Editing & the Australian Lexicon.

[Image: Collins Concise Dictionary 5th Australian Edition. 2001 pg852]

I am currently deep into editing "Magical Gains", and as the novel is being published on the other side of the world to me, there are are quite a few lexical changes to make!

The lexicon of a language relates to the vocabulary of that language, and as everyone knows there are some some serious differences between Australian English and American English.

For example;

biscuit = cookie

lounge suite = sofa/couch

car boot = car trunk

jumper = sweater

windscreen = windshield

That's just a few I can think of - and I'm not even starting on the spelling differences!

 At first, I'll admit, I was kind of surprised at the need to change, because it's not something I'd every really thought much about. I am happy to say however that dialectual differences don't change the story and romance is romance no matter which lexicon you're writing in.

Having said that, it's a good job I didn't write about bogans getting some piss from the bottle-o, watching some footie on the box, then going and getting paro at Blue's barbie. I really feel you'd loose something in the translation there!

Now... back to it :)

Setting the Scene...

[Esperance coastline Western Australia - by me]

Having just returned from a gorgeous holiday in Esperance, filled with dramatic scenery and white beaches - I've been really thinking about what goes into setting up scenery in novels.

When creating a scene, I tend to focus on things like sight (what you can immediately see), smell, and temperature to give a rounded snapshot of what the place is like. However, there are other things that are equally as important when setting up a scene - things that aren't as physically tangible.

How a place feels to the character is invaluable. Some places are vibrant, pulsing with life, whilst others are creepy and some are old, decrepit and ooze desperation and sorrow (some neglected old Wheatbelt towns really have this feeling).

What causes these feelings is really up to the individuals own imagination. A place that one person thinks is marvellous can be down right hideous to another. I think this difference is due simply down to the individuals imaginative interpretation of what they see. I know for a fact, with my own ridiculously overactive imagination - I tend to experience places more intensely that some others who aren't as imaginative - which isn't always a good thing!!

Before setting a scene however, authors will first have to build the world of the novel. My critique partner forwarded me a very interesting article on world building. The name of the original author eludes me at the moment and if I spend hours digging through my inbox I'm sure I'll find it!  The essence of the article was how to build a believable world. To do this the author needs to show the readers what the people in that world fear, enjoy, misunderstand, forget, bless or bury. It was a very cool article indeed and following those points helps create a believable world with memorable and interesting scenes - well I hope so anyway!

Enter the Harpy....

[Image courtesy Flickr Creative Commons - ~duncan~]

So I've written a novella about a Harpy - well, quarter Harpy to be exact. It's called "Mimosa Black", and I've recently submitted it to an e-publisher and am awaiting their response. Time will tell!

As anyone one whose read any blog I've written will know - I love Mythological creatures, and I specialise using them in Modern Romance.

I chose the Harpy for one main reason - they're pretty unpleasant. My trusty Collins Concise Dictionary (2001) defines them as "a ravenous creature with a woman's head and trunk and a bird's wings and claws" - this is what I call a "True Harpy".

The joy of using Mythological creatures is that you can adapt them to your needs. For example, the character of Mimosa is a quarter Harpy - a hybrid Harpy if you will. Subsequently she has completely human body with the addition of glossy black wings.

In this novella, I have taken the Harpy and inserted it into our modern society. To do this I asked myself a few questions;

Description: What exactly are my Harpies going to look like?
Society: Where would  Harpies fit as a minority group?
Employment: What kind of employment could they have?
Accommodation: Where would they live?
Romance: Who would love a Harpy?

Description: Well, I tend to go with the standard description of a True Harpy, but a hybrid Harpy (with one parent a human) could really take any of the physical traits and have them mixed.
Society: As a minority group, I think they'd probably be a pretty unpopular but close knit bunch. Aggression and violence would be their main cultural traits. To highlight this fact and create my heroine's back story,  I used the concept of the "Flock" to describe their community and ascribed rules of behaviour to "Flock members". 
Employment: I think a Harpy would suit some form of Security work, or Policing .
Accommodation; They'd probably live in high-rise apartments from which they can fly (as siting in a car with large wings would really be quite uncomfortable).
Romance: As for who would love a Harpy - well, I can't give everything away!

Putting magic and mythology back into contemporary romance is something I'm passionate about. The traditional Harpy, (much maligned in tales of old) lends itself to redevelopment in the modern world, creating new and exciting stories to stir the imagination and heart as well.

Yay!

Postscript: "Mimosa Black" has been accepted by Eternal Press and will be due for release hopefully later this year.

Pretty People - Ugly Actions

The beautiful villain.

                               [photo courtesy: Flickr Creative Commons; 28 Misguided souls]

We've all read or watched them on telly. The gorgeous, sexy but inexplicably nasty villain.

In fairy-tales as children nearly all the villains were ugly. The hideous witches, the ugly stepsisters, the revolting trolls and ogres - all domineering and tormenting the beautiful Rapunzel's and Cinderella's of the world. Children tend to relate better to the ugly villain - an individual that evokes revulsion and horror through looks alone. As we grow, the villain's ugliness matters less. As you hit the tweenie age bracket, the villains can become more physically appealing - the Ice Queen in the Narnia Series for example. She is beautiful, but flawed. She is icy and her cruel nature is what the reader finds abhorrent. By the time we are reading as teenagers, we've learned that sometimes the shiny apple is the one with the rotten core.

The beautiful villain is an interesting device used in writing. The beautiful villain exists on the premise that "beauty is only skin deep". This is a notion we are reminded of constantly as self conscious teens - but ignore completely as we rocket into our 30's and beyond.  In a world of  plastic surgery and airbrushing, beauty and what it hides is an intriguing concept. We all know that those perfect A-list celebrities without a single frown line are all screaming primadonna's, manic-depressives or weirdo's in their spare time don't we? Or do we just hope they are - as we sit in front of our computers in our pyjama's googling their images?

As it is human nature to compare oneself to another, I think readers get a little sick of flawless heroines with whom they cannot relate. So, I see the beautiful villain as miniature rebellion of sorts! A rebellion against the commercialised and unattainable image of beauty. The lustrous skin (without any dry patches), the flawless brow and the breasts that never sag are more or less unattainable to the average individual. So using that flawless beauty as a clever veneer to hide what lurks beneath, is automatically engaging.

 The fact that beauty (in the West at least) has become so commercialised, has changed a few things in modern literature. We like our heroines to be pretty, but its perfectly acceptable if they're a little plain or chubby - because it makes them real. This is not to say that all heroines must be ugly and all villains must be beautiful. The trick is to make characters readily believable and accessible to the reader and make them want to read.

Using a beautiful villain is sure to engage readers, but only when written with tact and care. Lets face it as I go to bed with a good book (after smearing my face with wrinkle fighting cream) I get a little kick out of knowing that 'plain jane' eventually gets her guy, and the obnoxious silicone Barbie doll finds that Ken has run off with the Kewpie doll!

Ummm. I think your fly's undone...

The socially awkward moment...

                                                                [photo courtesy - me!]


Well, last night I was out at a function, and a woman - whom I had never met - had her fly undone. It was obviously undone, dreadfully, embarrassingly undone. I noticed it from the other side of the room - kind of undone.

What did I do? Well, I am very ashamed to admit, I did absolutely nothing. I was paralysed by embarrassment for her. Please let  me say that, ordinarily, I am not backwards in coming forwards. Normally, I would tell a lady that her dress is in her knickers, and would always point out that bit of parsley in your teeth - so why on earth couldn't I say something to this woman?

Well, thinking back on it there were three main reasons for my doing nothing.
First and foremost, she was a gruff, rough sort of a woman who might just as easily have twisted off my head and used it as a teething toy for her baby.
Secondly, she was also a very large woman, and drawing attention to her open fly would also have drawn attention to her ample stomach.
Thirdly, she was a newcomer at this function and I didn't want to point out her fly was undone  and socially cripple her in a crowd of strangers.

Really there couldn't have been a more awkward moment. I seriously felt damned if I did - and damned if I didn't - because I really feel I should have said something.
Anyway, this whole situation got me thinking about socially awkward moments, how they are created and how often they are used in writing.

As recent experience has told, the awkward moment doesn't need much to give it rise.
I have created a formula for it.

Social pressure + normal/polite behaviour    =  awkward moment
       potentially embarrassing situation


I am currently reading (for the 100th time) French Relations, by Fiona Walker. I love it, it's a great bit of chic lit. The main character Tash French is a very socially awkward woman - and yesterday's incident would have fitted well with the book.
 French Relations, is filled with some really awkward stares, hairy bikini lines, and women who cry and look ugly.

I really do enjoy the socially awkward scenes in novels and try to put a few in mine. They're funny and just about everyone can relate!

Having said all that, I next time, I won't fold to my socially inhibited embarrassment and will tell them their fly is down!

Fantasy Food

[Image courtesy Flickr Creative Commons,  cuttlefish ]

Whether it be a molding old hamburger or haut cuisine - what your characters eat, or do not eat, is important in world building - well I think so anyway.

In fantasy and paranormal romance, food is sometimes a forgotten entity. I have read entire novels where the characters seem to require no sustenance at all. That's not to say you should harp on about eating all the time - that would be annoying, but the occasional mention of what your characters are eating can be fascinating.

How a someone reacts to food, divulges a great deal about that character and the world in which she/he comes from. For example; you know someone who delicately devours Brussels Sprouts has absolutely no tastebuds and was probably born in the 1940s or 1950's - as we all know anyone with a "modern palate" finds them as tasty as a boiled fart.


Did I really write that?! Haha! If you're the exception, please leave a comment and I may reconsider my opinion!

Anyway, another interesting way to develop characters is not only describe the food they choose to eat, but the way they eat it. Recently I was in Malaysia, and I watched with fascination some locals eating their curry and rice with their fingers. My children however were horrified to see people eating with their hands. I hurried to explain that here it was completely normal to use your hands and mush up your curry with your rice and gently spoon it with your fingers into your mouth. So how a character breaks up her dinner roll, or how she spoons her soup gives that glimmer of insight into her personality that the reader would miss out on if you hadn't mentioned it.

Having said that, I once read a entire page on a character peeling and eating orange - it was mind numbingly dull. I personally didn't find it added to world development, character development or any development other than the author's own sense of literary snobbery. Sometimes you can over do a good thing.

Used in balance, however, food is a great way to show your readers things without telling them. We all need to eat, and it can create common ground for the reader to relate to even the most difficult character.

So if you're looking for a new ingredient to add to your writing recipe - try food!

Boom boom!

:D

Music as a muse.

[Image courtesty FlickrCreativeCommons, takacsi75 ]

As a writer, I have particular songs that evoke characters and scenes. Sometimes I will listen ad nauseum to particular songs that help me write a scene.  For me, the songs I repeat frequently are usually one of two types, the power ballad, or the upbeat feel good song or a blend.

One of the first novels I wrote (at the ripe old age of 15) was a fantasy called Tears of a Warrior,  and you can just imagine the kind of song that was written to! It was "Dreams" by the Cranberries (you can watch it here) Still when I hear that song, it brings back memories of those characters and their amazingly traumatic lives (writing is such a fantastic outlet for teenagers and God Knows I lived vicariously through my characters!) As I listen to the song now, it fills me with the desire to write - it is incredible to me how interlinked music becomes with my writing.

So, as I am now writing about Genies, I am filled with a love of Arabic music. Some of this music is absolutely magic and some of it is absolutely bizaare. I spend hours trawling through Youtube to find songs I love. I am completely obsessed by two particular songs. "Habibit Albi /The love of my heart" by Joe Ashkar is just devine - check it out here. I think the clip is so cheeky and I love this man's voice. This song tells me that my hero and heroine will get their happy ever after!

My second favourite is a female Lebanese singer called Cyrine, with her song "Law bass fi aini /If he looks in my eyes" (here). This song is just gorgeous (and so is they guy in the clip (except his eyebrows could do with a bit of work!)

There are countless other songs that are set to repeat on my listening list whilst I write and they range from Regina Spektor's "Fidelity"  and Chairlift's "Bruises" to any one of Bryan Adams' power ballads "Have you ever really loved a woman?"

I have always been a great lover of music, and have played piano since I was five years old. I think music has the ability to bring joy or sorrow, and using its emotive qualities can enhance what my imagination creates. I couldn't do with out my playlist whilst writing!

Happy listening :)