the next part of the book?

It’s easy.

Well, that is to say, I’ve figured out a fairly simple technique that helps me, and I’m going to share it with you.

Training ourselves to walk through quicksand

I promise we are going to get to Act II and the Sticky Middle technique, but I need to take a moment and set things up.

Sticky Middle - Cait Reynolds

First, I’d suggest checking out my blog post about how to structure a chapter and figure out your sweet spot word count pace. In a nutshell, though, I basically recommend a couple things:

  • Practice timed writing so you get a sense of the average word count you can achieve in 30 minutes, an hour, etc. You’ll also get a feel for what your most comfortable span of concentration is and your peak quality output. For example:
    • I know that I can write about 500 words in 30 minutes;
    • I am most focused and productive in 30-40 minute segments;
    • I can produce 2,500 words of solid writing per day, but anything more than that and the quality of my rough draft writing goes down drastically.
  • Learn the discipline of chapter structure now in order to improvise later;
    • A scene/chapter has four parts to it: the Problem, Progress, But Then, and the Death Threat (read the post for descriptions of each of these);
    • Each of these four sections should be about 250 words each, or doubled to 500 words;
    • That means that a 1,000-word chapter is made up of 1 scene with four sections, and a 2,000-word chapter is made up of 2 scenes of 1k words each.

For the sake of this exercise, I’m going to use my personal sweet spot of a 2,000-word chapter.

Greasing the skids with Act I

The logic behind the structure and mechanics of Act I is another book-like blog post for another time, but for our purposes, let’s compare Act I to the stages of grief.

Why?

Because we are about to massacre the characters’ everyday existence…all in the name of setting them on the road to adventure. And, like with any death, our characters need to react to and grieve for what they are losing/have lost.

Sticky Middle - Cait Reynolds

I use the following stages (yes, I know there are five stages, but I only use four—whatever! Grief is a personal thing! LOL):

  • Denial: The curtain rises on our characters, and we get a glimpse of their day-to-day life. It’s not perfect. In fact, they’re probably in denial about all the things that are wrong and should change/be different.
  • Anger: This is the first thing that happens that simply cannot ignore that will set them on a collision course with the quest. It’s startling. Different. Disturbing. They don’t like it and try to go back to denial.
  • Bargaining: The characters are having second thoughts about ignoring the signal that change is coming. Or, maybe they can’t stop thinking about it. Whichever it is, they are now teetering on the edge of trying to cling to denial while acknowledging anger and bargaining to see if there’s a compromise.
  • Acceptance: Yeah, no help for it now. The quest is real. It’s in-your-face, beating-you-over-the-head-with-a-2×4, and the characters have no choice but to go down this new, uncertain, and possibly dangerous road.

While it is fun to play around with cute categorizations, we are still faced with the same question for Act I that I posed earlier with regards to Act II:

How the hell do we figure out everything that has to happen? Even worse, how do we know when we have done enough and it’s okay to move onto the next part of the book?

Nowwwww, we’re getting somewhere.

We really are. Trust me. I’m like a human GPS. I know where we’re going.

Sticky Middle - Cait Reynolds

At least to start with, I plan for:

  • Denial: 1-2 chapters
  • Anger: 1-2 chapters
  • Bargaining: 1-2 chapters
  • Acceptance: 1-2 chapters
  • Each chapter will be 2 scenes of 1,000 words each or 1 scene of 2,000 words;
  • All scenes will follow the pattern of Problem, Progress, But Then, and the Death Threat.

Therefore, I know that:

Act I will have 4-8 chapters and be 8k-16k in length.

BOOM.

Now, all we have to do is take this and apply it to the Sticky Middle.

Piece of cake. Right?

RIGHT?

Unsticking the Middle

Remember those two questions? Yes, you’re going to come to hate those questions…almost as much as you hate the fact you can hear my voice in the back of your mind whispering, “Is it really relevant?”

And, if you didn’t have my voice in the back of your head, you do now.

You’re welcome.

Sticky Middle - Cait Reynolds

Anyway. The questions.

How the hell do we figure out everything that has to happen? Even worse, how do we know when we have done enough and it’s okay to move onto the next part of the book?

Let’s tackle the first part. How do we figure out everything that has to happen?

Well, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that it’s completely up to us so long as we follow one rule. The bad news…is that it’s completely up to us so long as we follow one rule.

That rule is super easy to remember: ALWAYS MAKE IT WORSE.

Think of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs: physiological (food/water/sleep), safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Now, create plot points, clues, and twists that strip all of these away from your characters.

Sticky Middle - Cait Reynolds

No matter what, never give your characters a break, coincidence, relief, or opportunity. Happiness is boring. Cheerful coincidence could create the dreaded bookmark moment, or worse, condemn our book to the DNF (did not finish) pile.

The whole point of Act II is to take the protagonist to the moment when all is lost, everything has gone wrong, and leave them pretty much completely unprepared to face the climax…because that’s fun (at least for the reader).

The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Act II

As you might have guessed by now, I’m going to break this down even further into structured segments.

Sticky Middle - Cait Reynolds

So, in Act II, we need the following:

  • Weird Shit & Things Get Worse
    • This is the chunk of the book where we start stripping the protagonist of her Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs under the guise of plot points, clues, betrayals, etc.;
    • This is where the bulk of the clues are going to come into play;
    • Decide how many facts the protagonist is going to need in order solve the problem and then set up an increasingly difficult obstacle course for each clue – this will help you figure out how many scenes and chapters you need…
    • …also, it helps keep a lid on irrelevant side-trips like the Mary Sue Shopping Spree;
    • Try to create a crescendo of severity of the risks and consequences of learning each piece of crucial information;
    • This naturally build to…the TWIST!
  • Twist and Shout!
    • The protagonist thinks she might have everything figured out, but surprise!
    • She doesn’t!
    • She could be totally wrong, blindsided by her own biases, have dismissed a key fact as unimportant, or trusted the wrong person for the right reasons;
    • WARNING: the twist MUST follow logically from all the clues we have been doling out. The twist cannot come out of left-field. It should be the fruit of our own hard work at thinking about the story and sacrificing our chance to enjoy guessing whodunit in real-time as we write. We have to know who the murderer is from the beginning so we can work backwards on how to hide the clues. It takes practice, but it’s far better than deciding that the twist will be…uh…she’s a werewolf! when what we’re really writing is a contemporary YA romance but haven’t thought far enough ahead about what is going to be the twist…
  • Sharknado! And, Sharknado II!
    • Or, rather…DISASTER!
    • As a result of the protagonist being ignorant of and unprepared for the twist, the consequences of the twist are the worst possible scenario come-to-life;
    • This is our chance to strip away that last shred of the Maslow Hierarchy that the protagonist has desperately been hanging onto;
    • It’s okay to do this. We apologize to our characters, let them know that we’re going to get them out of the hole, and then proceed to smash their world to pieces;
    • Remember, the disaster part of Act II is like Sharknado and Jaws had a love child who then dated Snakes on a Plane.
  • All is Lost
    • This is an optional section. That’s right. I’m giving you a choice. Booyah!
    • Basically, this is that quiet lull the comes right before the protagonist figures out the one thing that can change the course of everything and allow him/her to take up the mantle of the hero;
    • You know this moment…every Disney move has it…when Belle weeps over the dead body of the Beast and the last rose petal falls; Elsa and Kristoff are too late to keep Anna from turning completely to ice; in Disney’s Hercules, it’s the moment when Meg dies, and a mortal Hercules is not only helpless to save her, but has also failed to protect Thebes and the rest of humanity;
    • The purpose of an all-is-lost moment is to show the protagonist at her truest and most raw. There is no more pretense, excuses, illusions/delusions, false idols. She stripped to her foundations, forced to face her faults and fallacies, and in that moment, decide whether she will give into them or make one more attempt to put things right and become better than she was;
    • Again, this is optional because it doesn’t work for every story. It can depend on pacing, character arc, whether it’s a part of a series, genre, etc.

Sticky Middle - Cait Reynolds

Now, ready for the magic formula? Remember, I’m working based on every chapter being 2,000 words and 1-or-2 scenes, and all scenes will follow the pattern of Problem, Progress, But Then, and the Death Threat.

  • Weird Shit & Things Get Worse: 6-8 chapters
  • Twist and Shout!: 1-2 chapters
  • Sharknado! And, Sharknado II!: 1-2 chapters
  • All is Lost: 1-2 chapters

Therefore, I know that:

Act II will have 9-14 chapters and be 18k-28k in length.

BOOM.

Consider the Sticky Middle UNSTUCK.

A slick finale

All of this is not meant to regiment our writing in the equivalent of literary whalebone corsets.

Sticky Middle - Cait Reynolds

(Yes, I will cover Act III, but that’s another book blog post!)

But, if you—like me—struggle with the Sticky Middle, then this can be a map for making your way through the morass. The ‘Sticky Middle’ is that moment that determines whether we are going to make through November, NaNoWriMo, or throughout the year with every book we try to write…or that we finish.

Oh, and by the way, I’ve got an AWESOME new class this Friday!

BAD BOYS: DANGEROUS LOVE FROM REJECTION TO REDEMPTION

Instructor: Cait Reynolds

Price: $45.00 USD

Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom

When: Friday, November 17, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST

REGISTER HERE

Some Bad Boys have tattoos and motorcycles. Others wear three-piece suits and eat mergers & acquisitions for breakfast.

Whatever Bad Boy flavor you like, there are key characteristics they all share…and there are some common mistakes writers make that will turn his sexy, wolfish grin into the simper of an anxious bichon frise faster than you can say, “How you doin’?”

This class will cover:

  • How to leverage all the classic Bad Boy traits while making your character unique.
  • Keeping the Bad Boy on the tightrope between attractively arrogant and annoying a$$hole.
  • From macho to marshmallow: how to avoid the traps that turn your man soft mid-plot.
  • Write like a man (because no Bad Boy should ever come across like a soccer mom with an attitude problem).
  • Redemption vs. realistic redemption: creating the arc for a Bad Boy we can live with.

A recording of this class is also included with purchase.

About the Instructor:

Cait Reynolds is a USA Today Bestselling Author and lives in the Boston area with her husband and four-legged fur child. She discovered her passion for writing early and has bugged her family and friends with it ever since. When she isn’t cooking, running, rock climbing, or enjoying the rooftop deck that brings her closer to the stars, she writes.

 

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Don’t Let Your Inner Pushy Stage Director Bully Your Characters!

Writers get advice all the time not to listen to their Inner Editor–that snarky, perfectly manicured voice that has always has good hair and has probably never done a sniff test on a t-shirt in her life. But, there’s another voice we need to worry about: the Inner Pushy Stage Director.

Who or what is the Inner Pushy Stage Director?

It’s the fussy, sententious voice that carries a clipboard, wants you to emote more, and believes blocking is the only thing that can save the show (because God knows it won’t be the talent).

When it comes to writing, the Inner Pushy Stage Director has something to say about where every single character is, where they are going, and what they are doing (and exactly how they are doing it).

It’s not that it’s not good to know all of this. We should know where are characters are and what they are doing. The trouble comes when we decide to share all of that with the reader. The result of listening to our Inner Pushy Stage Director is writing that is clunky, over-crowded, and possibly the worst sin of all: BORING.

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU HAVE AN INNER PUSHY STAGE DIRECTOR?

We’re writing. It’s not a complex scene. Our Hero Taylor is waiting for Sweet Seraphina to show up so he can debrief her on the morning’s miraculous escape from the Evil Band of Drug Lords/Mobsters/Human Traffickers.

There’s a knock at the door.

The way the Inner Pushy Stage Director wants to write this:

Taylor raised his head from his hands and looked up. He was too tired to startle physically from the sound. Wearily, he put his palms on his thighs and pushed up to standing, taking measured steps across the living room to the small foyer. He walked up to the door and came to a stop, squaring his shoulders against the ache in his ribs, and reaching for the doorknob. He grasped it with his hand and turned, slowly pulling the door open, watching as it revealed Seraphina standing on his threshold.

At this point, I can’t even write any more, I’m so bored. It’s all blah, blah, blah, and I’m starting to wonder when I’m going to get to the point,

If there isn’t a bit of dialogue or something interesting soon, I’m going to start picking at my nail polish…and that’s how we end up losing readers to “bookmark moments.”

If this had been written by the Steven Spielberg of Inner Stage Directors

Taylor heard the knock at the door but was too tired to startle at the sound. He went to the door, squaring his shoulders against the ache in his ribs and the exhaustion that dogged his steps. Seraphina stood on the threshold, looking completely unconvinced by his show of nonchalance.

Okay, now, we’re getting somewhere. It’s clear that this passage is tighter because it lacks the painful–and literal–step-by-step description of every action. But as a writer, how do we learn which actions need description and what is better left unsaid?

Fortunately, there are some simple tricks to keeping your Inner Pushy Stage Director in the wings where he belongs.

THE END POINT OF ACTIONS

Every action is made up of a series of movements. For example, to pick something up off the ground involves bending (or stooping) over, reaching out, grasping the object, and straightening up.

However, if Our Hero Taylor had dropped his phone on the ground, all I have to tell you is that, “Taylor picked up the phone.” In your mind, you have instantly pictured the entire series of physical movements that comprise the act of picking something up.

The end point of an action is the last movement (or two) that instinctively invoke an understanding of what the character has just done. We have all picked something up before. The movements are part of a common physical vocabulary we share as human beings. We just know what it means.

Therefore, we need to do is get in the habit of describing only the “end point” of an action.

In other words, we don’t need more verbs to describe a verb that already implies those verbs. Redundancy is redundant. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself).

THE MEANING OF ACTION

The Inner Pushy Stage Director is all about choreography. Everybody is moving around, doing things, providing a visual feast for the reader because ART.  He’s the kind of inner editor that believes that interpretive dance makes everything better.

In reality, there are two reasons why we describe any given action for any given character in any given scene.

One of the greatest memes of all times. Also, plotting in a nutshell.

Rule One: Action puts characters into situations where interactions, decisions, and reactions to events move the plot forward.

Rule Two: Action puts characters into situations where movement can either reveal or conceal something about a character’s personality, motives, emotions, and inclinations.

Rule One is pretty self-explanatory. Every time our characters decide to pick up the phone, answer the door, drive (or ride a unicorn/hover craft) over to their friend’s house, shoot/not shoot the Very Obvious Antagonist, they are taking an action that leads to more choices and chances for Very Bad Decisions.

Rule Two is a bit more subtle, but just as powerful. For example:

Taylor heard the knock at the door but was too tired to startle at the sound. He went to the door, squaring his shoulders against the ache in his ribs and the exhaustion that dogged his steps. Seraphina stood on the threshold, looking completely unconvinced by his show of nonchalance.

Our Hero Taylor’s actions “show” the reader something about his character (pig-headed stubbornness in refusing to admit he has mere human physical limitations) without having to “tell” them…which would have looked something clunky like this:

Taylor heard the knock at the door but was too tired to startle at the sound. He went to the door, determined not to let Seraphina know how tired he was. If there was anything he hated, it was showing weakness of any kind. Seraphina stood on the threshold, looking completely unconvinced by his show of nonchalance.

I have basically beat the reader over the head with “The 2×4 of Useful Information” (another blog post coming soon). As readers, we instinctively get from the first example that Our Hero Taylor is one of those guys who likes to push through utter exhaustion, doesn’t like showing weakness, is pig-headed stubborn, and is–frankly–a crap actor.

In the first example, the action is both revealing to the reader and concealing (or would be to a being of lesser perception than Sweet Seraphina) to the other character.

MOTION GRANTED

Whether a character is running, sleeping, standing still, or trying for the love of God to find a comfortable way to do Downward Facing Dog, movement and action are the physical manifestations of the plot.

Just as we work hard at refining dialogue and figuring out where to drop clues in the story, we need to look at how we write about how our characters move (or don’t move). Nothing drags the pace of crisp dialogue or take the shock out of a good plot twist like fussy, overly-specific descriptions of action.

Now, it’s time to plant your feet on the ground, push with your legs, stand up out of your chair, reach your arms above your head, breathing in to expand your ribs (optional nostril-flaring) as you get a good stretch before lowering your arms, rolling your shoulders, sitting down in your chair, putting your arms on the desk, and getting back to work.

Have a Snickers, Inner Pushy Stage Director…

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Mansplaining the Romance Genre

Mansplaining

Full disclosure: after I post this blog, I’m probably going to go day drink and listen to Aretha’s “Respect” on repeat. Mansplaining romance and erotica has a way of doing that to me.

Yesterday, Robert Gottlieb wrote a round-up of romance novels in the New York Times Book Review.  Frankly, it’s more like he herds an entire genre into the slaughterhouse chute of his wit. But, just like slaughterhouses, his wit is ugly, messy, and not something that ever needed to see the light of day.

Shall we ask why they got a man who doesn’t even work in the genre to do this? Wait, never mind. You know what they say. Ask a stupid question…get a thousand witty answers…

Robert Gottlieb
Robert Gottlieb, mansplainer extraordinaire. Image courtesy of The New York Review of Books.

The whole article can be summed up in this:

This retro venture, flatly written like all Steel’s books, is just further evidence of how romance can swing any which way. Regency, psychopaths, wedding planners, ranchers, sadists, grandmas, bordellos, dukes (of course); whips, fish tacos, entails, Down syndrome, recipes, orgasms — romance can absorb them all, which suggests it’s a healthy genre, not trapped in inflexibility. Its readership is vast, its satisfactions apparently limitless, its profitability incontestable. And its effect? Harmless, I would imagine. Why shouldn’t women dream? After all, guys have their James Bonds as role models. Are fantasies of violence and danger really more respectable than fantasies of courtship and female self-empowerment? Or to put it another way, are Jonathan’s Bolognese and Cam’s cucumber salsa any sillier than “Octopussy’s” Alfa Romeo and Bond’s unstirred martinis? Robert Gottlieb, NYT Book Review, 9/26/17

This is a man who believes Barbara Cartland is about as steamy as romance should get. (Full disclosure, I love me the occasional BC, and this is not anything against sweet romance.)

No orgasm, solo or in tandem, we should note, graces the pages of the most prolific and successful romance queen of all time, Barbara Cartland, step-grandmother of Princess Diana and author of 723 novels, 160 of them unpublished at her death (just before her 99th birthday) in 2000. Her son is still doling these out, one a month, as “The Pink Collection,” and they are without benefit of sex. The formidable Barbara knew where her readers wanted the line drawn: No Cartland heroine ever came into contact with a hardened rod. Robert Gottlieb, NYT, 9/26/17

Barbara Cartland

You really have to read the rest for yourselves.

Ron Hogan is my new hero. He gives one of the most lucid, point-by-point take-downs of this kind of criticism I’ve ever seen. Read it here and give the man some love. Read the original bit of mansplaining (though, if you have high blood pressure, you may not want to – it’s rage stroke-worthy).

 I will always be the first to say that we do quite a bit of dumb shit to ourselves as writers in the romance/erotica genres, and often, we fully deserve the scorn, teasing, and other pokings through the bars of the cage that we get.

 However, there is a different between pointing out the trite and tropey in a genre and DENIGRATING THE GENRE IN ITS ENTIRETY!

Seriously.

For a guy who has edited Toni Morrison, Nora Ephron, and others, he comes as across as a seriously uninformed dick who delights in “mansplaining” everything that is wrong with a wildly successful genre (that earns enough money to pretty much keep the rest of the industry flourishing and off life support because there are only so many painfully precious lit fic books one can read before wanting to go to a poetry reading and sarcastically catcall the people at the mic) that is dominated by women who for the most part seem to know what they are doing and drive 90% of the innovation in book marketing and sub-genres.

Yes, that monstrosity of a (grammatically-correct!) sentence probably deserves your scorn. Let me try again.

Gottlieb needs to SIT DOWN.

(Strunk and White would be so proud of me for that bit of ruthless editing.)

Sit down!
SIT DOWN, GOTTLIEB!

I also can’t figure out why Gottlieb feels the need to write something this stupid and incendiary. There are a couple of possible reasons:

  1. Early onset dementia;
  2. He’s angling to be Paolo Coehlo’s next editor and needs to edge out the competition;
  3. He really, really wants to retire, but can’t bring himself to quit, so he’s hoping to get fired;
  4. I have no fucking clue…it’s just such a stupid move on his part.

It’s not even tied to the principle of all publicity is good publicity. As an editor and a reviewer, he can indulge in constructive criticism and gentle ribbing all he wants with authors. But to piss them off en bloc? *shrugs* just dumb.

I can’t even go near the whole thing about characters not sounding…well, let me just quote Ron Hogan here, because, like I said…I can’t even…

But then there’s this gem: “Zoe and Carver are African-Americans, though except for some scattered references to racial matters, you’d never know it.” Now that’s an interesting comment to make—and, sure, as Toni Morrison’s former editor, Gottlieb isn’t exactly a complete noob when it comes to African-American culture. But declaring that Hodge’s characters don’t seem very African-American raises a question: How should African-American characters behave to sufficiently convey their African-Americanness to readers? And that, readers, is a question that leads to few if any good answers, especially not from 86-year-old white men. Now, the New York Times may not be the only place an 86-year-old white man get away with saying a black woman’s characters don’t seem very black to him without anybody in the editorial chain chiming in about whether this literally gratuitous swipe is really necessary to the overarching theme of the essay. But it’s a place where this sort of thing is not uncommon. (Those of us with particularly long memories may think back to the time Ward Just, reviewing Stephen L. Carter’s debut novel, seemed genuinely amazed at how the black bourgeoisie comported itself.)

Ron Hogan, “All the Dumb Things You Can Say About Romance Novels in One Convenient Place,” Medium.com, 9/27/17

I’m pretty sure that he will read all the protesting comments and blog posts about this and chuckle to himself at the way all the little ladies out there are overtaxing our tiny, organ-obsessed brains to try and outwit him.

Therefore, I am issuing a challenge to Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr: TAKE DOWN GOTTLIEB. With humor. With memes. Topple him from his throne.

Don’t forget to tag me so I can see your brilliance!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/caitreynolds

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/caitreynolds

Tumblr: https://caitreylove.tumblr.com/

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If You Write Fiction, Read Non-Fiction

The top half of ONE of my bookshelves.

I am insatiably curious. This has led to a slight issue (some might say addiction) with buying books.

Non-fiction books.

For an author, my actual collection of fiction is quite small. That’s probably because I’m such a picky bitch about the caliber of storytelling and writing I will read.

But, non-fiction? OMG, it’s a real problem. Eric and I recently went to IKEA because I had to buy a whole new bookshelf system. I got the Billy bookshelves…and the extra shelf extension. I literally have books floor-to-ceiling now.

Yet, I regret nothing. NOTHING.

but…but…isn’t all that non-fiction boring?

Hardly! Most of the time, I end up reading things and am like, ‘You seriously can’t make that shit up.’ Reality is way, way weirder than fiction. Dragons included.

I will absolutely admit that non-fiction has experienced a renaissance since the 90’s, shaking off the dust of academic ponderous pomposity and embracing engaging narratives, clever topics, and intelligent and witty writing.

Most importantly, though, is the fact that through non-fiction, we learn more about the world and people around us. What’s more fascinating than that? The more I read, no matter what the subject, the more I see intriguing connections that help me weave more complex, compelling stories.

It doesn’t matter if you are writing historical, contemporary, paranormal, romance, or even epic fantasy. Reading non-fiction will make you a better writer.

Non-Fiction and Research

It’s hard to think of a single really good work of fiction that hasn’t relied on some pretty solid non-fiction research.

I can think of a lot of really, really bad fiction that clearly shows signs of the author not giving a fuck about facts. I remember reading an erotica story where the main female character is an interior designer.  She lands a multi-million dollar project designing a hotel…and pitches in with the painting crew she hired to help paint the owner’s suite to get it done on time.

REALLY? REALLY???? Seriously?

It would have taken exactly six minutes to go to Wikipedia, look up ‘interior designer,’ and scrolled down to the bottom where it lists exactly the type of work that interior designers do, as opposed to…interior decorators. As opposed to people pretending to be interior designers who violate all kinds of union, OSHA, and other insurance and contract restrictions to ‘pitch in’ and help paint walls.

Sure, we could say that it’s ‘just’ erotica, and we’re supposed to be suspending disbelief anyway. Let’s just put aside any kind of professional pride, attention to detail, and desire to produce quality books. From a purely technical perspective, taking care to get a little detail like that right (even if it means reading a boring Wikipedia article) actually encourages the suspension of belief.  Accuracy grounds a story in reality in a way that is absolutely tantalizing because it is logical and could happen, and therefore enhances the fantasy.

Okay, I may have gone off the rails a bit here, but my main point stands. Good fiction needs research, and research gets easier the more we accustom ourselves to reading non-fiction.

It’s almost as bad as wearing a pocket protector

Okay, fine. I’ll admit it. It’s not just books I have a problem with.

I am an insatiable magazine article ripper-outer.  Daphne Lamb, Kim Alexander, and Genevieve Raas from The Fabulous Fictionistas can attest to this, having seen me tear through show dailies, catalogs, and other periodicals at Book Expo America.

My husband, bless him, knows me so very, very well. For Christmas one year, he got me a subscription to ‘Astronomy.’ I have my own subscriptions to ‘Discover’ and ‘Archaeology.’

I am the chick on the beach, drinking things with umbrellas in them and completely engrossed in an article about black holes. Don’t get me wrong. I am not a scientist and even less of a mathematician. God invented calculators for a reason. ‘Discover’ is written for people like me. Obscure scientific ideas are broken down simply. The writing is clear and entertaining. And, over time, the more I read, the more I learn, and the more familiar scientific concepts become.

I know what you are thinking. Don’t I write historical romance and paranormal YA? What am I doing reading about amoebas and pretending it makes a difference to my writing?

Well, just for the record, I drew on some of the articles I had read about quantum physics and astronomy for ‘Downcast,’ and the sequel has quite a bit of science behind the scenes. In fact, the whole premise of ‘Thunderstruck’ came from an article in ‘Discover.’

It’s more than that, though.

I’ve come across articles about how neurochemistry can explain why we get such a rush from reconnecting with a first love. I’ve read about pioneering immunology research in the 1880’s that used bacteria and provided a critical breakthrough with major writer’s block. I get clues I didn’t know I was looking for, plot bunnies, and just the sheer pleasure of exercising my brain.

Science and history are not everyone’s cup of tea…or Petri dish. I get it. But, we should all be constantly learning and expanding our horizons in both literature and non-fiction. The more we learn and know, the more we naturally anchor our story to facts, pay attention to world-building, and create connections between characters and concepts that make our stories deeper, richer, and most importantly…more worth reading.

Cue NBC’s “The More You Know” theme music.

via GIPHY