Month: September 2007

Ms. Feisty found this funny little clip today for your viewing enjoyment. :woot: Watch it. Mother fucker.

Today guest blogging on Naughty and Spice, we welcome author Cindy Kirk who writes for Harlequin, Silhouette and Avon! :wave:

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This week on a writer’s loop, a woman (we’ll call her Jane) mentioned how an unpublished author she’d recently started mentoring was giving her fits and she was thinking of cutting her loose but worried how she’d react. The woman had been so difficult Jane was considering if she should continue to mentor anyone. One thing I mentioned to Jane was the fact that many authors refuse to read unpublished material because they’re concerned about being accused of stealing an idea. Even if the charge was unfounded, damage to the mentor’s reputation could still be done.

This got me to thinking….can you really steal someone’s idea? I use to think you couldn’t, because even if each of us got a brief story idea, we’d all develop it differently. And even if we got a detailed outline, our “voice” would be different and the way we’d write the scene would vary.

On the other hand, I think of Janet Evanovitch and how she researched the market before she came up with the idea of quirky bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. What if during this research phase Janet participated in a brainstorming session (that is so popular among writers)…and what if she discussed her idea–maybe even took it a step further and outlined her vision for the book? What if another writer (who’d listened intently during the brainstorming session) saw the possibilities and proposed that same story before Janet had a chance to go forward with her own proposal? To me that would definitely be theft of an idea.

I’m not overly paranoid, but if I had a great idea for a story that I hadn’t yet proposed to my editor, I don’t think I’d participate in a brainstorming session or even mention the idea to anyone other than my two critique partners (who I trust implicitly).

What do you think? Can you really steal another writer’s story?

I’ve always loved Elmore Leonard. He writes clean and tight page-turners. This is an excerpt from the article he published in the New York Times in July, 2001, titled: WRITERS ON WRITING; Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle.

Elmore Leonard’s top tips for writers:

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said.”
5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

Have you seen any of these rules broken lately? I have. In my own writing, no less. See?

Prologue:
It was a bright, sunny day.

Ten Minute Later:
“Oh, my!” she hissed loudly. Was that thunder? Suddenly all hell was breaking loose! She flung her reddish blonde strawberry flaxen hair over her delicate pale shoulder that was slightly visible through her sheer blouse. “Like, I can’t believe some skanky whore stole my bumbershoot! I’m going to need it like for sure today!” she said naughtily and spicily.
Suddenly the shiny, slick, shiny, wet, smoth, slippery cement under the vulcanized rubber of her sports mobile was getting slippery. Life was a bitch when your red Ferrari with the creamy, smooth, leather seats was a convertible and you lived in the wet, humid, soggy city of a northwestern town on a really high mountain submerged in constant precipitation.

:badgirl:
At least I admit it. What about you?

(Click here for the rest of the New York Times article.)

On 9/26/04 at 9:26 a.m. I gave birth to my third and final child, Jack. It was quite the morning. Waking up at 4:30, feeling the contractions, watching Payton Place (such a trashy movie) until I knew it was time to go. Woke up husband and off we went. I got into that hospital at 7:30 and had him two hours later. Eager to come out, I guess. Here he is…

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