A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning
“If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.”

Angela’s Ashes
“My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born.”

Before I Fall
“They say that just before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that’s not how it happened for me.”

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
“Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were prefectly normal, thank you very much.”

Hunger Games
“When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.”

Identical
“When I look into a
mirror,
it is her face I see.”

The Catcher in the Rye
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

The Help
“Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in August 1960.”

Thirteen Reasons Why
“Sir?” she repeats.

Twilight
“I’d never given much thought to how I would die–though I’d had reason enough in the last few months–but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.”

will grayson will grayson
“When I was little, my dad used to tell me, ‘Will, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.’”

So tell me. If these had been posted on Authoress’s blog, which ones would have you hooked?

Anywho, the one I want to talk about today is stereotypes. People will tell you to always avoid stereotypes. This is one of those rules that is mostly right but sometimes not. There are certain circumstances where a stereotype can be necessary. For example:

1) When you have a minor character you don’t need to explain. For example, if your main character needs to make reference to someone in their past in a way that will explain an entire scenario without actually explaining an entire scenario, it’s sometimes easier to use a stereotype. So your main character might refer to her younger sister, the head cheerleader-slash-supermodel and it will be implied that this sister was more popular and probably got all the boyfriends etc etc etc. While it would be more interesting for the younger sister to be more popular despite being a Physics nerd, it would take a lot more time to justify this kind of thing and you don’t want to do that if all you need is one line to establish why the main character doesn’t want to fly to Buffalo for her sister’s birthday party.

2) When you have a major character who the main character needs to have a revelation about. For example, if your main character needs to hate a character named Bob for a portion of the book (probably because Bob has some kind of essential information the main character needs), you can make the main character dislike him because of a perceived stereotype. So your main character might hate all bartenders because she dated one and he was a player so she thinks they’re all players and therefore Bob, the bartender, must be a player too. This stereotype acts as a blinder for a portion of the book, however it’s important that you turn it on its ass in the end (meaning Bob can’t actually be a player).

3) When you are making a statement about stereotypes in a more general sense. You may want to do this if you’re trying to show why a stereotype is ridiculous. For example, if you had a book where the government decided to make all blondes into professional cheerleaders because they decided that’s what blondes do. Yes, I realize my example is ridiculous but that is kind of the point.

4) When it just works. I have no explanation for this one. Sometimes, you just need a character that is a stereotypical whatever because that is exactly the kind of character you need for your plot. The example that springs to mind is Jack from Will & Grace. In many ways, Jack fit into a stereotype for a gay man in New York. This worked for the show because it showed how different Will was and, in a way, showed that the stereotype was wrong (see #3).

If you can think of other examples of when stereotypes work (or don’t!), please add them in the comments.

Because I hate this month more than brussel sprouts, I like to find things that make me happy, even for a few hours, and there is nothing that makes me happier than a book that makes me laugh. My favourites are:

1. Bridget Jones’s Diary
2. Angela’s Ashes
3. Knocked Up
4. Will Grayson, Will Grayson
5. Go the F*%k to Sleep
6. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
7. Dear Mr. Blueberry
8. Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood
9. Confessions of Georgia Nicholson (series)
10. The Help

If you have any favourites that I haven’t listed here, please post them in the comments. We’ve had like 10 inches of snow since yesterday and I need to giggle at something other than people falling over on the ice. Uh, not that I would do that…

There is a debate going on amongst fiction authors and readers about reviews. Should authors read their reviews? Should they comment on them? Should they comment on their friend’s reviews? I think my opinion on this is somewhat different than others because I work in an area of publishing where a) secrecy is not tolerated, and b) dialogue between authors and readers is not just encouraged but expected. In fact, it is generally believed that this dialogue leads to better publications and thus is good for everyone. So, for example, if an author publishes a paper on A and a reviewer comments on it to say it is wrong, the author would be encouraged to publicly respond to that reviewer’s criticism and the reviewer would expect them to do so.

Because of my background, I honestly think authors should be able to read and respond to their reviews as long as, a) they are doing so under their own names and not some anonymous cover, and b) they are being professional. Obviously, I’m not advocating that authors should have to read or respond to reviews. Some don’t have time and some aren’t comfortable with criticism. That’s fine. But if you tell authors that they should hide in the corner and just let people bash them or their works, you’re advocating a kind of censorship that almost encourages reviewers to be harsh because they know the author will be too scared to respond. And you know what? That’s wrong. Authors are people too and, at least where I come from, they have the same rights to free speech as everyone else.

How does it do this? Let’s start by looking at the setup for 3 of the main characters:

1) Billy Mack. He’s a washed-up rock star whose manager is trying to get him some work. He keeps screwing it up but his manager keeps trying and keeps smiling. In this one scene, we learn what Billy needs, why he isn’t getting it and who is there to help him get it. This scene is also funny as hell which is why we are immediately engaged by his character.

2) Daniel. His wife has just died. He’s a mess and doesn’t know what to do about his step-son who may or may not be shooting heroin into his eyeballs. He turns to his only friend who tells him he needs to stop crying if he wants to get a girlfriend. So we know what his problem is, we know why he’s struggling and we know who is there to help him. In Daniel’s case, we are engaged because we feel sorry for him.

3) Jamie. He’s the ultimate nice guy whose girlfriend (and brother) are totally lying to him and, from what we can tell, they’re not the first to do this.  We like him so we are engaged in his story.

Each of these story lines uses a different technique to create engagement and yet they’re all equally successful. We want to laugh at Billy, cry for Daniel and become Jamie’s best friend (or girlfriend…cough). And this all happens in the first 20 minutes of the movie for all of the story lines. We see why Karen is so overwhelmed by the need to create a first lobster costume, why Colin will never get a girlfriend in Britain despite his big knob, why John can’t meet a nice girl in porn, why Mark is up Sh*t Creek without a paddle and not because he’s gay, why Sarah can’t just tell Carl she loves him and wants to have his babies, why Natalie thinks so poorly of herself and her tree-trunk thighs, and why the Prime Minister wishes he was Margaret Thatcher, the saucy minx.

So the next time you’re having trouble squeezing your novel’s setup into the first 20 pages, go watch this movie. Pick one character and watch their introductory scene. When it’s done, write down everything you know about that character and how you learned it and then use these techniques to tighten your own setup.

Iowa is perfect for a mage on the lam such as Justus Aubre until Sable, a female mage who is running from the same guild of wizards, stumbles into his bar. If the sentient magic escapes his iron-fisted control, humans would learn of their existence forcing Sable, the Imperium’s reluctant acolyte, to hold Justus to face the guild’s leader and the annihilation from which he escaped years before.

Link to the original submission in Round Two: http://misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com/2011/10/logline-critique-round-2-3.html

A letter from his three-months’ dead, long-estranged uncle summons Pen Smith toPanama. Within hours of Pen’s arrival, he becomes the victim of a brazen daylight shooting, heir to a fabulous fortune, the object of embezzlement, poisoning and torture—and the man charged with unlocking the secret of a longtime family tragedy. To find his adversary and save his life, Pen treks through one of the most lawless jungles of the world, where he comes face-to-face and gun-to-gun with brutal narco-terrorists. Pen mistakenly believes his pursuer has been eliminated, but the would-be murderer orchestrates a final, fateful, and fatal showdown.

Seventeen-year-old Princess Fawn, sole heir to the kingdom of Savara, is supposed to marry the charming (and corrupt) Prince of Darkrest to help end the war between their countries–but she is in love with a young man who may be lying about his past. Fawn must decide who to trust before she is left ineligible for the throne and the evil King of Darkrest invades Savara.

See the original logline on MSFV

When his grandparents can no longer care for him on their magical Alabama farm, fifteen-year-old hemophiliac Stephen Hordsley moves in with his real estate czar father in Atlanta.  Failing to fit inside a world of hidden relationships, Stephen attempts suicide, landing in a children’s hospital where he meets extraordinary kids that tell stories solving the mysteries of his broken family.

http://misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com/2011/10/logline-critique-round-2-4.html

After an explosion allows a captive, seventeen-year-old clone to escape to freedom, she’s offered a chance at a safe, comfortable life. But when she befriends the boy who escaped with her and discovers that he’s a human bomb, she must risk the new life she’s building to break into a series of high-security labs and find the neutralizer that will prevent his impending detonation.