Week in Review (#7)

WEEK IN REVIEW

Time for another 'Week in Review' post....


Past Writing

I spent last week mostly taking time off from my novella WIP, Pink Knight, because I figured the distance from it would do me good. I think it did. By the end of the week, I began to reread and edit it, realizing that the book really doesn't have an existing audience. I suppose I didn't think much about that when I was writing it because it was so much fun, I just didn't want to kill my joy. 

But, it is what it is and it's just not like other books out there. I suppose most writers set out to write as original of novels as they can. Usually, originality is a good thing. But, people don't like what they don't recognize--it's just the way our brains are wired. I'm all for getting away from using tired old tropes, but popular tropes are popular for a reason. Because people recognize them and can make sense of them. 

But, still I want to publish this book because it was so fun to write. Why not? I'm so eager to write the next novella in the series, I've already started the first chapter. 

It's safer to write what you know will sell, but I want to write what's fun for me. I can't see myself just writing something like YA paranormal romance when I usually can barely shove that down my own throat. I guess this means I'll fail, but I'll be having fun while I go down on my sinking ship....*waves*

Past Reading

I finished reading Velveteen by Daniel Marks and it really was a bit disappointing. A lot of books do this to me nowadays. But, this one was too long, too wordy, and too lost for me to enjoy it very much. Whatever. 

After that, I read a 50-page novelette called Guardian by Rachel Morgan, which is the first of a series of prequel novelettes to a novel called The Faerie Guardian. This little story was so good and funny! I loved the writing and the pacing. It was perfect for a quick, absorbing, exhilarating YA read. By the way, Guardian is free in both the Kindle and Nook stores!

Once finished with that, I moved onto The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia and oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh...my gosh! This book is BEAUTIFUL and GORGEOUS! Wow. I'm only just starting it, but it's blowing me away with its incredible world building and the luscious prose that's making me feel like mine is a fat plumber in a tutu trying to dance around in a ballet. It's so freaking stunning.

From the POV of a human-like robot woman, it's about what it's like to be a freaking robot. How brilliant is that? One blurb said it's about "what it means to not be human." The automatons are the minorities in their society and get treated like dirt, so, Mattie, the protagonist, is a liberated automaton, but is still ignored and mistreated by everyone except her creator, a man named Loharri. Read this if you want to read genuine steampunk that means something. Like, what do all the cogs and gears mean? What is their significance to the story and its theme? You'll get that and more in this book.

Beyond that, I won three book giveaways last week, which is so bizarre, but awesome. One of them was even a Goodreads giveway, which I hardly ever win. The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett, which comes highly recommended by Kevin Hearne, author of the Iron Druid Chronicles. I look forward to reading that one.

This Week

I will continue to edit and revise Pink Knight, likely adding to its length a bit. I want to add so many little things to it, so it'll be a bit of a longer novella, which is good. It needs more wiggle room and more fleshing out.

Reading-wise, I'm going to keep on reading the magic that is The Alchemy of Stone--slowly savoring the delicious read about Mattie and her life as a robot whose maker refuses to let her have the key to her own clockwork heart because he's afraid she'll stop going over to his house to visit him. Parents....   


Sorry for the extra long post, but I'm finally finished now. Doing any editing on your WIP, lately? Discovered any amazing reads?
  

Review: The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman

The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression
by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi

Genre: Nonfiction/Fiction Writing Reference

Publication Date: May 9, 2012

Source: Amazon Kindle store

| Amazon | | Barnes &Noble |

One of the biggest problem areas for writers is conveying a character's emotions to the reader in a unique, compelling way. This book comes to the rescue by exploring seventy-five emotions and listing the possible body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for each.

Written in an easy-to-navigate list format, readers can draw inspiration from character cues that range in intensity to match any emotional moment, including situations where a character is trying to hide their feelings from others. The Emotion Thesaurus also tackles common emotion-related writing problems and provides methods to overcome them.

This writing tool encourages writers to show, not tell emotion and is a creative brainstorming resource for any fiction project. 

 

My Review

When I first learned about The Emotion Thesaurus I was intrigued. Was this like a regular thesaurus, but for emotions? Would I be able to look up any type of human emotion and find varying ways to portray it through prose that would help me avoid being redundant and stale? The answer to these questions is a definite YES.

What a brilliant idea it was to create this amazing resource for fiction writers! The authors of this title are the owners of the popular writing craft blog, The Bookshelf Muse. They've been helping authors with their writing craft for a good while now, and this book was naturally created through their blog posts first, then compiled for ease of use in book reference format.

Here is why The Emotion Thesaurus is a must-have reference if you write any kind of prose in which you need to convey emotion accurately and compellingly:

Say you're writing a scene in your novel in which your main character is experiencing a crisis moment. She has just discovered another trusted character has been lying to her through his fat teeth. You want to get into your main character's head-space and illustrate just how deeply she is hurt by this other character's betrayal.

You flip open either your paperback or ebook version of The Emotion Thesaurus right to the Table of Contents page. Panning down the ToC, you spot the word “Hurt” and turn to its corresponding page. You read a definition of the word, followed by a long list of outward, physical signals that are apparent when a person has been hurt emotionally, like:

          Physical Signals

          Eyes widening, yet brows are furrowed

          Swallowing hard

          Lowering the head, the neck appearing to shrink

You also find a long list of internal sensations one experiences when hurt, like:

         Internal Sensations

         Dizziness

         Stomach hardening, nausea

         A painful tightness in one's throat

Beyond all this, you also see sub-lists of “Mental Responses,” “Cues of Long-Term Hurt,” “Cues of Suppressed Hurt” and an additional writer's tip for each emotion chapter. These authors thought of everything you can do, think, feel, react and stubbornly hang-on to for every major emotion we humans experience.

Back to your novel—you realize now that you can rewrite this weak sentence, “She was so hurt by Barry's betrayal and wanted to throw up,” to a more powerful, “Her head began to spin. She swallowed down hard on the painful realization. He'd been lying to her? She gagged on the knot in her throat, clenching her stomach to keep its contents from rising.”

If you find your ability to convey emotion becoming stilted and repetitive, this book is the answer to your problem. I've been using it every day as I've been writing my current novella, and it has gotten me through those emotionally turbulent scenes better than I ever would have without it. Highly recommended.

My score: 5/5 stars.

On Critiquing Manuscripts & Top 3 Books Per Year

I think today's post is just going to be about what I've been doing lately, whether it's truly interesting, or not....

I've been critiquing my writing partner Lan Chan's manuscript (go find her blog over here) and just doing it in my own way, really. I thought if I'm going to take notes while I read each chapter, then why not write out those notes as coherent sentences and give them to her to read as part of my critique? Thus, I've been doing that, and it prevents me from forgetting largely what my notes mean after I'm done writing them. I think it's a good strategy. 

But, boy oh boy is critiquing HARD! Yeah, it is, isn't it? But, I'm so happy to do it because I also love being helpful and giving her input that will make a difference to her story. And, I have to admit that she really is a fabulous new author who writes like a pro already, so she's made my work a lot easier. Thank you for that, Lan!

Sometimes, I do weird things like research and statistics, just for fun. Can't get any nerdier than that, right? Well, lately I've been curious about the trends that have occurred in the book industry in recent years--namely the trend that has vaulted Young Adult literature over the head of everything else. 

I like to read YA literature and write it, although I read and write adult literature, as well. But, I thought it would be interesting to see which new YA sci-fi/fantasy series were the top 3 sellers in each of the past eight years. I can't even explain why I wanted to do this, but it just popped into my head and I went with it. What can I say?

Since there's no existing reliable way to research actual book sales statistics, I had to do my best to extrapolate from such free resources as Amazon.com and Goodreads.com. This is NOT a scientific nor perfectly accurate assessment, but it's as good as anyone else's not working high up in a big publishing house. From Amazon, I looked at current sales rank because past sales rank is not available, and from Goodreads I looked at the number of ratings each title received from members. These indicate books selling (Amazon) and books being read (Goodreads).

What were the results of my unscientificness? These are new series books and do not include sequel titles.



2012 (so far, but the year's not over yet!)

1. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (released yesterday!)
2. The Selection by Kiera Cass (have not read)
3. Cinder by Marissa Meyer (have not read)

2011

1. Divergent by Veronica Roth
2. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
3. Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (have not read)   

2010

1. Delirium by Lauren Oliver
2. Matched by Ally Condie
3. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

2009

1. Fallen by Lauren Kate
2. Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
3. The Maze Runner by James Dashner (have not read)

2008

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2. Graceling by Kristin Cashore (have not read)
3. Gone by Scott Westerfeld (have not read) 

2007 

1. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
2. Marked by P.C. Cast (have not read)
3. Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead (have not read) 

2006 

1. Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz (have not read)
2. Glass Houses by Rachel Caine (have not read)
3. Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (have not read) 

2005 

1. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (dropped)
2. The Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (have not read)
3. Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder (have not read)


I haven't gone back further than this yet, but I plan to. Although, before 2005, YA wasn't selling as well as Middle Grade due to the popularity of the Harry Potter series. But, once Twilight came out in late 2005, it rocked the book world and teen fiction became all the rage for the first time.

I'm really surprised by the Graceling series because I just didn't know it was so popular. It debuted the same year as The Hunger Games, but still did very well, not nearly as distant a second place finisher as I thought it would be. And, I'm shocked by Life As We Knew It doing so well the year it came out in 2006. I decided to buy it on my Kindle because it's only $3 right now! I had no idea it was all that great of a book. 

I intend to read all of these books, even though I've read several of them already, and I pre-ordered Shadow and Bone. I really wonder how that book will hold up during its first 6 months and which 3 books will end up holding those spots when this year comes to a close. 

Stuff like this is so exciting! And, it's a good idea for those of us who write in this genre/reading grade to read the books that impacted in the industry the most from year to year. We can learn so much about the craft and how to write marketable fiction just from these gems out there.