Boarders Writing A Novel: Volume 14 A Memory of Civility

[Andrew Gilfellon]

Got a question about agency and the whole pro-re-active thing. I'm trying to figure out what gives the female character more agency.

Being sent to marry king of different country, but is actually sent to kill him by a group who say they'll find her missing sister. Falls in love with honour guard and then kills the King anyway and ends up as Queen. I don't see much agency there, do you?

Woman's house burns down, her family is killed and she goes on the run, decides to find long lost sister while being hunted by people. Still kind of re active, as she only decides to look for sister when she's no other choice, one of those hunters finds her and the two get caught up with a bunch of mercenaries travelling to an abandoned island, before escaping from them.

Woman travels to a military group and asks for help in finding her sister from specialist searchers and an old friend. Ends up finding the group who kidnapped her sister, but does not find sister.

This last one I think has more agency for the female character. Opinions?

 

[SpaceChampion]

I guess you have to ask first: what is agency?

To me it's a person with a plan, likely with steps and milestones or time limits, conducted under a process-influencing attitude, such as ruthlessness vs kindness.  (Contrasting your character's attitude with his/her opposite's attitude is usually a good thing.)

Also there is an aspect of identity or ego to it.  A person with agency has the self-esteem to make rational, intentional choices despite all the visible and invisible forms of power arrayed against them, accepting the consequences.

 

[C.T. Phipps]

That's a weird definition of agency. Agency is, simply put, the woman being the one making the decisions. To use an example, Sleeping Beauty doesn't have any agency because she's constantly getting pin-balled by events which happen around her. She's a reactive character rather than a proactive character. Ironically, Sleeping Beauty the movie is a feminist movie because it's full of women with agency like Maleficent and the Three Witches.

To use a more contemporary ASOF&I example: Sansa is constantly being complained of because she's being used as a football between Joffrey, Tyrion, and Littlefinger. Arya, however, is always trying to move forward with her own vengeance scheme. Asha Greyjoy is her daddy's girl but very much her own woman. Catelyn Stark is hated by many fans because she's a product of Westeros' patriarchal culture even though she actually does do much to seize her own agency. Cersei despite being the Evil Queen has much agency because she's constantly fighting tooth and nail for it.

So none of those examples is a woman without agency.

[C.T. Phipps]

Submitted Lucifer's Star to the Tor novella program. Thanks for that, guys.

[Aniel]

I was looking at purchasing another Paperblanks journal to write in when I stumbled over this quote on their blog:

Quote

“The best time to start promoting your book is three years before it comes out. Three years to build a reputation, build a permission asset, build a blog, build a following, build credibility and build the connections you’ll need later.” - Seth Godin on Self-Promotion

So I decided to make a blog about/for my writing. It's a tumblr, because I am already familiar with it and wordpress looked harder... Anyway, I'll be posting stuff on there about writing and my experiences and my book but the question is: how much is wise to reveal online about your writing WIP?

I have a map for my world which I'm rather proud of as I drew it digitally (after scanning my original drawing) which I would like to share. I also have (mediocre) concept art of my characters, and an alphabet I've created myself. But I have no idea how much I can reveal about the plot and setting and whatever. I do not currently plan on posting text from the book, except for maybe, and it's a big maybe, if I can produce art that depicts scenes from it (so the text would be whatever lines inspired it).

I'm asking for your opinions on the bolded question, because previously my attitude to this has essentially been this picture...

[C.T. Phipps]

Interesting, that fits with my pattern. I had to spend three years writing and trying to get published while also getting Twitter followers, websites up, and networking.

One benefit of this, though, was I had other works to release after the books I got out were adopted.

[C.T. Phipps]

40 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

How did you go about networking?

I joined a lot of author groups to not put too fine a point on them. Also, met with the authors at the cons I attended. Some of them worked out, some of them didn't. One thing I really appreciated was that when I befriended most of the authors at Permuted Press (before the whole kerfluffe that led to most of the authors leaving it), quite a few maintained a friendly relationship and that led me to opportunities with other publishers.

Basically, I got to pitch a lot of publishers because I knew someone who knew someone. It helped me get to talk to a lot of people who might not normally talk to me.

I think the fact I reviewed a lot of these authors books and discussed their work with them was the best icebreaker I could make. Authors doing reviews of other authors work and discussing it with them, interviews, and so on is a good way to develop friends too.

[JGP]

Double

 

[JGP]

7 hours ago, Aniel said:

how much is wise to reveal online about your writing WIP?

I have a map for my world which I'm rather proud of as I drew it digitally (after scanning my original drawing) which I would like to share. I also have (mediocre) concept art of my characters, and an alphabet I've created myself. But I have no idea how much I can reveal about the plot and setting and whatever. I do not currently plan on posting text from the book, except for maybe, and it's a big maybe, if I can produce art that depicts scenes from it (so the text would be whatever lines inspired it).

I'm asking for your opinions on the bolded question, because previously my attitude to this has essentially been this picture...

 

Mmn… it’s a good question, and damned if I haven’t asked myself the same thing a dozen times or more.

While it’s a legitimate worry, I’m not sure how prevalent it is. Like, I can’t imagine that there are individuals out there just trawling the internet for material to steal. Yet, exposure is exposure, and if something resonates for whatever reason the possibility that it could be picked up is present.

On the flipside, posting snippets online does put your stamp on it. I think. But the larger concern, speaking for myself, isn’t necessarily plagiarism but idea theft. And besides being extremely difficult to prove there’s really no way to ward against it beyond keeping your intellectual property offline completely.

 

[C.T. Phipps]

On a topic unrelated to my views, I should note that James Bond is now in the public domain in Canada. http://copyright.nova.edu/james-bond-public-domain/

[SpaceChampion]

8 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

On a topic unrelated to my views, I should note that James Bond is now in the public domain in Canada. http://copyright.nova.edu/james-bond-public-domain/

Yep.  A bunch of genre writers have already published an anthology put out by ChiZine Publications, edited by Madeline Ashby and David Nickle, called Licensed Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond.

 

[Aniel]

19 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

 

Mmn… it’s a good question, and damned if I haven’t asked myself the same thing a dozen times or more.

While it’s a legitimate worry, I’m not sure how prevalent it is. Like, I can’t imagine that there are individuals out there just trawling the internet for material to steal. Yet, exposure is exposure, and if something resonates for whatever reason the possibility that it could be picked up is present.

On the flipside, posting snippets online does put your stamp on it. I think. But the larger concern, speaking for myself, isn’t necessarily plagiarism but idea theft. And besides being extremely difficult to prove there’s really no way to ward against it beyond keeping your intellectual property offline completely.

 

I've been looking at tumblr's user guidelines, they have a section specifically for copyright and you can contact the site to have content someone else has taken from you removed, and also a way to report misattribution or nonattribution in the case that something has been reposted rather than reblogged (plus, you can just ask nicely yourself...). So on tumblr itself there's some protection from that. The rest of the internet.. Well, I at least have the originals of everything physically...

Regarding idea theft, that is what I'm most worried about. Luckily (and sadly...), I can't say that the world is some marvelously unique creation since it, like a lot of other fantasy, is largely based on Earth. So yay? The map is essentially Europe, Asia, and Africa with some changes but still obviously Earth-like. I think I'm going to be very careful about posting large amounts of text on any lore and story though. Probably not very much at all. Maybe caption pictures with stuff like "Country X is conservative, as their fashion reflects."

9 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Another concern is that some publishers will not buy your work if it has appeared in any form online. This is more often an issue with short fiction than it is with novels, but still, it's something to consider.

I think I'm going to scratch that idea of posting scenes with the accompanying text. Scenes yes, text no...

By the way, does anyone know if say, an American publisher would accept something written in British English and vice versa? Not many publishers in Sweden seem to accept non-Swedish scripts, unfortunately. British English is the one taught in schools (so we're all spelling things colour, favour, jewellery, etc...). It won't be a problem going through everything and changing it if I have to, but it might be nice knowing before submitting anything.

[JGP]

13 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Another concern is that some publishers will not buy your work if it has appeared in any form online. This is more often an issue with short fiction than it is with novels, but still, it's something to consider.

I think [though could be wrong] that beyond each having different policies, potential publishers would be put off if you'd posted a piece in it's entirety online because having done so it would technically be a previously published work. Posting scene's, snippets, chapters whatever, these shouldn't matter so much-- but I'll defer to anyone who actually knows. 

edit:

And going back to idea theft for a moment, being complete, sold and published isn't comprehensive protection either. Copyright law being what it is, with enough minor changes one thing becomes something else-- even if on the surface, it seems obvious that ideas were cribbed.  

[Selysin]

Unless it's explicitly stated otherwise I think most will take whatever variant of English you happen to be using at the submissions stage and then convert it to their preferred version during editing. I wrote and submitted my MS in NZ English and that was fine but there were a lot of little things that had to be tweaked during edits. 

The publishers know that they're going to get things from all of the world during open submissions windows, UK English vs. US English is unlikely to be a deal breaker. 

[C.T. Phipps]

The audiobook of Esoterrorism, as narrated by Jeffrey Kafer, came out today. http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Esoterrorism-Audiobook/B01GUAMCDG/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1465590212&sr=1-1

This one was actually the result of audible paying me a flat fee for it (covering a license for the next four years) versus my getting a percentage of its sales so it's not quite as exciting as the audiobooks produced by my other publishers but I can't complain too much since the money was decent enough. Also, it certainly will help promote the book and its sequels.

I'm doing the same with Wraith Knight, my upcoming fantasy novel they want to produce.

[The Marquis de Leech]

13 hours ago, Aniel said:

By the way, does anyone know if say, an American publisher would accept something written in British English and vice versa? Not many publishers in Sweden seem to accept non-Swedish scripts, unfortunately. British English is the one taught in schools (so we're all spelling things colour, favour, jewellery, etc...). It won't be a problem going through everything and changing it if I have to, but it might be nice knowing before submitting anything.

I've never encountered any publisher or agent who specifies one or the other. I did encounter a magazine that wanted its short stories in American English only (my response was simply not to submit. While I know the American spellings of various words, there are likely others that I'm unaware of, so it's not worth the hassle).

[Ebenstone]

Quick, weird story to share.

Thursday was a #PitMad day on Twitter, meaning you can pitch your novel to agents and editors in a tweet. So I participated since I am now a free agent. Got two hits, which is pretty good. One of the hits was from an agent for an agency that I would LOVE to be part of their client list (lots of SFF names and lots of good deals in their portfolio). He's a relatively new agent, which means he's building his list. He also has the same exact name as the protagonist of my SEASONS OF DESTINY series. Karma? Who knows...I can hope.

[C.T. Phipps]

1 minute ago, Ebenstone said:

Quick, weird story to share.

Thursday was a #PitMad day on Twitter, meaning you can pitch your novel to agents and editors in a tweet. So I participated since I am now a free agent. Got two hits, which is pretty good. One of the hits was from an agent for an agency that I would LOVE to be part of their client list (lots of SFF names and lots of good deals in their portfolio). He's a relatively new agent, which means he's building his list. He also has the same exact name as the protagonist of my SEASONS OF DESTINY series. Karma? Who knows...I can hope.

I wish you the best of luck and blessings from the supernatural beings I believe in my friend.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Inspired Quill have read my sample and asked me to re-submit the full thing.

 

I'll give it one last lookover tonight and fire it off tomorrow.

 

I just hope I've made enough changes based on their feedback from last year's rejection...

[The Marquis de Leech]

3 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Inspired Quill have read my sample and asked me to re-submit the full thing.

I'll give it one last lookover tonight and fire it off tomorrow.

I just hope I've made enough changes based on their feedback from last year's rejection...

Fingers crossed for you. 

In Wise Phuul news, the proofreading phase has now been completed, so it's off for formatting, then reaching out to potential endorsers.