Oct 26 2010
Last week, Robin wrote a great piece on the topic of originality in fiction. There are pretty much no ideas that haven’t already been expressed but the one thing that distinguishes one work of fiction from another is voice. Yet, voice is something that is hard to define. It’s ephemeral. It is, from a definitional(…)
Oct 19 2010
Genre fiction rides a thin line between consistent recognizability and appealing freshness. Often referred to as "a narrative archetype," the form of genre fiction is often denigrated as "formulaic" and derivative (Pam Regis, A Natural History of The Romance Novel, 23). In truth, there has to be something fundamental and formalistic that binds a group(…)
Sep 28 2010
Note: I know this is a bit long, but it’s already a drastically shortened version of this argument. Consent at your own risk. When I first started reading Romance, I was stunned by the genre's apparent comfort with sexual force against female characters and uncomfortable with both the contention that it's pure fantasy and therefore(…)
Sep 7 2010
Publishers Weekly is one of the more democratic mainstream review publications and has been reviewing romance for quite some time. PW has decided to eliminate the mass market review section and replace it with dedicated genre sections. Romance will have its very own space edited by Rose Fox, a journalist who reads and appreciates romance.(…)
May 25 2010
I just had a debate with author Ann Somerville about book titles. I'd complained I found some of her book titles hard to memorise, such as Somatesthesia (book info at Samhain and a dictionary entry at Dictionary.com) and Interstitial (book info at Samhain and a dictionary entry at Merriam Webster). As I explained to her,(…)
Dec 29 2009
Obviously we have a new look and feel to Dear Author. The design work was completed by Maili and it is based off a premium theme from WooThemes. Just the Web did some additional coding work. We’ve developed a couple of informational pages: For Readers/For Authors. Those are both in the development stage. One of(…)
Dec 10 2009
Over at Smart Bitches I noticed that there is an ebook sale at eHarlequin today. Using the code CUTINHALF, you will receive 50% off any ebook in the eHarlequin library. I think that they have over 2,000 ebooks for sale. I don’t have a good list for you to buy but I can provide some(…)
Nov 11 2009
Generation Y women like social networking and sharing their thoughts on the products that they buy. This is, apparently, news. It is not something that ebook manufacturers have caught on yet, though. The current ebook reader enthusiast is a 47-year-old married man with a household income in excess of 6 figures. But! researchers believe that(…)
Nov 5 2009
Oct 13 2009
In reading reviews of Tessa Dare’s book, Goddess of the Hunt, and of Louisa Edwards‘, Can’t Stand the Heat, I noticed there were often comments about the female protagonists, or heroines, of the stories as not being very likeable. I know I struggled with Miranda, the heroine in Can’t Stand the Heat. I thought I(…)
Sep 26 2009
In today’s First Page, Laura Kinsale brought up a question in the comments regarding unfamiliar terms in a story. I have a question, as a writer, about one of the comments. This isn’t a loaded question, or any sort of commentary on this excerpt itself, it’s input for me. DS said I had to look(…)
Sep 23 2009
In non shocking news, while first day sales of the Kindle version of The Lost Symbol were strong, digital sales represents only about 5% of the 2 million copies sold so far which was in line with what I thought last week: Over time, obviously, the digital version cannot outsell the print version because of(…)
Aug 25 2009
see more Lolcats and funny pictures Janet: Reading through the comments on the Dear Author Golden Era poll, they seem to reflect the split in the voting between the 1990s and the 2000s. Those who chose the 1990s seem more like Historical Romance readers, while a number of those favoring the current decade have pointed(…)
Jun 4 2009
Feb 18 2009
I often hear about authors’ critique groups. Some authors hire beta readers. Some rely on random readers and some have a trusted circle. Ian McEwan falls into the latter group. His first readers are poet Craig Raine, historian Timothy Garton Ash and philosopher Galen Strawson. Ian McEwan, it turns out, has a triumvirate of friends(…)
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