Questions for Leigh

[mn_girl_in_hea…]

I really hate to be so bete (dumb), but I can't find anything that addresses questions about the class.

I am lost and feeling clueless. I sure must have missed something along the way. I have no idea what I am suppose to be doing for myself, when I'm suppose to do it, or when to critique other people's exercises, and the timelines thereof. Would it be possible to label the folders Whatever Whatever, Exercise 1: 4 Jan 07 - 11 Jan 07, Whatever Whatever, Exercise 2: 12 Jan 07 - 21 Jan 07? That way, I'd be able to find myself and the rest of you. I surely do want to participate in this learning experience and be a help to other classmates. That can only occur if I am up to speed on procedure and not clueless.

I did get my book last night, but have yet to take it out of the bag. Good thing it is the weekend.

Please help.

Thanks ever so much.

[BookClubEditor]

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mn_girl_in_heart_of_dixie wrote:
I really hate to be so bete (dumb), but I can't find anything that addresses questions about the class.

I am lost and feeling clueless. I sure must have missed something along the way. I have no idea what I am suppose to be doing for myself, when I'm suppose to do it, or when to critique other people's exercises, and the timelines thereof. Would it be possible to label the folders Whatever Whatever, Exercise 1: 4 Jan 07 - 11 Jan 07, Whatever Whatever, Exercise 2: 12 Jan 07 - 21 Jan 07? That way, I'd be able to find myself and the rest of you. I surely do want to participate in this learning experience and be a help to other classmates. That can only occur if I am up to speed on procedure and not clueless.

I did get my book last night, but have yet to take it out of the bag. Good thing it is the weekend.

Please help.

Thanks ever so much.

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Hi there,

If you check out the "START HERE -- How this Book Club Works" thread, you'll see the order of the topics for this this conversation. Since we're going through them on a schedule, you'll notice that we've been focusing on "What Is Romance?" and will continue to do so through Jan. 21 (Also see the message at the top of the main page for this book club: "Your moderator, Leigh Michaels, will focus on "What Is Romance?" through January 21. Click here for upcoming topics."). So, starting Jan. 22, the group will move on to "Heroines and Their Heroes."

Basically, feel free to comment on other people's writing exercises, and reply to the discussion questions at any point. And for any topic, please share your writing with the group too! It's a very welcoming group of people in here!

Also, don't forget that you can work through all of the topics at your own pace. And it's certainly okay to go back and discuss any ideas in the "What Is Romance?" topic, even though by next week Leigh will be focusing on the next topic. I'm sure you won't be the only one in there...

Hope you enjoy Leigh's book!

Jessica
Book Club Editor

Message Edited by BookClubEditor on 01-19-2007 05:10 PM

[ChristineM]

I did the conflict exercise first too, that because it was the first one up and being who I am I forged ahead. I have to say I was a bit flummoxed when all the threads appeared on the board on the same evening. I felt like I'd somehow missed several weeks of class and had to catch up. And then, like Lynne, I felt like I was taking over the board. I'm between jobs right now so I have a lot of time on my hands and I was checking the board three or four times a day. (Even more pathetic, that's a conservative estimate.)And like Dixie MN, I'm often confused by what exercise we're doing when and, I know Leigh has said that it doesn't matter, but when you're insecure, structure is important.

Now I believe, Dixie MN, that in one of those threads right at the top there is a list of topics in the order we're supposed to cover them in, but there's no dates. I think that's so we can be flexible. But if you can find the list it'll give you a place to start. (It might be in How This Book Club Works, but I'm not sure.)

And Bonnie, I think you're absolutely right about people being afraid to post. It's a very scary thing to put your writing in public, but if you want to do this, it's something you have to get used to. I think we have a track record of nice critiques. Come on in, the water's fine!

I think to keep the conversation going we all just need to focus on the posts that relate to whatever it says is the current topic unless the spirit moves you to something else. I guess I'll go back to commenting a lot at least for the next month, then I'll be traveling and jet lag adjusting and training for about 2 weeks.

I'm currently having somewhat of a crisis with my story. My characters all seem to have forgotten their motivation and I wondered if anyone would mind if I started a thread for suggestions? In the meantime I can acutally post the secondary characters exercise. And I'm really looking forward to the suspense threads because I've learned that I really, really suck at it.

(And I have a queue of questions developing for Leigh.)

I'll stop now. Too much time on my hands and not enough to do.

[LeighMichaels]

Hi, Jeanette Isabella --

I'm so glad Jessica found your question and answered it. We're all just getting used to a new format, so it may take everyone some time to feel really comfortable with it.

As far as what to do when in the class -- though we do have a structure, I expect we'll be all over the board. As new people come in, they may want to start with the earliest threads, or jump in wherever we are. The beauty is that the early stuff we post will still be there, so people can always go back and do a step they've skipped, or do it again. (For instance, sometimes as a story develops we can go back and do the character worksheets over again and learn a lot more.)

I'm planning to read the new posts on the board every day, no matter where they're posted. So except for the odd day that I don't get a chance to check in, I'll be moving all around the board -- and that means you can too.

Starting on Monday, we'll be working with heroines and their heroes, and for about 10 days to two weeks, we'll focus on characters. So you might start thinking about a woman you'd like to write about, and start asking yourself questions about her, to get ready for that.

Happy writing,
Leigh

[realta]

Hi, Jessica.

Is there any way to auto-flag replies to messages we've posted? Or do we just have to check back in on our old posts to see if anyone's commented on them?

Many thanks--
Realta

[Vicky]

Thank-you. I understand the system better after all this discussion. I fell behind in the online conversation from day one due to illness and only now caught up this weekend.

I was confused about how the exercises for the first session came about. I thought I missed something along the way even though I read the text prior to the class. Now I hear from some of the others that same bewilderment.

I'm working on characterization exercises for next session and am looking forward to your instruction and class critiques. In my university creative writing course I got used to a group responding with sometimes embarassing and unpleasant remarks. I'm happy to say I feel the environment here is very friendly and helpful which makes a big difference to me.

Even though I always wanted to become a professional author, I feel a little like I'm starting the writing process from scratch with some prior knowledge occasionally springing into play.

Vicky

[ziki]

Hi Leigh,
I am still here, reading for the moment...working through your book.

Speeding up the pace doesn't help me. On contrary. The whole idea was to have more time. Perhaps even read some romance books along with the discussion. But why the discussion doesn't happen I do not know. I find some imbalance here, some posters dive into their 'private' problems and not many work along with your book. It creates some weird imbalance that I do not find engaging.

What else to do, you ask. I am not sure. To offer some feed back: I am not going to post in the same way as I used to on BNU because these boards are open to the public without registration. Second, I experience this problem everywhere since the format changed: great books but not enough people to discuss them. I have no idea why that is.

Also, posting the writing exercises as we used to do doesn't quite work here for me, it makes the board too cumbersome to handle.

ziki
I hope we figure it out

Message Edited by ziki on 01-21-200711:31 AM

[ChristineM]

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ziki wrote:

Also, posting the writing exercises as we used to do doesn't quite work here for me, it makes the board too cumbersome to handle.

ziki
I hope we figure it out

Message Edited by ziki on 01-21-200711:31 AM

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But if you don't post your exercizes, how can we help you?

[ziki]

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ChristineM wrote:

But if you don't post your exercizes, how can we help you?

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Hi Christine,
that was not my point. If there's a need to post some exercise, I will do it of course.
So far it has been a bit chaotic here IMHO so I am keeping a low profile. I hope the board will calm down and find its pace/form soon. I bet we all might experience the situation here very differently.

ziki

[dixielandgrl]

I don't know that I think the board is all that chaotic. There are four exercises to be done, and they are clearly marked and pretty much at everyone's pace. The responses to my assignments have been awesome and helped me put direction to something that I have wanted to do and just haven't.

As for our "private" problems, I didn't really understand that comment. Once you post your work, the others critique THAT work. I suppose that is "private", but isn't it the point? Just thought I must have misunderstood your point there. There may have been sidebar or two of discussions on Liam Neeson's suitability as Mr. Rochester and Ethan Frome, but, on the whole, the boards look on topic to me.

[dixielandgrl]

Quick thought. We were discussing the suitability and unsuitability of jobs for main characters. Reading the section on characters again got me wondering about anti-heroes. The anti-hero occasionally makes an appearence in the romance genre. Is there such a thing as the anti-heroine? Does romance leave any room for faults in a female lead? You know what I mean hopefully. Of course, we can write whoever we want for a heroine, but it comes down to whether your readers will accept her or not.

I can only think of one anti-heroine, and I found her in a book better classified as erotica. Anybody have any thoughts?

[ChristineM]

This is when it sucks to have all my books in storage.

The only anti-heroine I can think of from a romance novel was in Lady of Conquest by Teresa Mederios. She was raised with a vendetta and when she went to carry it out, she fell in love with the subject of her vendetta. Other than that, I don't recall any from romance novels, especially not catagory romances. I thought the Bombshell line had a really good chance of going there, but I didn't see it happen. However, as a reader, every time I picked up a Bombshell it just didn't track for me.

As a writer, I think the idea of an anti-heroine is divine and I've got a couple of characters waiting in the wings who would be fun. At least for me.

As a reader, I don't think that's what I want from a romance. I guess I'm eternally trapped in the Princess Leia/Han Solo dynamic. She's trying to save the universe and he's out for himself.

Interesting topic to consider. I'll have to ask some friends where they stand because I know plenty of people who won't touch a romance because the heroines are always a little too nice.

[LeighMichaels]

Wow, interesting question, dixielandgirl. Christine, thanks for jumping in with an example -- anyone else have anti-heroines to hold up to view? How about Scarlett O'Hara?

I think the anti-heroine is a much less likely character in romance than the anti-hero for two reasons. (1) we want to be friends with the heroine, and that's tougher if she's got the hard edges of an anti-heroine. (2) we do love to redeem the bad boy, but we're more likely to think of a bad girl as a bitch.

That's particularly true of category romance. When we move across the line into single title, lots of things change, and the heroine can be much different from the good girl we tend to want in category.

Like most things, motivation is a key point -- why is she that way? In Christine's example of the heroine being raised to a vendetta, we can understand why she'd be that way; she was trained to it. We understand a lot of Scarlett's behavior because of the cruel conditions of the war (we don't have to like it in order to understand it, of course.) It's easier to be sympathetic to someone who's intending to get revenge on the people who murdered her parents than if she's just vandalizing things for fun. In that case, we're actually more sympathetic to the serious and criminal actions than we are to the lesser ones.

Also, what the character did in the past is less crucial to our sympathy than what he/she does now. Again, speaking to the heroine Christine brought up, she may set out to get vengeance but she doesn't actually carry through -- her heroic tendencies win out, and that makes us like her more.

So if we're wanting to create an anti-heroine, I think it's important to give her good reason for her attitude, give her an opportunity to reconsider and take the high road (and a really good reason if she doesn't), and keep the reader sympathetic to the character no matter how we have to go about doing it.

This is off the top of my head.... Anybody else with ideas to share?

Happy writing,
Leigh

[dixielandgrl]

I may have to find that book. It seems that I really enjoy complexity. I used to devour regency, but now I feel like I read them all, if that makes sense. The formula is old for me.

For instance, Stephanie Plum is more flawed than any character I can think of in my reading, but I really like her. She's surrounded by hookers, hitmen and questionable law enforcement officials and perverts. Even some of the pervs come out as friendly, if not friends. The secondary characters are all unlikeable and likeably human at the same time.

I think it's why paranormals are drawing me in slowly, heroic evil-doers. Well, that, and David Boreanaz is just HOT!

[Brandy]

Leigh and everyone,

I'm not sure if she's an anti-heroine but I thought of Meggie Cleary in The Thorn Birds. She's trying to get the hero, Ralph, to renounce his faith to be with her.She succeeds in getting him to fall from grace but he doesn't chose her in the end.
I just see her as really naive.
What do you guys think? Am I way off here? I love the book and the movie. I mean I can't get enough.

Brandy

[lavenderlass]

That would be a really useful thing to know.
Lynne

[grain]

Hi Leigh,
I was wondering if there are many romance books written about ancient Roman times. I have been considering a romance novel about ancient Rome. I haven't noticed a lot of romance novels in this area...Is there a reason for this? And what would you say is the most popular area. (i.e. western, regency, contemporary etc.) Do you think a novel during ancient Roman times would work? I really enjoy Roman times especially during Cesaer's time. In the past I have taken all the romance courses from the Old University at Barnes and Noble and I enjoyed all of them...Thanks

[dixielandgrl]

As far as Rome goes, the HBO series is pretty close to the mark historically. I don't think it was a particularly romantic age. Men were gone for years at a time, invading this country or that. Marriages were barely monogomous for reasons of practicality. Sex was viewed differently then too.

It might take a lot of poetic license to make love thrive in Caesar's Rome.

[Brandy]

Grain,

An author you might want to read is Colleen McCullough. She has a trilogy on Roman Empire. The books are called: The First Man in Rome
The Grass Crown
Fortune's Favorites

I read the first one and the last one but I couldn't find the last one in the used bookstore that I go to. I guess I'll look some more and read them again. Word of warning before you read them, they are longgggggggg!!!! Very good and worth it though. She is a great author despite my anti-heroism comment about Meggie Cleary.

Brandy

[LeighMichaels]

Until just recently historical romance has been defined pretty tightly, and the time period has been from 1066 (Norman invasion of England) to 1900, with just a few exceptions like Dorothy Garlock's World War 2 stories.

Recently, however, the time period has been expanded in both directions, and romancepublishers are more open to other periods and places.

Mills & Boon/Harlequin recently brought out its first Ancient Rome romance, in the Harlequin Historicals line. It's called Gladiator's Honor, by Michelle Styles. I'm going to try doing a link here (wish me luck!) but if it doesn't work, just go to the bn homepage and search the title -- it pops up as the first book on the list.

GLADIATOR'S HONOR

Michelle has since written at least one more Ancient Rome story but I'm not sure where it is in the publishing process.

The key to writing in any historical period is to make the reader feel like she's there, without drowning her in detail. So the author really has to know her stuff -- but not so well that she gets caught up in the facts and forgets to help the reader out with the basic knowledge.

Overall, contemporary sells more copies than historical -- historical takes big swings in popularity. But historial readers are very loyal!

Happy writing,
Leigh
(now to see if that link will work...)