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lkh_lashouts2012-12-28 02:38 am
blogfloggery.livejournal.com) wrote in lkh_lashouts2012-12-28 02:38 am
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Blogflog - Happy Yule and Merry Christmas to all!
Link: Happy Yule and Merry Christmas to all!
Dislcaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's blog. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.
MOD NOTE: It appears that after many, many years, you can now leave comments on LKH's blog again. Please do not go there for the sole purpose of picking fights or being an asshole.
Since most of this entry is what LKH and her family did for Christmas, we've only copied over the book/writing part as the mods feel this is the only part relevant to the comm's interests. You can still read the blog in its entirety by following the above link.
On a happier note, mods hope everyone in the comm has survived the holidays in the best way and had delicious food comas.
I worked on Affliction which is the next Anita Blake novel, but first I worked on a brand new story idea. I’d written down a few sentences of it days ago when the idea first waved it’s hands at me, so to speak. To my surprise it was the first thing that came to me this morning. I guess, it shouldn’t surprise me too much since it is a Christmas story. I believe it’s my first ever Christmas/Yule story, and if things continue a pace the story is shaping up to be safe for all ages. So many of you have asked for more stories of mine that can be safely shared with younger readers that apparently my subconscious has been working on it. We’ll see if I can actual behave myself for pages, though honestly the beginnings of stories are fragile things and just because you start a story is no guarantee that you will finish it. I think every writer has more beginnings than complete works, it’s the nature of ideas to come on strong, but not necessarily have staying power. This one feels promising, because the idea is fresh and exciting having just come to life this morning. (I don’t count a few lines of an idea, they can wait a decade to become a story, or never be more than an idea.)
After I’d written as far I could see in the new story I wrote on Affliction. I had to drop back and add a bridge chapter which is exactly what it sounds like it is, a chapter that bridges from the action at the end of one chapter and the action at the beginning of another. Sometimes in my eagerness to get to a scene I get ahead of explanation needed, or even character introductions so that you get people talking that are brand new with no background at all, or characters that new readers wouldn’t know just dropped in, so you have to back up and explain a little. The two brand new characters that I’d introduced have been in my mind so long that I just forgot that they’ve never actually made it on stage before. I’ve had that happen a time, or two, usually with minor characters, or minor major characters, that I keep putting in the series and they keep getting cut before the book goes to publication. We’ll see if the characters make it to the final round this book.
Dislcaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's blog. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.
MOD NOTE: It appears that after many, many years, you can now leave comments on LKH's blog again. Please do not go there for the sole purpose of picking fights or being an asshole.
Since most of this entry is what LKH and her family did for Christmas, we've only copied over the book/writing part as the mods feel this is the only part relevant to the comm's interests. You can still read the blog in its entirety by following the above link.
On a happier note, mods hope everyone in the comm has survived the holidays in the best way and had delicious food comas.
I worked on Affliction which is the next Anita Blake novel, but first I worked on a brand new story idea. I’d written down a few sentences of it days ago when the idea first waved it’s hands at me, so to speak. To my surprise it was the first thing that came to me this morning. I guess, it shouldn’t surprise me too much since it is a Christmas story. I believe it’s my first ever Christmas/Yule story, and if things continue a pace the story is shaping up to be safe for all ages. So many of you have asked for more stories of mine that can be safely shared with younger readers that apparently my subconscious has been working on it. We’ll see if I can actual behave myself for pages, though honestly the beginnings of stories are fragile things and just because you start a story is no guarantee that you will finish it. I think every writer has more beginnings than complete works, it’s the nature of ideas to come on strong, but not necessarily have staying power. This one feels promising, because the idea is fresh and exciting having just come to life this morning. (I don’t count a few lines of an idea, they can wait a decade to become a story, or never be more than an idea.)
After I’d written as far I could see in the new story I wrote on Affliction. I had to drop back and add a bridge chapter which is exactly what it sounds like it is, a chapter that bridges from the action at the end of one chapter and the action at the beginning of another. Sometimes in my eagerness to get to a scene I get ahead of explanation needed, or even character introductions so that you get people talking that are brand new with no background at all, or characters that new readers wouldn’t know just dropped in, so you have to back up and explain a little. The two brand new characters that I’d introduced have been in my mind so long that I just forgot that they’ve never actually made it on stage before. I’ve had that happen a time, or two, usually with minor characters, or minor major characters, that I keep putting in the series and they keep getting cut before the book goes to publication. We’ll see if the characters make it to the final round this book.
no subject
I do...not actually have that thing with beginnings, but that explains a LOT about LKH as a writer. I usually get middles, climaxes and endings, and I have to figure out how to get characters A B and D (C, sadly, shall die halfway through) to the parts i do have without boring the hell out of people. With her, the beginnings are good, the middles are OH GOD DID YOU JUST GET LOVE-JUICE ON ME and the endings are "Well, shit, we have to tie this all together now".
Bridge chapter. You know, human beings are REALLY good at connecting dots without having the lines drawn in first. The ONLY reason to have a bridge chapter is if there is a big, ugly ass troll sitting on the bridge with its hand out wanting quarters. And if for some reason you need a bridge chapter and you cannot possibly work without it, you need a troll there, too. (letting characters talk so you can develop that relationship a bit is not a bridge chapter. It's a required development chapter, and those are worse than bridges because you can't throw a troll in to keep things lively. You have to let it actually be about *the relationship*,)
But I'll bet ya fifty bucks the "bridge" is gonna be "two characters talking for no damn reason, because maybe you forgot the thing we talked about TWO PAGES AGO. (and the book is named Affliction, just in case you forgot)"
LKH either sucks at writing, or she thinks her audience is twelve.