Seriously Silly

by Christina Lay

I’ve always been a fan of silliness well-done. Be it Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks or Tom Robbins writing from a vibrator’s POV or Douglas Adams taking us across the universe with nothing but a towel and terrible poetry for company, there is a special sort of joy in reveling in a world where the absurd is commonplace and maturity is a liability.  Lately though, it seems like everyone is becoming much too serious; unable to laugh at themselves or enjoy a quirky perspective on life in general. Our entertainment reflects this, and we get more Game of Thrones, less The Tick. This despite the fact that the more grim and desperate reality becomes, the more we need to laugh, to lose ourselves in mirth.

Just today in a daily inspirational email that I receive, I read this on silliness: “We play yet we do not lose ourselves in play, and our imaginations are never truly given free rein because we regard the products of irrational creativity as being valueless.” Madisyn Taylor, Daily Om.

Irrational creativity. I love that. I had already been thinking about the value of silliness when I read it because I’d been planning to review the book, Space Opera, by Catherine M. Valente, so lucky me, it ties right in to the larger, all important theme of this blog. Yes, as the title suggests, Space Opera is pure and unapologetic space opera (Meaning Science Fiction that pays no attention whatsoever to physics or actual technology. Getting across the galaxy or even the universe might be as simple as pressing a button or hijacking a police call box). This book not only indulges in make-believe science, it revels in it. I appreciate that.  The book is sheer fun, sheer silliness, imagination run riot, and yet…

For a truly silly book to be memorable and not just a forgettable airplane read (which is of course valuable in its own right) a well-crafted silly book is anchored by moments of profundity. The thing about humor is there’s really no better way to set the reader up for a glimpse into the heart and soul of humanity. It’s Us laid bare, exposed, shown with all our warts and ill-fitting plaid jackets, but with compassion, kindness and a deep understanding of the silly kid locked inside of us all.

So that was quite the sentence. To break it down, I’ll quote Catherine Valente. “Life is beautiful. Life is stupid.”  That’s basically the theme of the book. We laugh, we tear our hair out, we cry, we sigh in wonder. A good silly book reminds us of all that.

Space Opera was inspired by an international music competition called Eurovision, where contestants are encouraged to be as outrageously fabulous as possible. I’m thinking Elton John on Acid at a Drag Queen fire sale with glitter explosions in the background (remember, this is the reality part). In the book, Humanity is called upon to prove itself sentient by performing a song of heartbreaking beauty and fabulousness in a musical competition on the other side of the universe.

Naturally, just telling the aliens that we’re sentient doesn’t work. Look at our history, at our now, at all the terrible things we’ve done and keep on doing. So what’s silly about that, you might ask (grimly, brow furrowed)? Nothing. What makes it silly is that we’re also capable of wonderful, fantastic things. The conflicted dichotomy of the human race is stunning. Paralyzing. Beautiful. Stupid. What can you do but laugh?

Valente has mastered the art of irrational creativity. Kudos. And her characters are intensely human, lovable, and relatable. My only nit with this book is that the ratio of narration to actual scenes is off, IMHO. I’d like to spend more time with the characters, and less time reading lengthy (although mostly hilarious) summaries. That aside, this is a thoroughly enjoyable book, with silly and heartfelt both in good measure. In her afterward, she pays homage to Douglas Adams, as is right. I believe Adams, the grand master of silly, would approve.

Even if your current project isn’t silly in the least, it is healthy to allow irrational creativity to flow now and again, to laugh at yourself and your agonizingly constructed sentences, to play at the page. Maybe you’re writing a murder/horror mystery wherein everyone dies. If you don’t allow yourself to be silly while writing something like that, watch out. You will become grim and furrowed. And I suspect that a touch of silliness will make your characters more relatable, your tragedy more heartfelt. As writers, it’s not only the readers we have to think about, but ourselves. To keep ourselves fresh, motivated, happy in our art, we need to breathe, and the best way to get fresh air into our brains and our heart is to laugh.

5 Ways to Put the Romance into Necromancy by Sarina Dorie

Today on ShadowSpinners we welcome Sarina Dorie, creator of the popular series: Womby’s School for Wayward Witches.

 

5 Ways to Put the Romance into Necromancy—Writing Romance

 by Sarina Dorie

I have a background writing science fiction and fantasy. I am a member of SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) and the majority of what I write has some kind of speculative element. I also have a passion for romance. I’m a member of RWA (Romance Writers of America) and a lot of what I write has a romance plot or subplot. I am bored by stories that don’t include female characters and relationships of some kind. I love sci-fi but if it is all engines, laser guns, and starships blowing up, my eyes glaze over. That is just my personal preference. I know what I like to read and what I want to write.

Put the two genres together that I am passionate about, and we get paranormal romance—if the story contains vampires, werewolves, and witches in contemporary settings. When it has a werewolf but it isn’t contemporary, it might be fantasy romance or even science fiction romance if it is set in the future. Sometimes the combinations can be pretty eccentric. Because I like humor, eccentric works for me. But this is also coming from someone who has a short story titled “Putting the Romance Back into Necromancy,” and I have an urban fantasy romance titled “Reading, Writing and Necromancy,” which is part of my Womby’s School for Wayward Witches Series. These are funny horror or humorous urban fantasy romances that use both genres to their advantage.

If you are thinking about including romance in a story or writing a romance, consider a few things first:

1.Understand what romance is.The love story should be necessary to the plot. The characters need to have a HEA (happily ever after) or HFN (happy for now) if it is considered romance. It is fine if it doesn’t, but if that is the case, it might be horror with There is a difference and readers have expectations when a book is marketed as a romance. Just because you are including a love story doesn’t make it a romance.

For example, someone told me I needed to see Me Before You because I would love it—because it was a romance and it was about a woman with unusual fashion tastes like me, apparently. I watched it, and I loved it, then I got to the end, and realized it wasn’t a romance. Then I hated it. But I didn’t really hate it. I actually like the movie a lot, but I went into it with the wrong expectation.

 

2. Find the heat level appropriate for the story. Not all romance has sex. The point of a sex scene in a well-written romance should be part of the plot and character arc. Just as a science fiction novel would be broken without the science, taking the love scenes/relationships out of a romance novel would break the plot. If the novel doesn’t need a sex scene or it is outside your comfort zone, you don’t need to include it.

There are many romance novels out there that do not have sex scenes on the page or implied. Some books end on the proposal, wedding, or a happy moment when the characters finally kiss and confess their feelings for each other. Young adult, sweet romance, and inspirational don’t include sex scenes. On the other end of the scale, erotica is more sex scenes than plot and can include a variety of kink like ménage, harem, or bondage.

 

3. Find the tropes for your genre. A trope is a plot device. All genres have them. It isn’t that a trope is inherently bad, although some readers hate particular ones while someone else loves that trope. Readers expect them. In romance, the trope is generally the element that helps the hero and heroine meet or keeps them apart. The thing that makes a trope work is subverting the readers expectations so that the writing feels fresh and original.

If you are writing a horror novel, mystery, historical, thriller, etc. my favorite tropes might not be the tropes you and your audience are drawn to. Figure out what works for you. How do you find tropes appropriate for your genre? (See article: Paranormal Romance and Fantasy Romance Tropes.)

 

 

4. Enjoy the process of research. If you are a writer, you probably enjoy reading. I know all of us writers say we are all too busy to read, but we need to do it to see good examples and bad examples. The guilty pleasure that makes my life more tolerable is audiobooks. I love reading, but I don’t always have time. It is a handy way for me to do research. I “read” books and analyze why I find it trite, boring, and lacking in sexual tension or why I am rooting for the characters. Is it the evocative language? Is it the way the author captures the senses? Is it the building tension between the characters? There is a lot of different kinds of romance—and love stories that are beautiful but are not the romance genre.

Find out what works for you and what doesn’t, whether it is style, language, heat level, or tropes. If you disdain the genre and the idea of including a happy ending, love scene, or relationships, ask yourself why you are punishing yourself by writing a romance. Maybe you really are wanting to write horror with romance elements.

I thought I was writing a slow-burn romance series when I started Womby’s School for Wayward Witches, but as I wrote more books, I realized the romance was not the central plot in every book. It was the B plot. Also, not every book had an HFN or HEA ending with the romance. Because I have done my research and I know my genre, I know what these books are and are not. I would call them urban fantasy mysteries with romance. I had a lot of fun writing them, and I think readers are enjoying reading them, so I am okay with them not being romance.

 

5. Practice—in whatever way makes sense to you. For me, practice is writing. Sometimes writing short stories or flash fiction can be a great way to exercise the mind and get out ideas. A couple years ago at a Romance Writers of America meeting I attended, one presenter talked about how she makes sexy storyboards of all the things to set the mood. At another meeting, a different presenter talked about all the positions she tries with her husband—then has to race away from bed to go write down all the positions it is humanly possible for people’s bodies to contort into. Whatever floats your boat, right?

Whether you are interested in including romance in your genre because it is what you like to read, you are interested in tapping into a different market, or it fits into the story you are writing naturally, I highly recommend checking out Romance Writers of America as a resource.

 

 

Sarina Dorie has sold over 150 short stories to markets like Analog, Daily Science Fiction, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card’s IGMS, Cosmos, and Abyss and Apex. Her stories and published novels have won humor contests and Romance Writer of America awards. She has over two dozen books available on Amazon including her steampunk romance series, The Memory Thief and her collections of short stories like Fairies, Robots and Unicorns—Oh My! are available on Amazon, along with her series Womby’s School for Wayward Witches.

You can find info about Sarina Dorie’s short stories and novels on her website:

www.sarinadorie.com

 

The best way to stay in contact with Sarina Dorie, hear about what she is writing, know when she has a new release, or books offered for free on Amazon is by signing up for her newsletter.

https://mailchi.mp/sarinadorie/authornewsletter

 

How to Get Rich Selling a Novel to a Major Publisher, 2000 vs. 2019

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Prologue: I wrote this as a joke among friends in January. This week, I posted the original version as a thread on Facebook. Sadly, it was taken seriously. I’ve been full-time freelance since 1990. I have had wonderful experiences with editors, agents, publishers, and other writers. I’ve also had horrible experiences that include having work stolen, pirated, and used in ways I did not authorize and from which I did not profit. Buy me a scotch at a conference, and I’ll tell you horror stories. However, I will also require you to listen to the glorious moments that I have been privileged to experience. I know of no profession or job that does not include both good and bad experiences. Writing, more than most jobs, is a lifestyle profession. Please don’t take this seriously. Little bits are true. Other bits feel true to some people. However, that little bit of truth and feeling are mixed with lies and myths to create the following.

How to Get Rich Selling a Novel to a Major Publisher, 2000 vs. 2019

by Eric Witchey

2000:

1. Learn the Craft.
2. Write a good book.
3. Get an agent.
4. Sell the book.
5. Go to signings and parties.
6. Write another good book.

2019:

1. Be really lucky, or….
2. Establish financial support and freedom to pursue craft: husband, wife, trust fund, inheritance, poverty lifestyle, Patreon, GoFundMe, hut on a third-world beach, a diamond heist, etc.
3. Choose a currently very popular genre. Base the choice on what you like to watch on TV.
4. Read a few popular books in that genre so you can pretend to have read a lot.
5. Learn enough of the language of craft any way you can to sound like you understand it when you are interviewed for webcasts or by Oprah.
6. Establish credentials that prove you learned the craft: A couple honorary internet Ph.Ds or a six-week, low-residency MFA are good enough. In a pinch, Microsoft Certifications can be used. You can also purchase reviews, purchase awards, and pay someone to campaign for awards for you.
7. Spend a few thousand dollars attending a conference and buying people drinks where editors and agents can be met and slowly befriended while you repeat this exercise 20 times a year to demonstrates that you have number 2 firmly in hand and can travel the country and world promoting and hand-selling the books a publisher might buy.
8. Establish platform: Build, buy, or steal a mailing list of over 50k people, create or hire out author sites on all social media systems. Don’t worry. You don’t have to use them. You just have to have them so the marketing team can nod sagely and say that you have platform.
9. Establish more platform: Create or hire out a successful YouTube channel, generate endless self-promoted appearances, hire a click farm to manipulate search engine hits on your name to exceed 500k, participate in lots of blogs and vlogs talking about you and your life as a famous writer.
10. Write, or hire someone to write in your name, a book or series of books that: can be compared to two, but no more than three, extremely successful books or series so that marketing people can begin to believe they won’t have to work if they allow your book to be purchased by the publisher. However, be careful that your book or series is just different enough so that they have to change the cover art, blurbs, and press releases they used for the books you compared yours to. You can’t be too careful with marketing people.
11. Get a famous author with film industry connections, say George R. R. Martin, to pitch your book or series to Netflix, HBO, or the Syfy Channel.
12. Get an offer.
13. Show the unsigned film offer to a publisher.
14. Get an offer.
15. Show the unsigned book offer to an agent.
16. Sign with the agent.
17. Let the agent sell the book to the publisher, which will require a new contract that gives the agent a higher percentage of all derivative products.
18. Agent says, ” It’s a good contract. You don’t want to be considered hard to work with. Don’t overthink. Just sign.”
19. Let the agent’s film agent negotiate the contract for the film, which will require you to reduce your up-front and take points on net while the agent’s agent and the agent lock in a percentage of points on gross for themselves.
20. Agents all say, ” It’s good. You don’t want to be considered hard to work with. Don’t overthink. Just sign.”
21. Go online and vaguebook about what might happen soon.
22. Read the marketing instructions the publisher publicist assigned to your book has sent you. Realize it will be expensive to fly to go to signings and interviews in places like the independent bookstore in Brillton, North Dakota, pop. 1700. Note that the marketeers have committed to nothing except sending you the list.
23. Ask for money for promotion. Marketing people say, “This is standard for our first time writers.” Agent says, “The money will come. Stay focused.”
24. Take out a loan against your advance.
25. Remain upbeat and plucky. Dutifully start the prescribed prepromotion for the book, but carefully adhere to contractual constraints and only hint at the pub date and possible film. Wouldn’t want to sour the deal or be considered hard to work with.
26. Continue prepromotion for one to five years before you can announce the pub date and the film deal.
27. Finally announce a publication date range that is intended to match the film release.
28. Come up with an idea about merchandising. Publisher loves it. Realize that all merchandising revenue is owned by the publisher. It’s a good contract. Don’t overthink it.
29. Politics and infighting end the film production.
30. Production company declares bankruptcy.
31. Agent says they can’t help.
32. Agent’s film agent won’t return calls or emails.
33. Hire an entertainment lawyer.
34. Receive bill from lawyer for lots of phone calls, prework on lawsuit, and the final meeting in which you are told you are a creditor and won’t get paid.
35. Publisher blames the story. They drop you just after you have delivered the second book, which you wrote in hotel rooms, vans, back alleys, and bookstores while promoting the first book and film. They cancel publication and demand the advance back.
36. Agent blames the story. The second book, which you personally fought to get back from the publisher, “isn’t right for them at this time.” They drop you and tell you that you have to pay the advance back but won’t get their percentage back because they did their job and get paid for the work they did.
37. Bookstores remainders your first book. Your name is forever associated with losses on their computer ordering systems. Even if you had another book, they wouldn’t order it because your name is on the cover and the last one lost money. However, they got paid for the books they sold and didn’t have to pay a dime for the books they didn’t sell. There’s that.
38. You realize that you are the only one who does not get paid for the work you did.
39. But wait. A huge company bought the assets of the defunct production company. The project is resurrected. The film is made. Hooray!
40. You celebrate with a banquet for your sister and both your patient, supportive friends. The brewpub has never had it so good.
41. The film burns bright in pre-release focus viewings. A novelization of the film goes to your former publisher. It tops out the NYT Bestseller List. Everyone gets paid except you because you were only a creditor to the first production company.
42. Your accountant sends you a bill and a P&L that shows your net profit for the entire process is: -250k.
43. The lawyer puts a lien on your house.
44. Return to 1.

The 12 Steps of Getting Over Yourself

by Christina Lay

I have a confession to make. I’ve completed 15 novels and novellas; some of them are even published. This does not include an indeterminate number of drawer novels, those hideous beasties who lurk forever in a state of suspended animation waiting for my fickle brain to become interested in them again. But they are important too, because they represent hundreds of hours of learning the hard way.

I’ve done a lot of hard-way learning. One would think that at this point I would have mastered the art of noveling—or as some people call it, “writing”—but the process of bringing a novel into the world is an ever-evolving, ever-elusive endeavor, and there is no end point, no graduation ceremony after which you will forever breeze through the process of writing like a mature, unruffled professional. No, writing is an exciting ride, a roller coaster of surprises, a minefield of potential failures, a vale of tears.

Recently, I did another dance with The Wall. You know. The one that stops you. This one stopped me for longer than usual. During this Winter of My Worst Novel Ever, I penned the following ripoff of the famous 12 Steps of Alcoholism Anonymous. May they come to your aid during your next Worst Novel Ever.

The 12 Steps of Getting Over Yourself and Finishing the Damn Novel

1. Admitted we were powerless over the plot, and that our novel had become unmanageable
2. Came to believe that a really good book on craft could restore us to sanity
3. Made a decision to turn our plot and our characters over to the care of a workshop or writing group, and to try and utilize their critiques as we understood them
4. Made a searching and analytical inventory of our novel
5. Admitted to our muse, to ourselves, and to our writing group the exact nature of our screw-ups
6. Were entirely ready to ruthlessly cut these defects of plot
7. Humbly asked our writing group to help us
8. Made a list of all the places we had gone wrong, and became willing to remove all of our adverbs
9. Made direct cuts wherever possible, except when to do so would injure the story or character development
10. Continued to take an honest inventory and when we went wrong, promptly corrected our course
11. Sought through writing groups and workshops to improve our storytelling abilities as we understood them, gathering the knowledge of how to write and the caffeine to carry those ideas to fruition
12. Having had an awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others by participating in a writing group, leading workshops, writing articles, and by using what we learned in all our writing affairs

 

Paranormal Romance and Fantasy Romance Tropes by Sarina Dorie

This week on ShadowSpinners we welcome Sarina Dorie, creator of the popular series, Womby’s School for Wayward Witches.

 

Hades & Persephone: To the Underworld

 

Paranormal Romance and Fantasy Romance Tropes

 by Sarina Dorie

What is a trope?

A trope is a plot device. All genres have them. When done well, a trope feels natural and necessary to the plot. When it isn’t done well, it feels contrived or unoriginal. It isn’t that a trope is inherently bad, although some people are very opinionated about the ones they love or hate.

In every genre, readers expect them. In romance, the trope is generally the element that helps the hero and heroine meet or keeps them apart. The thing that makes a trope work is subverting the readers expectations so that the writing feels fresh and original.

 

What’s an example of a trope?

For example, one of the tropes of Romeo and Juliet (which is a love story, not a romance in case you didn’t realize it) is the idea of enemies to lovers or rival houses. This is the same trope in Westside Story. It’s used in many other movies, books, and television shows.

 

In Twilight, the idea is used with vampires versus werewolves with the protagonist being caught in the middle. After Twilight was published, this trope was used a lot in paranormal romance, specifically the rivalry of vampires versus werewolves. It became an easy (and sometimes lazy) way of creating conflict. For years every paranormal fantasy novel I picked up had rivalries between vampires and werewolves. Writers kept writing it because readers kept reading it.

But every plot was the same: He was a misunderstood vampire with a dark past. She was a werewerewolf/werebear/werepanther trying to avenge her clan. They were mortal enemies, but the only thing they could think about was each other.

 

The trope got old. The conflict felt contrived. People made fun of the genre. This is probably why What We Do in the Shadows worked so effectively. It subverted the viewer’s expectations. The vampire versus werewolf rivalry focused more on the bromance of the story. The actual love story/romance was the B plot (secondary plot) for one of the other characters. This B plot also explored tropes taken to their extreme. And of course, there was the unforgettable line from this movie “werewolves not swearwolves” that lives on in my memory forever.

 

What are examples of your favorite tropes?

That’s just me and my preferences. That trope of enemies to lovers or rival houses lives on in paranormal romance.  When done well, it doesn’t feel contrived, but there are other tropes that other people don’t like because of the execution. Some of my personal favorites that I use in my fantasy and science fiction romance novels are:

Beauty and the Beast

Fairy Tales

Enemies to Lovers

Love Triangles

Sassy heroine

Amnesia

Tragic past

Was it a lie? (disguise/undercover love)

Breaks her heart to save her

Noble rescuer steps in because she’s dating Mr. Wrong

 

Anyone who has ready my Womby’s School for Wayward Witches Series is going to recognize some of these. The first two tropes work especially well in the kind of fantasy and science fiction I write. Sometimes my monster/beast is the pretty human or an unassuming Prince Charming is the real beast. I already like fairy tales and fairy tale retellings, so fracturing a fairy tale worked well for me like in my novel WRATH OF THE TOOTH FAIRY coming out in the summer of 2019. Think about Shrek and why it did so well. The movie completely subverted our expectations.

 

How do you use a trope?

Everyone writes differently. I don’t usually set out to write a trope, it just happens. In the editing phase or partway through writing, I try to be aware of elements that might not be original and subvert expectations. If you are writing a horror novel, mystery, historical, thriller, etc. my favorite tropes might not be the tropes you and your audience are drawn to. Figure out what works for you.

 

How do you find tropes appropriate for your genre?

Do some research. A while back I found some lists of romance tropes. None of these are complete. There are more I find myself using that aren’t on these lists, but it gives you a starting point to think about.

145 Romance Tropes

https://goteenwriters.com/2015/12/16/145-romance-tropes/

All the Kissing’s Favorite Romance Tropes

https://allthekissing.com/2018/02/atk-romance-tropes/

Romance Tropes: What Words for Romance Readers

http://arghink.com/2015/10/romance-tropes-what-works-for-romance-readers/

Sarina Dorie has sold over 150 short stories to markets like Analog, Daily Science Fiction, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card’s IGMS, Cosmos, and Abyss and Apex. Her stories and published novels have won humor contests and Romance Writer of America awards. She has over two dozen books available on Amazon including her steampunk romance series, The Memory Thiefand her collections of short stories like Fairies, Robots and Unicorns—Oh My!are available on Amazon, along with her series Womby’s School for Wayward Witches.

You can find info about Sarina Dorie’s short stories and novels on her website:

www.sarinadorie.com

The best way to stay in contact with Sarina Dorie, hear about what she is writing, know when she has a new release, or books offered for free on Amazon is by signing up for her newsletter.

https://mailchi.mp/sarinadorie/authornewsletter

 

 

Tarot and the Craft of Writing

By Cynthia Ray

The Tarot is a symbolical, archetypical, pictorial description of the way things work.  It is both personal and universal.  The Tarot also outlines the ins and outs of creating and writing a story, the experience of writing, and the required tools and competencies. There are 21 major trump and here I will briefly illustrate their connection to the creative process of the writer.

0.  Writing a novel is a path that only a fool would begin, and only a fool could     complete.  The Fool is an androgynous figure setting out on the journey of creating a story and carries a bag of past experience to draw from. The dog represents the companion muse who will accompany this Fool on his/her journey, but the Fool has their attention upon the higher goal, not paying attention to the whopping big cliff s/he is about to step off of.  Here we go!

1. To begin anything, and especially a novel, one must have desire and will.  Almost like magic, what one chooses to focus on and put attention upon, fueled by desire, is that which grows, represented by the Magicians garden of roses and lilies.  Bringing focused attention and concentration to bear on the task is the gift of the Magician.  The writers’ tools sit upon the table.  The wand is will, the cup is imagination, the sword is action, while the coin represents the final form.   It will take a strong will, fueled by imagination to take the necessary actions to bring ideas into a completed story that is perfect and beautifully formed.

2. The High Priestess is the door to the great subconscious, both the personal and the collective, universal subconscious that Jung speaks of, from which all ideas and inspirations arise. The water from her gown flows through all the cards, ever present, and informs, shapes and nourishes every word that pours from the writers’ pen.  The moons that crown her hair stand for the waxing and waning and rhythm of the creative process.  Expect ups and downs.

3. The pregnant Empress is the writers’ wonderful, weird, creative Imagination. She takes the tiny seeds planted by the Magician and brings forth a riot of form and ideas in her wild garden.  The mind of the writer produces many various and sundry ideas for the novel, many complex characters with which to people it, and revels in the pure audacity of the potential and possibilities.

4. The Emperor stand for reason, order and form. Here the writer begins to organize potential plots into an outline, and even writers who are outline adverse, must conceive of an orderly progression of the story that will lead to a satisfactory conclusion.  The Emperor is associated with vision and sight, and every writer needs a coherent vision and line of sight to where the story is going, and how to get there.  The Emperor is a visionary map maker.

5. The Teacher is the writers own inner voice. The key to this step is finding and listening to that voice.  Critique groups are helpful and necessary, advice from the well-known authors and craft books are a good foundation, and practice and study all lend themselves to mastery of the craft of writing, but the only true guide is the writers own unique VOICE that must come through the story, told in his or her own unique way.  The path to finding that voice is trial and error and ever-vigilant practice of listening.

6. The letter Zain associated with this card means sword, and here the writer must begin the process of cutting away anything that does not lead the story forward. This cutting away requires a willingness to remove, without regret, whatever does not serve the higher purpose of the story.  The Lovers also stand for discrimination, which is related to the sense of smell.  The writer must sniff out the true core and essential elements of the story, versus the “fluff’, sometimes referred to as the writers’ “darlings”, that must be jettisoned.

7. The Chariot stands for Victory, and the conquest of illusion. The war a writer wages is an inner struggle, wrestling with inner demons and voices that tell the writer they are not good enough, that the story is valueless, and to surrender, to give up. The Charioteer is our inner Self, who hold the reins of mind and emotions and leads us over a rough and difficult road to triumph over those illusions-a victory that allows the writer to continue on the quest, tapping into the desire and will.

8. Strength of Purpose. This lion is not a docile, submissive force, but a wild and powerful energy that must be tamed and harnessed, and its power is the writers’ potential creativity.  This creativity must be channeled through the application of consistent, habitual effort.  Just as the physical body builds strength by the habit of daily exercise, consistent patterns and writing practices are required to produce meaningful results.  A strong writer is a consistent writer.  This process is represented by the many leaves and roses draped around the neck of the lion.  The infinity symbol shows that the work of writing is accomplished hour by hour, day by day, month by month, although ideas and inspirations arise outside of time.

9. Writing is a solitary activity, and often feels like a solitary climb up a steep mountain. The writer must take time, and create space, to withdraw from the world and write. The Hermit stands alone on a dark mountain, showing the way, and represents all the writers that have gone before, accomplished a work, and all the wonderful stories that shine their light into the world.  The stories that inspired the writer to add to the treasures that we turn to when we are lost, when we are grieving, when we are curious.  The Hermit is also the writer her/himself at the end of every chapter, looking forward, looking back.

10. The Wheel of Fortune is movement, rotation, involution and evolution. In this stage, the writer is  fully engaged  in the story as it evolves and changes and emerges from the mind of the writer.  The novel is on its way to manifesting through its many phases.  There are re-writes, and re-thinking of plot lines, and characters motivations.

11. All the mistakes of plotting, character development, writing style will show up her to be judged and elements either found wanting, directed back for another spin of the wheel, or shown to be worthy.  Another meaning of this card is action, and for each action there is always an equal reaction – it is cause and effect.  Either the actions and descriptions and responses of the characters work or they don’t. Here the writer weighs her story on the scales, looking for wholeness in the way all of the parts fit together, assuring that the story is balanced, and that it draws the reader into its heart, and evokes response.  There is no punishment or damnation this analytical weighing of the story and its parts.  It is time once again to use the sword of discernment that we first took up in the Lovers card, only at a higher level.

12. The state associated with the Hanged Man or Suspended Man is Silence. All previous ways of thinking are suspended in this quietness as we pause and leave judgement behind.  In this suspension of judgement and everything the writer thought about the book before, there is clarity.  Clarity of the deeper themes, purposes and connections that lift the writer up out of the words on the pages in order to see, feel, and know the soul of the book.

13. The real meaning of Transition (Death) is change, motion and transformation. The end of one cycle is the beginning of another.  The revelations, new connections and ideas that were revealed in the suspended state lead the writer to further transformation of the book.  It might mean that the writer rearranges major parts of the novel, or even starts over but is ultimately able to bring their story to completion.  With a completed first draft in hand, the writer has indeed accomplished much, which has brought him/her to bare bones of themselves, poured out into the chapters.

14. Metal is tempered with fire and water, to make it stronger. Here, testing and trials prove the worth of the writers’ words and insights bring further refinements.  There are many ways to test the and temper the book; beta readers, critique groups and the necessary and helpful editor.

15. The Deceiver (Devil) is a form of self-doubt, and the inner voices which bedevil the writer with half-truths, deceptions and lies. The same inner demons and illusions were faced earlier, but they return as the writer begins to receive feedback from editors and readers.  If the writer turns their attention and locus outward, instead of following their own inner compass they will find themselves lost and unable to move forward.  The figures in the card have chains around their necks, but when they choose to, they can simply lift them off and walk away from their self-imposed bondage.

16. The flash of lightening that strikes the Tower comes from the Hermits Lantern, bringing inspiration that topple old ideas and concepts. The toppled figures are also the inner demons of the previous card, which are vanquished by the flash of truth and dispelling of illusion. The card is associated with Awakening and exciting intelligence.  The writer experiences the excitement of discovering a hidden theme, or a new way of expressing an idea, the discovery of a vein to mine in the book that was previously hidden, and heady freedom from the chains of the past.

17. The Star is linked with Meditation and Revelation. At this point, after many iterations, the writer is working on a final draft of their book.  The book is part of the writer’s consciousness and both the conscious and subconscious are working on it day and night.  Even when the writer is not writing, the work continues to percolate, and in the rest, the in-between times, even in sleep, gifts of insight are given.

18. The Moon represents Organization. Organization has been at play all along as the story unfolded, but now the final changes to the book are made. The Moon also represents rhythm and cycles, and the ups and downs that are always at play in the writing process.   The final version of the book is nearly complete.

19. The Sun shines it light upon the writer here. The intelligence associated with the Sun is Collective intelligence, which mean to bring together, to combine to unify and synthesize. It brings all the lessons of all the cards together in this final form. The writer experiences joy and satisfaction as the book is brought to conclusion.  There should be dancing.

20. Judgement implies completion, termination. Here the final edits are made in preparation for publication and all is made ready for the books release into the world.

21. Publication! At last the book enters the World as a published book!  The letter of this card means signature, and the story and its unique signature takes its place among all of the stories that have been told, to enter the mind and hearts of mankind.  There may be tours and promotions and blogs, but eventually the journey begins again as the writer sets pen to the next volume.

 

For those interested in delving into the deeper meanings of the Tarot, you may be interested in my ongoing virtual classes on the topic.  Find out more here:

This website is also a great resource for exploring more about the Tarot.

 

When Your Novels Sucks And You Stick it in a Drawer

By Lisa Alber

I happened to see this question posted on Facebook recently:

For those of you who have novel manuscripts that you put away because they weren’t working (i.e. they sucked), what were the problems that you noticed in those drafts?

Normally, I don’t go in for pseudo-survey conversational gambits like this. My interest that day might have had something to do with the drawer novel that I periodically pull out and then shove back in the drawer. It might also have had something to do with my work-in-progress, which almost landed in the same drawer a dozen times last year.

Interestingly, most of the responses fell into the following categories:

• Not enough plot: Lack of forward momentum. Episodic scenes with protagonists on the road to nowhere. (Thank you, Talking Heads.) Conflict and goals and obstacles and stakes apparently sidelined.
• Passive protagonist (often linked to plotlessness): Characters with not enough to do. Too much rumination and thinking, not enough movement. Reactive rather than proactive.
• Too much plot: Bigger plot than you know what to do with. Situation so complex you can’t write your way out of it. Too many subplots.
• You don’t know but it’s off: No matter what you do, it doesn’t feel right. (This one’s a toughy.)

The responses got me thinking about my drawer novel and my novel in progress.

My drawer novel is a case of too much plot and my inability to let some of it go. I know! I drive myself nuts sometimes. I’ve noodled every which way with the parallel plot line (I love a good parallel plot line), but it’s too much. The entire thing’s gotta be re-jiggered into one storyline … Next time. Or maybe never. Maybe that was my practice novel … (but I can’t quite let it go!)

My work-in-progress also contains a parallel plot line — heh — but I’m more skilled than I was when I wrote the drawer novel. Nevertheless, something was off.

Head. Wall. Ouch. Repeat.

I was suffering from a case of I-don’t-know-but-it’s-off. My solution was to think bigger picture: voice and perspective. I engaged in a thought experiment in which I imagined the story from some other character’s point of view, and imagined it told in first person instead of third (or vice versa). In my case, this was enough to rock my world and a-ha myself out of my stuckness.

Whew! Massive rewrite, to be sure, however, at long last I’m back to having fun with the story. Which, it seems to me, is the ultimate barometer. If, no matter what you do, you keep not having fun with a novel, let it go.

The last pattern I noticed in the Facebook responses was that the bullish attitudes about manuscript problems tended to come from the more experienced writers; these were problems they’d yet to solve, that was all. Most stories are salvageable, but it may take a few (or more, probably more) years of craft experience to learn the art of the salvage.

Oh, and don’t forget your friendly neighborhood beta readers and brainstorming partners. They save me all the time.