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Common Writing Advice That Doesn't Really Work

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Some of the most common advice I’ve heard to a new writer is read more to write better. I’ve heard this a lot lately, and those touting the advice quote none other than J.K. Rowling and Stephen King. So it has to be good advice, right?

I can’t decide if the people telling this to authors are:

  • Telling us what we want to hear. Most writers love to read.
  • Using it as an attempt to sell us more books.
  • Genuinely misunderstand how humans learn.

This is pretty dense, but it’ll tell you that to learn, you need to engage the brain. If you tell the brain what it already knows, learning doesn’t occur.

Think about your morning commute. Ever arrive at work uncertain how, exactly, you got there? Happens to me more than I want to admit.

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Just reading is similar to this. You read the book. You finish the book. You either like it or don’t, and then move on to the next book. Kind of like your morning commute.

What’s missing from the advice of “read more” is the critical element of analyzing what you’re reading. Even if you’re not in a formal book club, you can still ask questions of yourself:

  • Why did you like the book?
  • What didn’t you like about it? Why?
  • Would you read it again? Why or why not?

 

After you have the answers to these questions, dig deeper.

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If you loved the hero, why did you love him? If he was too stupid to live, why did you feel that way? Did you want him to succeed in the end? Why or why not?

How do authors engage your senses to make you feel like you’re riding along with the characters? How do they connect you so you care what happens?

I normally love to read romance novels, and I write them, but lately, I’ve had a bad run of them. Characters I hate, situations I find contrived at best, love stories that are a study in lust. But, they have taught me a lot. And not just because I’ve read them.

I may not even finish a book, but I can learn a lot if I take the time to figure out why I didn’t finish. Were the characters not compelling? Was the situation so contrived that my eyes got stuck when I rolled them?

I want the happily-ever-after ending, but I want the characters to earn it. I’ve learned this about myself, and I try hard to put it into my writing. I also want the love story to be believable. I need the characters to earn that, too.

But learning how to do this takes more than reading. It takes the time, patience, and brain engagement to really analyze what I’m reading. I can learn a lot from the bad as well as the good, but I still have to take the time to think.

 

How about you? Do you find reading improves your writing? Do you stop and think about why you love or hate a book? What makes you love a story? Hate it?

Ever Just Stop?

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Have you ever been reading a book, watching a movie, or checking out the latest TV craze on Netflix and you just turn it off and walk away?

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I have to confess, I just did this to a book recently. After a long spell of reading Regency Romance novels, I just couldn’t take another tired trope. There’s nothing wrong with the book per se, it’s just me.

The hero is a classist jerk who hates the poor. Until, of course, he meets the heroine. Lust has him changing his mind. No idea how he could actually fall in love with her in a day. But their “love” is thwarted by the gang she ran with before it was discovered she’s got an “in” with this earl. *eye roll*

I have no idea why this gang would risk an earl’s wrath over an expendable member, especially as it’s been established the gang leader has beaten members to death and has no use for females anyway.

But, whatever. The gang leader and some of his ruffians break into a duke’s ball, threaten the heroine, and smack her around to the point she has obvious bruises. *eye roll* No one notices? In the duke’s estate, in a posh part of London crawling with guests and footmen? Really?

If he’s this “sneaky,” why not rob the duke’s place rather than try to make her help him go after the earl?

The hero agrees to help her pull off some convoluted plot to take out said gang leader rather than just:

  1. Hire someone to do it. Or
  2. Retire out to his massive country estate that no poor Londoner, gang leader or not, could ever hope to reach. Much less reach without everyone in the tri-county area knowing about it.

I put the book down two weeks ago and still haven’t picked it back up. Maybe I will and skim my way to the end. Maybe I won’t.

This is new ground for me as usually I finish books no matter how horrible they are.

Funny thing on this is that there isn’t anything really wrong with the book. It’s your typical Regency fare. No better, no worse than most.

TV shows are a different thing. I’ve stopped watching almost every show I’ve ever followed before the show was done. But then American studios are known for making shows long after they should’ve ended them.

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I write Romance, but perhaps I need to change genres and read something else for a while. I like fantasy when I can find it with engaging female characters. Same with Space Opera. It’s just hard because I have so few authors I trust. You know, authors that are going to give me the happy ending I want.

And I don’t like scary stories.

I may be weird, but when it comes to violence I prefer PG over the standard R fare. When it comes to consensual steamy scenes, I’m a whole lot less reserved.  I wish I could take more scary things, but I can’t. And that’s unlikely to change.

 

How about you? Ever just walk away from a book, movie, or show? Why or why not?

Book Review: Loving a Lost Lord

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Loving a Lost Lord
Rating:4.5/5
Author: Mary Jo Putney

I picked this book up on a sale whim and didn’t expect much. I was very pleasantly surprised.

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While the ending was almost too good to be true, many of the characters saccharine sweet, and the huge number of unnecessary characters clearly setting up a cast for future books, it was still satisfying.

Mariah, the heroine, has lived a checkered life on the fringe of society. She is beautiful, kind, and loves her father dearly. He’s the only family she has, and when he wins a manor gambling, they are both very happy to finally have a home.

Then tragedy strikes, and she believes her father is dead. How this comes to be is believable, and the eventual truth well explained.

The hero has been in an “accident” and washes up on her shore with amnesia. She worries about lying, but he’s the answer to getting rid of an unpleasant suitor who wants her for the manor house she inherited. So, she lies and tells the man that washed ashore that they’re married.

The hero protects his “wife” and gets rid of the suitor. He finds himself drawn to Mariah and thinks himself very lucky indeed that he married her even if he can’t remember her.

We get snippets of Adam’s past (the hero), through dreams, letting us learn a bit more about him as his memories return. We see him struggle with his dual heritage (English and Hindu – though I thought Hindu was a religion ) through these dreams.

We also see their attraction grow as they “relearn” each other. There is the instant attraction, but it’s better developed than the love-at-first-sight trope.

She tells Adam the truth right before his friends show up looking for him. He doesn’t trust her any more, though he still longs for her, and he does want her to come to London with him.

In London, more is revealed, as well as Adam’s accident was no accident.

There are more attempts on his life that bring them closer. They find the murderer, her father, and so much more. A saccharine, unbelievable ending. But it was properly set-up for.

I would say this leans more inspirational, sans the religion, than pure romance. The romance between the character is sweet and the steamy scenes tame.

All in, the set-up for future events is sprinkled throughout the story, so no unpleasant or Author-God surprises. Adam is an interesting character with his dual heritage, although little is really delved into. Might be for the same reason the author equated Hindu to English rather than Christian.

Mariah is rather bland and quite perfect. But I have come to expect that from Romance heroines.

 

 

Book Review: The Rogue Not Taken

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Rating: 2/5

Title: The Rogue Not Taken (Scandal & Scoundrel, Book 1)

Author: Sarah Maclean

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Plot Synopsis

The story is basically the Kardashians or whatever celebrity scandal is currently the rage, but set in the Regency Era.

The heroine is the youngest of 7 sisters, all whose names begin with S. Their father is “new” money, and he won the title of earl off the Prince Regent in a card game. “Society” looks down on them, but there’s the money involved, and, of course, the fun of the gossip papers that the seven sisters love to be in. Well, all of the sisters except the heroine.

I wanted to like the story. But, I strongly dislike celebrity anything. The only celebrity news I follow is whatever headlines catch my attention at the check out lane in the grocery store. Most of which make me roll my eyes.

 

Characters

I did like the heroine.

The youngest of the sisters, she is the least scandalous. Although she does push her eldest sister’s husband, a duke no less, into a pond for fornicating at a party with a woman that wasn’t her sister. Oh, and her sister is pregnant with the duke’s child that he openly denies is his. He’s a real treasure.

Of course her pushing him into the pond causes outrage, not at him being caught with his trousers down. I was not even remotely sold on every member of the aristocracy pulling their investments out of her father’s hands because of it. This totally felt Author-God to me to force the plot.

Why? Well, they needed coal during this time, and it was very profitable. I can’t see too many people risking fortunes because a duke got embarrassed doing something he was allowed to do only if he didn’t get caught…

I also liked that the heroine was bold and tried to take care of herself. Not sure anyone would mistake her for a boy, even in livery, but I let it slide and enjoyed it for the silly it was.

The hero was … Well, he was not a gentleman. He wasn’t even an alpha hero that sort of gets away with being a bit over bearing. He’s actually full on rude to her, insulting, and arrogant in all the wrong ways.

He’s taken serious liberties with the heroine, and then when he gets caught taking her virginity, well, clearly she was out to get him the whole time! Really?!? I have no idea what the heroine saw in him.

I grew weary pretty quickly of his brooding over the milkmaid, too. Not sure how the circumstances around this belonged on anyone’s shoulders but his.

 

Hero’s father – I wanted to like him, but I didn’t believe he’d allow a misunderstanding between him and his son to continue for 15 years.

 

Plot

After dunking her brother-in-law, the heroine wants to make an escape from the party, but can’t. When the hero won’t help her, she bribes his stable boy for his livery and thinks they are going back to London. It’s only when they’re out in the country that she realizes they went the wrong way. The hero is actually going to his country home because he believes his father is on his deathbed.

Sarcasm ensues when he realizes one of the Scandalous S sisters has stowed away with him, and when he again refuses to help her, she takes matters into her own hands and manages to get fare for the stagecoach.

Like I said, totally not a gentleman. He even leaves her to sleep with the male servants…

Of course the stagecoach is robbed, she’s shot, and the hero gets there just in time to save her.

A bit of falling in love happens as he sees to her recovery. Not entirely sure what she sees in him as he continues to be rather insulting.

More hi-jinks, and when she’s at her lowest point, the hero decides to take her home with him as his fiancee to help his father into the grave. After all, she is a Scandalous S sister. And clearly she has no feelings to worry about being hurt as he so callously uses her to get back at his father, especially when he knows how lost and adrift she is. He’s a gem.

When he gets home, however, he learns his father is hale and whole and nowhere near death. Father and son have some unresolved issues which get resolved amidst more misunderstandings with the heroine.

This is a romance novel, so it all gets resolved and you get your happy ever after ending.

All in all, I wish the heroine would’ve kicked the hero to curb and found someone that knew how to treat another human being. You might like it better if you like celebrity gossip. Maybe not, especially if you want the hero to treat the heroine with a modicum of respect.

 

Book Review: Secrets for Seducing a Royal Bodyguard

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Rating: 3/5

Title: Secrets for Seducing a Royal Bodyguard

Author: Vanessa Kelly

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Overall, an average book because it squandered its potential. Clearly, this author has read and followed all of the advice about making the first 5 pages sing. The opening was amazing, but the rest of the story didn’t live up to it.

 

Synopsis

One of the Prince Regent’s bastards ends up becoming a strong and very capable spy for the English Home office. While he’s home after the war and waiting for his next assignment, he is sent out to rescue the heroine who was abducted from her coach on her way home from a ball.

The beginning of the story is amazing. The suspense as Aden St. George rescues Vivien is riveting. Sneaking through the night, Aden’s skills, the pursuit by the bad guys. All of it is fabulous.

But this book should’ve either been a novella or the author needed to inject a great deal more into the plot to keep the promise the opening of the book makes.

 

Characters

Vivien – is the heroine, and I liked her well enough. She excels at cards, and that’s how she keeps her mother and younger brother from financial ruin as neither can live within their means. She does some dumb things from time to time, but nothing that annoyed me too much. While she is trying to keep her family out of ruin, she is also trying to avoid the unwanted advances of a Russian prince that doesn’t take “no” for an answer.

She doesn’t seem to be striving for much other than keeping her family out of trouble, but that’s a full time job.

 

Aden St. George – is the hero. I loved him in the opening of the story, but I was doing nothing but roll my eyes at him by the end.

I get being a bastard son sucked. Somehow his mother’s husband found out he wasn’t his son and made Edmund’s life miserable. No idea how he knew, but okay, there was a way. And I can see men like that. And I can get the emotional scars that leaves behind. But then deal with them in the story. Make us love him and see him struggle to overcome them. Or make him strong enough that he has overcome them after years of service to his country as a spy.

Instead, he abandons the heroine because of his “feelings”. He also gives into these feelings and then pulls back from the heroine to “protect her” only to give in again. Ugh! I would have MUCH rather seen a character arc for him rather than all the back and forth nonsense.

It may be how someone would really react to such childhood emotional trauma, but it doesn’t make him a good lead in this story. Especially as he’s supposed to be all bad-boy spy.  Kills people. Seen people die. He’s all bad-ass because he’s walled over his feelings. Coming out of self-imposed emotional anesthesia and finding love and family can make a fabulous story, but that story wasn’t in this book.

 

Supporting Characters

  • The Heroine’s mother and brother (Kit) are idiots. The mother is the “hysterical” female that spends too much money and is prone to fits. *eye roll*  Maybe that was a real thing back then, but I hate them as  characters. Her younger brother was only a little better.
  • The heroine’s older brother, Cyrus, has no redeeming qualities. He’s a villain through and through. Which is unfortunate, as I think there could’ve been a lot of depth there as to why he was doing what he was doing. Making him more sympathetic and possibly even adding to the tension.
  • The Russian Prince should have a mustache to twirl. No redeeming qualities, up to and including dental hygiene.
  • The hero’s mother was amazing.
  • Sir Dominic, the hero’s mentor, was pretty good. Wish the hero would’ve been as strong as Dominic

 

 

Plot

After effecting Vivien’s rescue, Sir Dominic orders his spy, Aden, to keep an eye on her and keep her safe. To do this, he has him escort his mother through the ton and all of the balls etc. You know, the normal Regency bit.

While this is happening, Vivien is trying to win enough money at cards to get her brother out of the financial trouble he’s in. Again. This causes her to take some unacceptable risks, especially as someone is trying to kidnap her.

There is the back and forth between the characters as the hero pries the information about her brothers, her suitors, and the Russian prince out the heroine.

The whole middle of the story is rather ho hum, up to and including the second kidnapping attempt that the hero does manage to thwart.

Then it’s off to the countryside for a while, and things get steamy between the characters on their way to the safe house. They open up to each other and have sex at an inn, only for the hero to pull back from the heroine once they get to the safe house. Huh? What?

Now he has feelings. Oh my. Eventually, those feelings come out and he makes love to her again. Only to flee back to London because of those feelings just in time for her kidnappers to come get her. *eye roll*

He finally figures out he’s “worthy” to love her and be loved even if he was born a bastard, and he comes to her rescue with some really firm words . . . Um, yeah. Where was the cool, kick-ass spy from the beginning?

 

The plot was pretty threadbare. I really wanted the hero to do things. To be the powerful alpha hero he was in the beginning and run her abductor to ground. Or whisk her off of his own accord so he can protect her rather than being forced to do so by mentor. And then abandoning her anyway. Instead of doing stuff, the hero spent a lot of time denying his emotions, finding himself unworthy, and trying to find a way out of protecting the heroine.

 

This book could’ve been fabulous, but because of a threadbare plot and lacking hero, it was just another average read.

 

How to Make it Five Stars

To get to five stars, I’d need a couple of things.

1. Give me the hero from the beginning of the story through the whole story. Make him amazing at what he does, and what he does is serve the crown protecting Vivien. Give me that tight writing and emotional suspense. Show me the hero’s competence through the whole story.

2. Give the hero a much better character arc. Let’s see his progression from unwilling to feel emotion to being in love with the heroine.

3. Once the hero arc is resolved, let the outside bad guys propel the story forward. This would require more than the threadbare plot there is, but a little creativity can give the baddies a host of reasons for going after the heroine.

Failure of the One Week Ban

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I completely failed not reading for a week. As a matter of fact, I failed within 24 hours of making the post!

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Resolution up in flames.

It’s just too easy and too enjoyable to kick back and open a book while I sit with the kids and they play. So much better than Sesame Street, let me tell you.

And once I’m into the book, I want to see it through. I want to know what happens, and will usually keep on reading even if the story is a train wreck. That’s something I need to be better about, but then I do sometimes learn something from the bad as well as the good. I just don’t need to spend quite so much time with the bad.

Perhaps the ease is part of the problem. My Kindle app has made it so easy to get new books, and so easy to read them that I am perhaps spending more time reading that writing.

Okay, I am definitely spending more time reading that writing.

Not that it’s an entirely bad thing for a writer, but it’s still a thing.

I won’t lie and pretend it’s research or that it will make my writing better by simply reading. I know that it takes thought to turn what you read into a lesson of what to do or not do with your writing. Best of all worlds is to have someone to critique it with, especially if they don’t agree with all of your views.

While I don’t have a critique partner, I do try to force myself to think through and write a review. Still working out the best review format for others to decide if they want to give the book a try and for me to get the most out of writing the review.

I suppose there are worse things I could be doing than reading.

Or better. Like reading while on the elliptical. Or actually writing.