Pitch Madness!!!

Check it out! I'm a slush zombie for Pitch Madness and will be diving into the slush to pick out the most tasty pitches. We zombies like brains so hopefully your entry is smart. If you don't know what Pitch Madness is, it's a contest to showcase the top pitches to some fantabulous agents. You can get more details here: http://brenleedrake.blogspot.com/2013/02/pitch-madness-details.html

Here's the Pitch Madness schedule:
March 1: Submission windows announced.

March 8: Introducing the slush readers

March 12: Introducing the blog hosts and their teams

March 13: Introducing the agents

March 15: Submission windows open

March 15-18: 1st round - slush readers

March 18-23: 2nd round - 60 winners chosen for the game

March 24: Rules of the Game

March 26-28: Pitch Madness Agent Games

March 28 @ noon: Agent bids released (all ties go to a sudden death round)

In Which We Discuss "The Culture That Cried Misogyny"

NON-WRITING-RANT BELOW

 

This post is gonna piss some people off. Which is why I never post these kinds of things. I’m a peacemaker, as a rule. But I’m also a little obsessive. So, when an issue comes up that’s been bugging me forever and always and pushes it over the edge, I can’t NOT say something about it.

This might seem like a blog post about Taylor Swift. And at first, it’s gonna be. But that’s not what’s really been making me insane. We’re gonna talk about this Taylor Swift-Amy Poehler-Tina Fey nonsense for a bit, and then get to the heart of the issue, which has nothing to do with them. (I also wanna preface this by saying I am NOT a T. Swift hater, or a hater of women. I love her music; I rock out to it, sometimes for days on end, to the dismay of my husband. I like the girl. So. Not bashing here. But…critiquing in a snarky way.) But first, the thing that set me off.

THE INCIDENT

So, basically, it went down like this. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler do a hilariously fab job hosting the Golden Globes. They do kind of a roast, wherein they make amusing little jabs at bunches of celebs there. Examples: “When it comes to torture, we trust the woman who was married to James Cameron for 5 years.” *Burn* “Anne Hathaway, in Les Miserables! Wow! We haven’t seen someone so alone and abandoned since you hosted The Oscars with James Franco.” *Franco Burn* “Quentin Tarantino is here, the star of all my sexual nightmares.” *Burn* You get the picture. Then came the infamous joke: “Taylor Swift, you stay away from Michael J. Fox’s son. You need some “me” time.”

All the other celebrities’ responses to the burns they received? Bahahahahaha, polite chuckles, riotous laughter, etc. Taylor Swift’s response? ~paraphrased. But not loosely. Look it up~I’m not some insecure, clingy, needy, desperate insane girlfriend. There’s a special place in Hell for women who don’t help other women.~ Yup, she wins this Zing battle. “Stay single.” “You guys are going to Hell.”

And whatev. Celebrities gonna celeb. I understand, all celebrities are crazy. What set me off was the response to this whole thing. Now everyone is all “Ermagersh why does everyone hate Taylor Swift? Why is everyone so SEXIST and MISOGYNIST?”

And I’m like:

1) No one is being “sexist” and slut shaming Taylor Swift.

Do we really think that people are always making fun of T. Swift just because she likes to play the field? No! We’re like “Get your date on, T! You have a good old time.” Taylor gets attention drawn to the fact that she’s dated every guy ever because SHE draws attention to it. Now, before you tune out, let me explain. Jennifer Aniston has dated a lot of guys. And nobody cares. Does anybody make fun of her for it? Nope. Why? Because she hasn’t made an entire freaking career out of bashing her exes. And not only does Taylor write bunches of music about her exes (which would be fine) she calls them out specifically in her songs. Dear John=John Mayer. Duh. When people weren’t sure who “Never Ever Getting Back Together” was about, she did a British accent so EVERYONE would know it was Harry Styles. Here’s the thing. When you date a bunch of guys, you don’t deserve to be identified by that or made fun of for it. BUT when you date a bunch of guys and make a career out of publicly shaming those guys specifically, you are asking to be made fun of for that. And it’s only fair, people. IT’S NOT SEXIST. Which brings me to the real point of this whole rant.

 

2) STOP declaring that everything is sexist and misogynist and that everything means that everyone hates women.

I hate sexism. I hate misogyny. It’s stupid and it sucks. But at this point, we throw around that word so often  that the word “sexist” now has about as much power as the word “popcorn.” For whatever reason, people have taken to declaring that all things are now misogynist. When a guy holds open the door for a girl? MISOGYNIST. I’ve heard a couple stories about women actually yelling at guys for holding open the door for them. ??? If a guy was holding open the door for you because he truly believed that you, as a woman, were too weak to do so herself, that would be sexist. But NEWSFLASH. Guys hold open the door for a girl because they want to be freaking nice. I, for one, happen to love that. When someone is considerate and respectful, it’s not freaking sexist; it’s a compliment! Someone makes fun of a girl for writing derogatory songs about all the guys she dates? SEXIST. Someone doesn’t support abortion? The only explanation as to why MUST be because they hate women. I drank orange juice this morning. Probably it’s because I hate women…Not everyone hates women. There are other motivations for doing things.

 

3) Last sexist thing: Women are always objectified, and that’s sexist! Frick guys, why do any of us watch The Vampire Diaries if not to objectify the guys on that show? Look.



 

When you see those pics, are you thinking “Dannnnng, he must have nice personality!” No. You’re thinking things I can’t post on this blog, just like I am. Every David Beckham commercial=Take your shirt off, David! Are women objectified on TV? Yup. Are men? Yup. Equal Opportunity Objectifiers. I objectify dudes. And frankly, unless someone is being gross or *only* thinks of me as a physical object, I really don’t care if someone thinks I’m hot and doesn’t immediately think of my winning personality. Whatever. I do the same thing to Hot Guy #2 walking down the street.

 

The point of all this: When you use “sexist” and “misogynist” to describe everything, the words lose their power. And they are important words. But if their meaning is gone, then important things that REALLY ARE misogynist, like women being unable to vote in Iran, or when people say women should not be allowed to work, or when men casually refer to women as "my b****es, go unnoticed, and piled into the “Guys holding open doors is sexist” pile. Let’s stop assuming everyone is sexist and hates women, and get back to the stuff that really matters.

 

END RANT. Hope I didn’t piss too many people off.

~On Writing Villains: Part Two~

So, a little while back, I did a blog post on villains.(Here's the link the Part One And I promised a Part 2 because, well, I just couldn’t finish the whole thing in one non-tome-length blog post. So, here ‘tis. Writing Villains: Part Two. We last left off at villain sub-types…

 

C. The Villain Everyone Wants to Hang Out With, Cause They’re Charming or Hilarious

So, calling Snape a “villain” is kind of innacurate, and I bristle at anyone who calls him such, because I’ve had a love for Snape ever since book 1. Even when everyone hated him, I maintained my undying love for the man. But, no matter your Snapey persuasion, he was most definitely an antagonist to Harry. The thing about Snape is, he’s a jerkface. But he’s charming. And most of all, he’s hilarious. I’d say Scar falls into this category. The intellectual, witty villains who you’d kind of like to hang out with for an hour just to see what horribly hilarious things they’d say to. And then, you could go home and cry, but it would be worth your tears. Yeah, this is them. (My personal favorite type of villain, by the way.)

 

D. The Villain who’s such a Bad-A That You Love Them for Being Awesome (or Terrifying.)

 

When we first met Klaus, who wasn’t shaking in their seats? I know I was. (Though now, I'm kind of in love with him, despite the fact that he'd, well, the pinnacle of all evil.) This dude is crazy, and so COMPETENT and terrifying and awesome that you know, if he intends to kill someone, they’re dead. Period. I love a competent, terrifying villain. If that doesn’t raise the stakes, nothing will. A villain who can get the job done, always, and their job is ruining your MC’s life somehow? Scary times. (Also in this category, Malifecent, Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs)

 

E. The Baddie Who Gets Redeemed

(Do not imagine him pansily yelling NOOOOO in this picture. He didn't so it in the original.)
Okay, I admit, I love a crazy villain who gets redeemed. Good old Vader tops that list. The one who, in his final hour, shows that he is in fact, a compassionate human being. I was told once that in a story even your bad guys should get better by the end. Because everyone wants to see people become better people. Now, I don’t agree with this in all cases. BUT, it can be a powerful tool. And who doesn’t love a redemption story? This also serves to make your villain not just a villainous tool, but a human.

 

THERE ARE VILLAINS who do not fit these types. But usually they don’t get much screen time. Cause you hate them. If I had to see Dolores Freaking Umbridge one more time in Harry Potter, I was gonna flip my lid. Now, Voldemort, I can roll with, but look:



Just looking at her pisses me off. I don’t know how I survived looking for a gif of her. And for the love of all things bright and beautiful, if your villain is as freaking hateable as Dolores, LET YOUR FANS BE HAPPY AND DO SOMETHING AWFUL TO THEM. PREFERABLY DEATH. Otherwise, they will still be rage-y about it years later. *grumbles*

 

3. Final Point-Get Into Your Villain's Head.

Personally, I love villains so much that my favorite thing ever is not necessarily when people say “Awww, your MC!” I love it when people say “GAH. I HATE THAT VILLAIN SO MUCH.” Dunno why. I’m twisted, I suppose. But ultimately, your villain is a character too. He or she is a person, just like all your other characters, and your goal is to create a person.

 

Just as your main character is consistent in the way she thinks and why she does what she does, so should be your villain. Don’t have him burn down and orphanage unless that person would truly burn down an orphanage. And if that messes with your plot, well, fix your villain or fix your plot. But it’s all about consistency, getting into your villain’s head enough to make him real.

 

And that’s all she wrote.

How I Got My Agent!!!!!!

Guys, contests are cool. They're kind of my crack. Brenda Drake got me addicted back with Pitch Madness in August....when I was just a baby with my very first manuscript who didn't know a query from a synopsis, an MS from an MC, and I had no idea what the heck a CP was...fast forward a bit. 1 more contest later. On October 31st, I realized I had about 30,000 words written on my newest WIP. And  about 50,000 to go. So, I decided to be crazy and do NaNoWriMo. And, to my shock, I finished! I got in 50,000 words and finished my book (Never, Never) by the end of November.

Then came PitchWars a couple days later, where I got a fabulous mentor, known to some as Fizzygrrl and some as Summer, who helped me put all the finishing touches on Never, Never. I had a few requests from that, which was super exciting. Before the Pitch Wars pitches went live, since I was all high on contests, I happened to come across a twitter pitch event called Pitch Bree, and thought Hey! Why not? She requested (Another woooo) and I sent in my manuscript...Fast forward again, to about 2 weeks later...

So, it was a Monday like any other Monday...I was sittin at my laptop, obsessively refreshing my Yahoo email, like I do, and then, in came an email, the likes of which I hadn't seen. The subject line read..."Re: NEVER, NEVER." And it was from this super fantabulous agent. So, naturally, I assumed, Oh great, another rejection. When I clicked on it, I was all:

But thennnn, I read it. And, to my shock 'n awe, it DIDN'T say, "Hey, your book sucks." What it actually said was "I'd love to offer you representation." At this point, I went from this:

To this:

And finally, to this:

Yup. I cried a little bit. I'm emotional. When I called the hubs, he thought something was terribly, horribly wrong. But it TOTALLY WASN'T. So, we emailed back and forth, and she told me to call her THAT DAY cause she was all excited! After my child finalllly fell asleep, I called her up (after staring at the phone for like 5 minutes) and she said all these fantabulous amazing things about my book, and basically every thing she said was perfect. And I'm pretty sure that all I said during the entire conversation was "Awesome," several times. I mean, I asked her questions and stuff, but basically I forgot all the words. I'm sure after we hung up, she was like, 'Man. That girl used up her entire vocabulary in her book, and now she's forgotten English.' But she was nice enough to not say those things. So, you know, that was good.

Utilizing much more self-control than I usually possess, I coolly said, "Okay, well, I'll get back to you in a week. Awesome." Cause my mind kept telling me over and over:

This picture pretty much sums it up...

 

On the left: How I acted like I felt.      On the right: How I ACTUALLY felt.

 

 

But, about 15 seconds after I hung up the phone, I desperately wanted to call her back and be like:

 

I didn't though. I forced myself to wait until the next Monday. I got an offer from one other agent,from Pitch Wars actually, which I really appreciated, and several of the nicest, most encouraging rejections ever, i.e. "bowing out."
But ultimately, I couldn't get that first agent out of my head. She was just soooo enthusiastic and upfront about everything, and so cool. She really *got* my book. Everything about it. And she believed in Hook. At one point, she said, "I hope you sign with me, but even if you don't, I'll totally support you. No matter what you choose, I just wanna see this thing on the shelves." And that kind of awesome is tough to beat, folks. Sooooo, I signed with Bree Ogden of D4EO Literary.

WOOOOOOOO!





Yup. You can just call us Bri-squared. That concludes that, readers. I have an agent.


The Stats, (cause it seems everyone loves stats)

Queries Sent: 15
Partial Requests: 4
Full Requests: 9
(Note: A lot of these requests were not from actual queries, so the ratio of queries to requests was a lot lower than the stats suggest.)
Offers: 2

GIANT thanks to my lovely CP's and betas: Nazarea, Rachel, Tabitha, Darci, Carol, Juliana, Stacey, and Chase (my brother, as well as writer/CP :-)) And a couple others who went out of their way to help me out or give referrals, or awesome things: Cat and Steph.
Lastly, HUGE thanks to my lovely and awesome Pitch Wars mentor: Summer Heacock, who has basically been one giant fizzy ball of encouragement and help!

Bye, all! I'm off to go frolick.

~On Writing Villains: Part One~

Guys, I'm EXCITED about this post. I've got a thing for villains. (Obviously. I just wrote an entire book about Captain Hook.) But, seriously, I LOVE them. So, when a CP asked me if I had any good resources on writing villains and my answer was 'No," it only made sense that I blog about it. Thus, on to an evil start to the bloggy New Year....

For the record, most of this blog post will NOT be about my book, 'cause there are some other amazing villains I gotta use as examples. But, I do need to start there.

So, when I was writing Never, Never, I was tasked with turning James Hook into a sexy heartthrob hero and turning Peter Pan, one of the most beloved little guys of all time into a villain. And not a moustache-twirling, over-the-top evil, wicked baddie. A bone-chilling, believable, real villain. Tricksy, tricksy. Thus, I turned to the following techniques...

1) A Good Villain Must Have a Real Character Motivation



Here's the thing. We writers spend countless hours creating character worksheets, doing personality tests (yeah, I sometimes give my characters Myers-Briggs tests. Whaddup.), and obsessing over our MC's. Most importantly, what they want. But, oftentimes, the villain is thrown in just to be an obstacle to the MC. You can do that if the villain isn't a big deal in your story. BUT, if you want to write a truly great antagonist, they need to want something, too. That thing cannot be just to ruin the MC's life. Because in all honesty, no one is that much of a tool. No one is so loser-y that the only thing they want out of life is to ruin someone else's.

Take Loki, for example. I freaking love Loki. His main motivation in Thor was to prove to himself and to his father that he, too, was awesome, though he'd been constantly overshadowed by his all-powerful-golden-boy big brother. In essence, his motivation was overcoming some serious self-esteem problems and daddy issues. In The Avengers, he'd passed through a crazy, life-altering abyss-portal and had pretty much made the switch into ultimate B-A bent on world domination. Even then, that stemmed from the original Thor-Movie-Issue.

Note that never was his sole purpose in life to stand in the way of Thor. No, it just so happened that their goals were at odds with each others. Give your villain a goal. A real motivator. One just as good and fully fleshed out as that of your MC. That's step one.

2) Your Villain Needs to be Somewhat Likeable. (What??? Trust me. I promise.)

When I say your villain needs to be somewhat likeable, I don't necessarily mean that readers need to like your villain. What I mean is that if your villain is going to be a major part of your book, readers need to like it when they are on-screen. If every time your villain shows up, he's so freaking annoying that your readers roll their eyes and they're like "UGH THIS GUY AGAIN," what does that mean? Check it out. Villain is there in my book all the time + Readers can't stand when he's there=Readers don't enjoy parts of your book. That's no good! We don't want that! We want readers to devour every page of the book, even when Dolores Umbridge is there carving things into Harry Potter's hand. So....how?

Sub-points. TYPES OF THESE VILLAINS

A) The Sympathetic Villain

I picked Magneto for this one. To be fair, he's not really sympathetic until you watch X-Men: First Class, but whatever. When you watch that, he fits. This is one of my favorite villain archetypes because they're relatable. This is the villain who's bad, but darn it, he has a good reason for being so gosh-darn evil. His family got killed or he was dipped in acid or something.

B) The Villain Who's Horrible, Awfully Despicable But Some Oddity or Personality Quirk Makes You Kind of Like Them


Basically, this is EVERY SINGLE VILLAIN Quentin Tarantino has ever written. They're fabulous. They're disgusting, awful, unsympathetic human beings, but for whatever reason, you just enjoy when they're talking. (For the record, I think my Peter Pan was probably this one. Maybe with a sprinkle of sympathetic thrown in.)

Hans Landa (above) is just the worst. I mean, he's a freaking Nazi. And he's just horrible. BUT, he's so bizarre, and so unaware of social etiquette, so oblivious to real life, that when he talks and gestures, you can't help but like when he's on-screen. Same with Bill from Kill Bill. They guy's a contract killer. And he likes it. But he's smooth, he's funny, and scenes with the dirtbag are the best. (Which is why I like Kill Bill 2 better than Kill Bill 1.) Also, ALL the characters in Pulp Fiction.

The trick to writing one of these villains is to make them real. If their quirk is funny or sad or just bizarre, remember you are writing a person. This person happens to be bad. But show some humanity once in a while, and you've got yourself a Tarantino villain.


This blog post is getting really long, because apparently I can't talk about villains in a concise way. I love them too much to shortchange them like that. Thus, there will be a Part 2. (Maybe even a Part 3!) But, this concludes Part 1. Happy villaining.

The Synopsis, Pinnacle of All Evil

Cower in fear, people. Cower in fear. It's usually what I do when confronted with the task of writing a *shudder* synopsis. We thought query letters were bad. But, it's okay. Sylar says:


The synopsis is uber-frustrating, partially because it's kind of hard to find concrete info on the internet about it. Some people say 1 pg. Some say 3-5. Some say 1 for every, like, 30 pages. (Don't do that.) For our purposes, we're gonna go with the 1 pager. Cause if you can write a 1 pg synopsis, you can write the higher page ones. I always just assume 1 to 2. Sooooo, the guidelines.

1) When I say 1 pg, I mean single spaced. Double spaced between paragraphs.
2) No indenting anywhere.
3) Include your contact info and the manuscript title on there, too. Those are important things.

Got that?



Next. Some more pointers.

1) Synopses should ALWAYS be written in 3rd person present tense.(Example of that to follow.)
2) You wanna hit all your main plot points. (If you're not sure what those are, go to Larry Brooks' website. He shall inform you.) So yeah. Main stuff. You gotta cover all the big twists. AND THE ENDING.


No. I'm not. ALWAYS PUT THE ENDING IN YOUR SYNOPSIS. Or it's not a synopsis.

3) Introduce your main characters. We don't need all your side characters, just the ones who play a major role in your story. And the first time (only the first) that you introduce them, put the name in ALL CAPS. Like that.

4) Put some voice into it. As much as you can reasonably.

Sooooo, without further ado, here is an example. It's a synopsis I wrote of A New Hope. It's a little less than a page. (If you haven't watched Star Wars, get off my blog and watch Star Wars. Cause this synopsis, like all synopses, gives away the ending.


STAR WARS EXAMPLE SYNOPSIS

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nineteen year old LUKE SKYWALKER has never been concerned with saving the galaxy. Living on a backwater planet in the middle of nowhere, he is much more concerned with his Uncle’s farm than he is with intergalactic politics. But, he spends his days dreaming, hoping for something more.

He gets more than he wished for when a crazy old hermit shows up and claims that Luke is the key to saving not only a beautiful princess, but the galaxy itself. And he cannot help but be intrigued. And when the evil ruler of the Empire murders his family, he has nothing left to lose, and follows the hermit into space.

The hermit, named OBI WAN KENOBI, reveals to him that he is a Jedi, a powerful mystic warrior. Not only is Obi Wan a Jedi, so is Luke. Though Luke has a hard time believing it, he begins to train anyway, and discovers powers he never thought he had. On their way to the princess’s home planet, they pick up the jaded and cynical HAN SOLO, a renowned smuggler and pilot, who charts their course through the galaxy.

Upon reaching the princess’s planet, they discover it has been destroyed by the Empire, the same agency who was responsible for the deaths of Luke’s family. So, they change course and board The Death Star, where the princess is being held captive by the ruthless leader of the Empire, DARTH VADER.

Disguising themselves as members of The Death Star’s crew, they sneak aboard, intending to rescue PRINCESS LEIA from certain death. But, their plans go awry when they are discovered, and Darth Vader challenges Obi Wan Kenobi in battle. Obi Wan fends off Darth Vader, and when he sees that Luke, Princess Leia, and Han Solo are on their way back to the ship, he sacrifices himself to save their lives.

Safely on board the ship, but mourning the loss of Obi Wan, Luke knows that he must truly embrace the teachings of the Jedi and fulfill his destiny: to destroy the Empire. So, he, as well as Princess Leia, convince the Rebels, a band of people not allied with the Empire, that they must fight.

On the eve of the planned attack, Han Solo decides to leave. But, his loyalty to Luke and growing feelings for Princess Leia compel him to cast off his cynical shell and join with the Rebels to fight against the Empire.

The attack is successful and Luke, with aid from Obi Wan from beyond the grave, deals the final blow, exploding the Death Star, and ensuring freedom throughout the galaxy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There ya have it. We had to leave some favorite characters out, and some plot stuff in the middle, BUT, we got the major players, main point, plot, and a little voice.

You can DO IT.

 

And now, because I'm proud of you for writing your fantabulous synopsis, and a lot because I just really wanted an excuse to look up shirtless Ian Somerhalder gifs, a present for you. (Unless you are a straight male, in which case, this will do nothing for you. Apologies.)

 

The End.

 

On NaNoWriMo

Holy crap, guys. NaNo is crazy. And all you guys who do it are crazypants.

(During NaNo, we all look like this, whether we're "winning" or not. Haha. Charlie Sheen jokes.)

But, whether you won or not, congrats. Writing is freaking hard. If you wrote 500, 5000, or 50000 words in November, those are all words you didn't have before. Which is why anyone who does NaNo (or not, anyone who just writes) wins.

Congrats to all, and I tip my hat you.


Anyone who writes a novel is da bomb. (Now, go edit and edit. Don't freaking start querying today. Or all the agents will kill you.)