Character Creations - Character Relations

When I think about writing a romantic scene a couple of words come to mind: ew, gross, yuck, blah. Now I know what you're thinking, am I 5? No, I'm not 5 years old. Am I 6? No, I'm not and before you keep asking about how immature I am I will explain to you why I feel the way I do. It's because I'm a puritan. That's right, I came over to New England in 1630, I ignored the native's right to the land and their own culture and I ignored the fact that people get freaky. So now, in the year 2009 I'm forced to face that fact as I write "normal" human relationships and I still get a little queasy about it. While I might be an extreme case of a writer who has reservations about writing loves scenes, I'm not the only author that goes at it with some trepedation.

Robert Masello writes, in his amazing book Writer Tells All: "The first time I wrote a truly lubricious sex scene in a novel, I wasn't worried about it when the book was just in typescript, adn I wasn't worried about it when the manuscript came back from the copy editor. But when I saw the book in galleys, when I read those scenes...just as anyone else reading the book would encounter them, I was mortified. What if people didn't understand that it was my naughty character, and not me, that was into this stuff? What if the sex scenes came off as just plain silly, rather than wildly erotic? And now it really dawned on me that, yes, my mother, my father and my brothers would all be reading this stuff."

He goes on to explain: "For weeks, I was embarrassed to talk about the book at all with friends and family, but gradually even that embarrassment faded. For one thing, nobody seemd to care; for another, I'm not sure most of them got that far into the book."

So as an author, don't fear, many authors have been there before with shame written all over the page. As a reader, remember that these scenes are fiction, and that an author spent long hours crafting them expertly. To finish up this post I wanted to emphasis the best kind of love scene I've ever read in a book and which still inspires my own fictional love scenes. It's about what is left out that matters, about what is left to the imaginiation.

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Since I know everyone is dying to find out the results from our last poll, I shall post them here:

For those of you who like donuts, here is a donut chart: (and yes I see that textually Cross Examine isn't on this chart but it still is reflected by the light blue section of the donut - you know, the more advanced stage of mold part).

For people like me who don't eat donuts, nor digest infomation via donut charts, here is what excel calls an "area" chart:

Either chart you look at, Jesus on a Cross has won as best title for James Patterson's Next Novel Starring Alex Cross. So get your Catholic robe on Alex, it's going to be a religious ride!

Titles For Some, Excessive Nonsense For Others

Titles are like names but more titillating. So to discuss titles, I thought I'd brainstorm this blog post with my good frenemie and world renowned name expert, Shakespeare. Instead of just helping me, he also insisted on having more a voice in the blog instead of everything being second hand from me, and possible skewed by my own prejudices against him. I agreed to post what he requested that I post, so here are:

Shakespeare's Rules for Writing:

Rule 1: Yellowness of mine own wondered prose will do thine own skimble-skamble speech no kindness.

(Jealousy of my own marvelously gifted prose will do your rambling speech no good).

Rule 2: A true master of the pen is unsisiting, untempering, without stint – even by the Lethe.
(A real author is unresting, unfailing, unstoppable – even by death).

Rule 3: Write not of saucy pirates, unless thine own self is a saucy pirate.(Do not write about lusty pirates unless you are a lusty pirate).

Rule 4: A geck’s nice exion tarres a reader more than a witty man’s unpregnant exion.(A fool’s Folly is more interesting than a smart man’s stupid acts).

Rule 5: To get your work divulged prig from others work.(To get your books published, steal from others work).

Rule 6: To attach purchases: encave, upspring reel, lunes.
(To celebrate success: put one’s self in a cave, dance a boisterous dance and succumb to fits of lunacy)

Rule 7: Candle wasters, cozeners, drabs, jacks, and lags – these are my inwards. They dup my work. If you don’t like it, you can blow it out your kiln-hole.(Persons who sit up all night and drink, cheaters, harlots, mean fellows, and the lowest of the people – these are my intimate friends. They lift up my work. If you don’t like it you can blow it out your ash-hole under your kiln.)

He also says that now you can consider yourself "Schooled - Shakespeare style"...

As enlightening as that was, let's get back to the actual subject at hand. The title for a story or a novel is important. Best title of all time, hands down is: "Of Mice and Men" because it's not only relevant in its shortened version of the entire quote, but the quote it comes from, beautifully describes the overall theme of the story. I enjoy meaningful titles, especially if they can be witty. Some authors prefer to have funny titles and some prefer to have random titles. Shakespeare and I put together a list of possible titles for James Patterson's new Alex Cross novels. If you're not familiar with the Alex Cross series, it's about a detective named Alex Cross. The first two novels became movies: "Kiss the Girls" and "Spider (something or other)" and now Patterson is coming out with Alex Cross books with the word "Cross" in the title, so here are my title offerings. I love to write up titles but don't always have the time to use them, so I'm sharing my wonderful witty wealth. Let me know what you think by selecting one of these amazing titles from the poll in the right column on the blog. Enjoy!

Cross or be Crossed

Cross Bones

Cross Examine

Cross Hair

Crossbow

Cross Reference

Cross Winds

Cross Breed

Cross Index

Cross Eyed

Cross Check

Cross Fertilization

Cross Stitch

Cross Cultural

Pedestrian Crossing

Blue Cross Blue Shield

Cross Dressing

Crossword Puzzle

Cross all of your T's and dot your I's

Cross B, Stills and Nash

Jesus on a Cross