Alison Kent's Blah Blog

My Kensington editor forwarded this email to me from the folks as Cosmo last week:

Please see the final excerpt attached. If you could pass this on for author approval and let me know as soon as she ok’s it that would be great. Thanks!

After sharing the news with the husband, I had to Twitter it for everyone else!

This is too cool. My CIG is mentioned in Nicholson Baker’s article on the Kindle:

To be fair to the Kindle, I had to make it through at least one whole book. Jeff Bezos calls this “long form” reading. I had some success one morning when I Kindled my way deep into “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Erotic Romance,” by Alison Kent. There are, I learned, four distinct levels of intensity in the erotic-romance industry: sweet, steamy, sizzling, and scorching. This seemed like pertinent information, since romance readers are major Kindlers.

Thanks to Susan Doerr for letting me know!

Random.org tells me the winner of the “conference goodie bag” is Crystal GB. Congrats! Send your mailing info to ak@alisonkent.com and I’ll get the box sent out.

I used Random.org to determine the winners for the How-To Books That Saved My Life giveaway, and the winners’ names follow below. You three email me your mailing addresses to ak@alisonkent.com and I’ll have those shipped to you from Amazon.

Jean Lauzier – Story
Kait Nolan – The Writers Journey
V – Techniques of the Selling Writer

I apologize for not following through on my plans for the LB & LI workshop series. I started each of the posts, and so I will go ahead and use them at GenReality on upcoming Mondays. I have spent this week immersed in a world not my own, researching and reading and outlining for writing, and I even opened a new document and wrote 75 whole words. But I’ve also been sick, trying to stave off an illness on my own, but am now on antibiotics. Ergo, there was a real reason for my flagging energy level and lack of focus to get my workshops written. Who knew I wasn’t just lazy!?

A week ago Wednesday, I went to Katy Budget Books (voted Houston’s best bookstore 2009, yay) for a booksigning with Jaci Burton and Maya Banks. A great time was had by all. Jaci, Maya and I went to dinner with Jaci’s hubby, Charlie, and @cuppacafe. I also met Ali, which was too cool, tho I didn’t think to take her picture! Edited to add: You can actually see the rearview of Ali over Jaci’s shoulder, LOL!

I bought books by Maya and Jaci and intended to give them away the next day but was feeling cruddy, most likely due to above mentioned need for antibiotics. I’m kinda glad I waited, though, as my author copies for ONE GOOD MAN arrived this week, so I’m going to throw one of those along with one of NO LIMITS into the prize pack which, as you can see, includes Maya’s BE WITH ME and THE TYCOON’S REBEL BRIDE and Jaci’s TAKEN BY SIN and RIDING ON INSTINCT. All the books are autographed!

I’ll draw one name from those who comment here by Wednesday, July 22, 2009, 12:00 p.m. (noon) CDT. All you have to do is tell me if you are strictly a reader, or if you’ve always played with story ideas and want, if you haven’t already, to write your own.

Over the twenty year course of my writing career, sixteen of those years as a published author, I’ve purchased thousands of dollars worth of how-to, craft and advice books, as well as workshop recordings. Some I’ve given away having never read through as I realized the author’s take on the subject didn’t resonate with me. Some remain untouched on my shelves. Others I’ve kept because I’ve gleaned a tidbit or two of useful information, or even a quote such as Anne Lamott’s from BIRD BY BIRD that has seen me through all the pages looming between me and a deadline:

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said. ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”

When it comes down to “can’t write without,” there are only three books that have had such an impact: Dwight Swain’s TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER, Chrisopher Vogler’s THE WRITER’S JOURNEY and Robert McKee’s STORY. I don’t consciously use everything these three books offer, but each teaches a storytelling element I can’t live without. Later this week (hopefully), I’ll go into more detail about the Swain and Vogler books, but briefly, here are my takeaways from all three.

1 – Everything I ever learned about pacing came from Dwight Swain. I was in my first critique group, having sold my first book on my own, and one of my new and brilliant critique partners used the words “scene and sequel.” I had no idea what she was talking about. On her recommendation, I bought THE TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER, read about scene and sequel, and realized she was right. My pacing was a mess because I was not following the steps of reactions and decisions. Laid out as it is by Swain, it seems so simple, so obvious, yet I am not a natural storyteller, and the lesson in structure was invaluable to me.

(I should interject a note here that I listened to the recording of a workshop given by a NYT author at the 2008 RWA National Conference where she mentions scene and sequel – and what she was talking about sounded like cliffhangers, and that is not Swain’s definition.)

2 – Everything I ever learned about plotting through came from Christopher Vogler. I attended a workshop he gave to the Houston Writers League in 2000 and took pages and pages of notes as he went through the elements of the hero’s journey. I’ve used his method ever since, and though I don’t always lay out every piece of the pie, it’s now pure instinct to know to put my story’s inciting incident at a certain spot in the manuscript, to give my characters mentors and enemies, to drop them into hell before allowing them to make their way back with the chalice. I can no longer watch a movie without looking for the steps of the hero’s journey; it’s that ingrained in my analysis and enjoyment of story. Vogler’s work is based on Joseph Campbell’s THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES, and Vogler says on his website:

In his study of world hero myths Campbell discovered that they are all basically the same story – retold endlessly in infinite variations. He found that all story-telling, consciously or not, follows the ancient patterns of myth, and that all stories, from the crudest jokes to the highest flights of literature, can be understood in terms of the hero myth; the “monomyth” whose principles he lays out in the book.

3 – Everything I ever learned about, well, so many things came from Robert McKee. I attended a workshop he gave at the RWA National Conference in, I believe, Chicago in 1999. I also attended a workshop given in Houston by Jo Leigh in 1995 or so where she used much of McKee’s work. My biggest takeaway? The life values in scenes and the negation of the negation. This isn’t an easy book to get through, and to this day I have trouble grasping some of what he says. Same with the Swain book. Both are dense and, for me, have required more than one read. Since I won’t be workshopping anything from STORY, here are McKee’s Ten Commandments of Writing from Down The Tubes:

ONE: Thou shalt not take the crisis/climax out of the protagonists’ hands. The anti-deus ex machina commandment. No surprises!

TWO: Thou shalt not make life easy for the protagonist. Nothing progresses in a story, except through conflict. And not just physical conflict.

THREE: Thou shalt not give exposition for strictly exposition’s sake. Dramatize it. Convert exposition to ammunition. Use it to turn the ending of a scene, to further the conflict.

FOUR: Thou shalt not use false mystery or cheap surprise. Don’t conceal anything important that the protagonist knows. Keep us in step with him/ her. We know what s/he knows.

FIVE: Thou shalt respect your audience. The anti-hack commandment. Not all readers know your character. Very important.

SIX: Thou shalt know your world as God knows this one. The pro- research commandment.

SEVEN: Thou shalt not complicate when complexity is better. Don’t multiply the complications on one level. Use all three: Intra-Personal, Inter-Personal, Extra-Personal

EIGHT: Thou shalt seek the end of the line, the negation of the negation, taking characters to the farthest reaches and depth of conflict imaginable within the story’s own realm of probability.

NINE: Thou shalt not write on the nose. Put a sub text under every text.

TEN: Thou shalt rewrite.

Further references:

Outline of Robert McKee’s STORY
A Practical Guide to THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES
Vogler’s Storytech Literary Consulting

I’ll be drawing three names from commenters who post by Saturday, July 18, 2009, 12:00 p.m. CDT, and be giving one of the books above to each. If you’re interested in any of them, please say so. If you have further thoughts on any of them, please share.

(Note: I am an Amazon affiliate and get commissions for purchases through my links.)

Today at GenReality, I’m talking about my favorite conference roommate who is half pictured below, and no, it’s not Takumi, who is bunking with us for awhile.

I’m blogging at GenReality today about writing novellas.