Alison Kent's Blah Blog

(First, check out the hilarious little flash movie the husband made for Kathleen O’Reilly!)

Now, here’s what I’ve done since turning in my book on Friday:

• Celebrated with steak and shrimp and Range Rattlers
• Watched this movie and this movie
• Watched one two episodes of this show
• Napped
• Re-wrote one scene in Ezra’s book
• Did a bit of research for THE PERFECT STRANGER
• Updated sites for several web clients
• Napped
• Loaded more content into my new website design
• Gathered up about three dozen unread books to be shelved
• Read a few pages in a couple of them
• Bought more books from Amazon
• Napped
• Folded four baskets of clothes
• Stacked them on top of the dressers; didn’t put them away
• Washed and changed the sheets; made for better napping
• Napped
• Unloaded the dishwasher
• Tried to put the plates in the freezer
• Napped

I also stopped in at Karen Templeton’s blog and found a fabulous post where she talks about voice and storytelling in romance novels and reading outside the genre, and has this to say:

I’ve always maintained that reading only within the romance genre strikes me as somewhat incestuous, with an awful lot of genetically-deficient novels the result. Hate to say it, but the longer I’m a part of this profession, the less likely I find myself willing to take on the “they all sound alike” argument. Of course not all romance novels sound alike — we do have some wonderfully original voices in the genre. And of course there is more variety in the stories than most people give us credit for. BUT. . .

But the more mainstream stuff I read, the more I realize how much further we could push the envelope, both in voice and storytelling, and still have something easily recognizable as a romance novel. Because the farther afield I venture, the more I realize that far too many romance novels are like houses in a neighborhood with only a single model. Over the years, different landscaping and paintjobs and additions have produced the illusion of each property’s uniqueness, but basically you’re still looking at the same floorplan. Me, I much prefer a neighborhood where each house is truly unique, not a variation on its neighbor, with lots of land surrounding it for expansion.

God, yes. Yes, yes, yes! (…) how much further we could push the envelope, both in voice and storytelling (…) And the neighborhood analogy . . . how perfect is that!

I’ve gotten flack from other writers for admitting that I don’t read a lot of romance, but I’m of the “feels like homework” camp – a quote that I think is attributed to Mary Balogh. I can’t relax with what to me is work. When I read outside of romance, I’m much less likely to be a picky editor and can be just a reader because I’m not seeing the too familiar tenets or the too overused cliches that make me want to do what my critique partners do to me with a lot of red font instead of red ink. Or what my long time career partner (an art major) used to do to my pages – draw bows shooting arrows into my lazy writing. *g* And trust me. I can be as lazy as anyone; it’s not like this stuff isn’t HARD WORK and to be avoided! *g*

If all we read are romance novels, how much greater the possibility of writing incestuous, stale, and unoriginal prose as we are constantly exposed to what have seemingly become genre expectations? Romances may be our choice for writing and even for reading, but I can’t even begin to explain the creative inspiration I get from reading elsewhere, and how much I love pouring that into my own work. When I read outside of romance, I don’t see the same phrases and repititious or thoughtless use of language. Granted, not all romances fall into this category, but there are enough that do to make me wonder if there’s a romance novel thesaurus out there – one offering only a half dozen synonyms that have become cliched causing the words to lose their meaning.

My big one? Sensual. Hate it with a sensually cliched passion. *g*

Even the blogs I read . . . so many of them are authors who write in other genres, and I have learned SO much from the likes of Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette and Tamara Siler Jones and Holly Lisle and . . . the list is endless, truly. Today, in fact, Rosina Lippi has an amazing post about metaphors:

Here’s a paraphrase of the sentence that made me put down the book: “Heat rose off Max’s skin in the shape of his soul.”

Corny is the word that comes to mind, but when I look at this in relation to the definition quoted above, I see a logical gap. Because this isn’t dull or tiresome. Worse. It’s meant to be observant and profound, but it’s just silly. Self-conscious and awkward are two other words that come to mind.

(…)

So here’s the bottom line. If you’re writing about serious things and it’s important to get the reader to empathize and identify with the emotions your characters are feeling, step back. Don’t force images in delicate situations. Don’t make the reader stop in mid sentence to contemplate, as in this case.

In my upcoming CIG, I quote Rosina from storytelling talking about overused words and expressions (especially sexual) saying:

“Genitalia, erogenous zones and specific acts aren’t the only place where the unmotivated, uncomfortable or lazy writer will resort to cliches. There is a list of words that have been so overused that they should be retired, maybe permanently. Silken thighs, raven tresses, sensual anything – these phrases have been stripped of any meaning they might have once had. Now they are nothing more than placeholders, and funny placeholders, at that. When the author resorts to these terms, you really have come to the place where it would be possible – and preferable – to substitute ‘and then they had sex’ for the whole extended scene.”

(BTW, click the storytelling link and read the whole post. Excellent, excellent, excellent.)

Karen sums up so much of my own feelings when she says about the book she ended up choosing to read:

A short, exquisitely lovely book, and one that — as I’d hoped — made my look at my own work with fresh eyes.

That’s what reading outside of the genre SHOULD do. Give us a fresh look at what we’re doing. And if you’ve read this far *g*, one more link from Karen on craft:

And while I can understand craft taking a back seat to story to a certain extent — and that personal opinion as to what constitutes “good” writing is always highly subjective — judging from the appalling lack of a basic grasp of grammar and syntax I see around me every day, clearly nobody really cares anymore.