Romance vs. romantic elements in a story

- Stacy 10 Comments

At LTUE last week, I was on a panel that gave me some food for thought, which I’d like to get some discussion on. The whole panel was set up around the difference between a romance (maybe Romance, capital R) and a story with romantic elements. Panelists included adult SFF author John Brown, YA fantasy author Mette Ivie Harrison (here’s her take on the same panel), and romance author Lynn Kurland. I believe (and I hope she corrects me if I’m wrong) the other panelist Amy Chopine writes YA fantasy as well.

So add me into the mix and you’ve got a panel skewed toward books for young readers (we focused on YA), which I think does affect how we view romance, because we’re not talking happily-ever-after most of the time, even with happy endings—you know in a year or two, even though you want the couple to stay together, they’re young enough that they’ll probably break up off-screen, because life happens (though happily-ever-afters do also abound in YA; there’s just not always that kind of pressure, you know?). John had some really interesting questions he asked the panel, though I didn’t take notes and can’t remember a one of them. The thing that stuck out to me, really, was the idea that Lynn and several other romance writers in the audience insisted upon that the best (maybe only) kind of successful romance story is one in which the main love interests hate each other at first, ala Taming of the Shrew or perhaps Lizzie and Darcy.

I love me a good vehement discussion (some would call it argument, yes), and I took issue with this position. I think that there can be successful romance stories in which the main characters like each other at first, but some other plot element is the driving conflict. But perhaps this is the difference between a romance vs. another genre with romantic elements (in YA, Twilight might be considered a romance, for example, rather than a fantasy with romantic elements—the romance drives the plot, not the other way around).

Lynn also described a really interesting way she decides whether a story is a romance or just a story with romance in it: if the plot points that resolve first are the romance, then the saving-the-world or whatever other plot line you have wraps up, it’s not a romance. Vice versa, and it is.

That is, the emphasis the plot places on romance vs. other conflict is what defines the genre. I can totally go with that.

But.

What of this “only stories where the protagonist/love interest hate each other at first but then fall in love are good romances” stuff?

Does something have to keep the protagonist/love interest apart the whole time for a romance story—whether Romance capital R or romantic element—to be successful? And does the thing that keeps them apart have to be that they don’t like each other? Is this just a big difference between YA and adult category romance?

Somehow the conversation then turned to love triangles, which I’m not fond of but my dislike of them pales in comparison to Mette’s, which includes thinking up ways to kill off the girl caught between two boys, and matching up the boy she likes with one of her own more sensible characters.

I like Mette’s description in the first post I linked above, of the couple against the world, working together against the main conflict of the book. That’s the kind of story I’m drawn to. I’m having trouble coming up with good examples of couple-against-main-conflict, though. Except I suppose Tankborn (which I can’t link to because we are not quite to catalog-and-covers-to-share stage, but soon you will be able to see why I love it so!) which involves the two main characters eventually finding themselves in such a situation (which I can’t tell you about yet because I don’t want to spoil it!). The love triangle in The Hunger Games and Katniss’s PTSD do get in the way of any romance going very far, but that story also has a lot of Katniss & friends (including two love interests) against the world. That might be why Mockingjay made me so angry, because Katniss’s team, especially Gale, was broken so severely.

What do you think? Do you prefer obstacles to be contrived for the couple not to get together (see how I loaded that question?)? Do you like couple-against-the-conflict-together plots? Are there other kinds of romance and/or romantic element-al stories that work better for you? What makes a story a Romance vs. a story with romantic elements?

Foxy

- Stacy 2 Comments

A friend shared this article with me recently, delving into a decades-long experiment trying to recreate the domestication of pets in foxes—and succeeding, faster than they had anticipated. I found it fascinating, especially because I’d just recently seen something about the discovery of a burial site that dates back to before pets were domesticated, and foxes were buried with all the care that a family member might be along with their owners. It  makes me wonder why they gave up on domesticating foxes if they are capable of being domesticated. The article I read posited that foxes could only be domesticated up to a point, which would have explained why people turned to wolves.

Now I can’t find the original article to link, though. But here’s a Time article that covers the same thing.

LTUE schedule

- Stacy 1 Comment

Also, one more reminder: If you’re in Utah and have a chance to get to LTUE next week—only $20-25 to rub elbows with a bunch of professionals working in fantasy and science fiction right now and free for students—you should definitely come. I’ve been filling up my schedule left and right, and if you’re at BYU you might also want to know about the English dept event I’ll be at on Wednesday night (February 16):

BYU’s STET Student Editing Club presents . .  .

Stacy Whitman, editor of fantasy and science fiction for children and young adults

  • Editorial director of Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books, New York (publisher of multicultural fantasy and science fiction for children and young adults)
  • Freelance editor
  • Former editor at Mirrorstone, an imprint of Wizards of the Coast (publisher of children’s and YA fantasy)
  • Former editor at Houghton Mifflin, Boston
  • Former editor at Electrical Apparatus (a trade magazine), Chicago
  • Graduate (M.A.) of Simmons College, Boston, in children’s literature, 2005
  • Graduate (B.S.) of BYU, 2001

Wednesday, February 16, 2011
5:10 to 7:40 p.m.
3714 HBLL

I’ll be talking about publishing both for a writer’s perspective (because this is picture book author Rick Walton’s class, after all) and an editorial perspective (because the professor over the editing minor, Mel Thorne, who also happens to be my old boss, is bringing his students along too).

If you aren’t a BYU student or faculty, come to LTUE! Here’s my (hopefully) final schedule:

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

2:00 PM:

– Beyond Orcs and Elves: Diversity in Fantasy and Science Fiction for Young Readers (Stacy Whitman) Recent cover whitewashing controversies and the internet discussion tagged #RaceFail have brought to light how little diversity can be found in fantasy and science fiction for young readers. We’ll discuss the history of diversity in these books, including diversification through fantasy races that all share the same traits, and ways for authors to consider diversifying their own stories. We’ll also discuss writing cross-culturally, cultural awareness, issues of appropriation, and other things to consider as you write.

6:00 PM:

– Marketing and Publicity–what can you do? (Stacy Whitman, Bree DeSpain, James Dashner, Laura Card, Elana Johnson) Closet Costuming (Heather Monson, Jessica Haron, Sarah B. Seiter)

Friday, February 18th, 2011

Noon:

– Romance vs. Story with Romantic Elements: Injecting romance into saving the world (John Brown,  Ami Chopine, Stacy Whitman, Lynn Kurland)

6:00 PM:

– How NOT to talk down to your YA audience (Michaelbrent Collings, Clint Johnson, Stacy Whitman, James Dashner, Frank L. Cole)

Saturday, February 19th, 2011

10:00 AM:

– What Exactly Does an Editor Do, Anyway? (Lisa Mangum, Suzanne Vincent, Stacy Whitman, Tristi Pinkston, Karen C. Evans, Dave Wolverton)

Noon:

– Anime/Manga–what it is; what’s good in SFF (Stacy Whitman, Jessica Harmon, Scott Parkin (M), Joe Monson, Charlotte Randle)

I feel like I’m missing a panel I was supposed to be on, but I think that’s it. But there’s always plenty of chat in the hallways between panels. I always go to these conventions looking for writers who know their stuff, and what better way to learn your business than to come listen to a bunch of experts like James Dashner, Jessica Day George, Bree Despain, Dan Wells, Tracy Hickman, and a long list of others talk about writing memorable villains, pitching to agents/editors, paying the bills via your dreams, religion in science fiction, what writers wish they had done if they could do it all over again, how to recover from writing slumps, Tracy Hickman’s Killer Breakfast (hilarious how-fast-can-you-get-killed-off D&D for a crowd), what you can and can’t do in a YA novel, finding a writing group, dialog tags and speech patterns, the problem of sequels, how to write a good short story….

Etc.

You get the idea.

Tu teasers

- Stacy 3 Comments

I find I don’t want to blog much anymore, and mostly it’s because ever since my site broke, it hasn’t been quite right. I’m seriously thinking of giving up hosting it on my own (I can figure out most things, but it takes time I no longer have) and migrating my blog over to WordPress. A friend was showing me her site, and if my non-tech-savvy friend can get her site to look great there, maybe I should just use their infrastructure. Any more-tech-savvy-than-me friends know whether I can keep my custom headers and such while using WordPress’s servers rather than my own?

I’ll probably keep my own domain name, etc. The only thing that would change would be that my database would hopefully no longer be corrupted, and that I’d actually want to blog again because it wouldn’t be a headache every time I logged in!

Of course, that would require having something to blog about, and today I do have a little bit of a teaser for you. We’ve been working on the design stage of our Fall 2011 books, which means that we’re getting in preliminary cover art, looking at interior design, turning things around fast between designer, author, and editor (me). Within a few weeks I think we’ll have some final cover art to show off.

Like I said, just a teaser. Not much to talk about in public yet, but I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally show off the cool things I’ve been working on for almost a year. We’re working on acquiring for Spring 2012, too, so keep those submissions coming.

Speaking of Spring, I haven’t shared the acquisition we made last month here yet, have I? That’s how behind I am on blogging! Here’s the announcement we made in PW Children’s Bookshelf last month:

Stacy Whitman at Lee & Low Books has bought Bryce Moore’s debut novel Vodnik, for publication in spring 2012 by the Tu Books imprint. The YA fantasy tells the story of Tomas, a Roma boy who returns to Slovakia and discovers that the folk tale creatures he befriended as a boy are more dangerous than he knew, and he must strike a bargain with Death to save his cousin’s life. Eddie Schneider at JABberwocky Literary Agency brokered the deal for North American rights.

LTUE pre-game

- Stacy 1 Comment

Well, I don’t know what else to call it. I’m flying in a little early before LTUE in mid-Feb. to visit Rick Walton’s publishing class, and he tells me that editing students will be invited as well. So if you’re a BYU student in one of the writing or editing classes and want to get in on the Q&A session in Rick’s class on the 16th (I’ll be doing a short presentation, but mostly it’ll be Q&A), find out more through your department or contact Rick directly.

If you’re not a BYU student, no fear—just come to LTUE! It’s official that I’ll not only be participating in a number of panels but also giving my diversity in children’s fantasy presentation:

Beyond Orcs and Elves:  Diversity in Fantasy and Science Fiction for Young Readers
Recent cover whitewashing controversies and the internet discussion tagged #RaceFail have brought to light how little diversity can be found in fantasy and science fiction for young readers. We’ll discuss the history of diversity in these books, including diversification through fantasy races that all share the same traits, and ways for authors to consider diversifying their own stories. We’ll also discuss writing cross-culturally, cultural awareness, issues of appropriation, and other things to consider as you write.

Sorry, I’m afraid I don’t have time to find hyperlinks at the moment, but google Life, the Universe & Everything (LTUE) to know more (or look at my last post for links).

Life, the Universe, and Everything

- Stacy 8 Comments

Between the holidays, a nasty bout of the flu, and being busy with preparing Fall books for design and getting next spring’s books well on their way, I haven’t had much time to even think about what I’d post here lately. If you’re interested in my flittering day-to-day thoughts, follow me on Twitter—it’s not much more there lately, but it’s more!

I pop in here today to let you know about Life, the Universe, & Everything 29: The Marion K. “Doc” Smith Symposium on Science Fiction and Fantasy. I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about it in previous years—it’s one of the best little cons I’ve ever been to. It’s a local convention run by BYU students and Utah Valley residents who are fantasy & SF buffs. In recent years, it’s always been free. This year, they decided to charge a nominal amount so that the budget woes they’ve had to deal with (the previous venue required them to offer it for free) will be solved. But $20 still isn’t that much for a 2 or 3-day convention, and if you’re a BYU student/staff/faculty, you still get in free.

ETA: It’s not just BYU students, I’m told, that get in free. It’s anyone with a student ID, including other colleges and younger kids w/ student IDs for high school, for example. An email recently went out that if you home school, there are ways to show that too.

What will you get for your $20? Pretty much the best that Utah has to offer in science fiction and fantasy—and that’s saying a lot. James Dashner, the author of The Maze Runner, will be the Guest of Honor. My friends, authors Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells always go (though I don’t see Brandon on the schedule, so something may have come up for him), as well as webcomic artist Howard Tayler (the Writing Excuses trifecta). Tracy Hickman, Jessica Day George, Mette Ivie Harrison, Bree Despain, Janci Olds (who has a book forthcoming from Macmillan), Eric James Stone, Robert J. Defendi, Rebecca Shelley, John Brown, Larry Correia, Julie Wright, Robison Wells, Jake Black…

I know I missed somebody there. Oh—ME!

And it doesn’t matter if you’re an aspiring writer, a pro, or a fan—there’s something there for everyone.

Once my schedule is pinned down a little tighter, I’ll post it here. You’ve got a month to plan–if you’re in Utah (or want to take a trip there), plan for Feb. 17-19 at BYU. It’s no longer in the Wilkinson Center–it’s now hosted by Conferences and Workshops. Register here (or give them a call at the number on that page). That means better parking, even if there are fewer easy lunch options in the Conference Center on campus.

Hope to see you in Feb.!

Writer question: E-book rights?

- Stacy 3 Comments

A writer question I received this month, the answer for which I think anyone submitting to Tu will want to know:

I would like to submit my YA fantasy to Tu Books, but wondered if you accept submissions from books where the ebook rights have been taken. My book was recently accepted by an e-book publisher. I recently read an interview about Tu Books and its quest to publish YA speculative fiction with multicultural characters. This is something I have strive to do in my writing. May I mail my submission package to Tu Books or would you rather not see books where ebook rights are already taken?

Due to the way the industry is changing right now, Tu must be able to do an ebook edition of any book we publish. Things are changing fast, and with the drop in e-reader prices continuing to change the way people read, teens are becoming more likely to look for ebooks (not to mention crossover adult audiences who definitely look for ebooks). The release of (relatively) affordable full-color readers such as the Color Nook and the iPad means that younger readers, in smaller numbers, will be next. We’re seeing a lot of changes right now as we head into the holiday season—B&N, for example, is growing its ebook business even as it continues to have sluggish sales in its print book business. You can check out e-books from most libraries, too—books that return themselves without costing you a fine for forgetting to return them or not making it to the library on a particular day. As more libraries figure out digital curation, that segment will grow.

E-readers are unlikely to take over the ascendancy of print books in children’s and YA books anytime soon, but ebooks are definitely a growing market, and one that we plan to aggressively explore with Tu’s books. Therefore, manuscripts submitted to us absolutely must have ebook rights available.

Sorry to disappoint, but it’s something we feel strongly about.

Whitney Award nominations

- Stacy 3 Comments

The Whitney Awards are a fairly new award given out at the LDS Storymakers conference that honors novels written by LDS writers, both in the niche LDS market and in the national market. Every year, you can nominate titles for the committee to read and vote upon.

They’ve started to announce the books that have gotten enough nominations to be considered “official nominees”—these are the books that will be considered and whittled down to finalists.

You don’t have to be LDS to nominate books, but the author or authors do need to be members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a fact that’s hard to determine sometimes when looking at books published for the national market. I have a particular interest in the Speculative and Young Readers (mislabeled Young Adult) categories, given my interests, and while several good books have been nominated, I think that several haven’t made the list for official nominations yet that ought to be.

So, if you have an interest in books by LDS authors published in 2010 that aren’t already official nominations—see the Rules page here for criteria; note that books for young readers need to be at least 20,000 words long and novels for adults need to be 50,000 words long—please feel free to pop over and nominate, especially if you know for a fact that a particular writer is LDS that hasn’t ever been considered for the award. As I said, sometimes it’s hard to determine if an author qualifies; I hate to just assume that someone with ties to BYU is LDS, because I knew plenty of non-Mormons while there as a student, and there are quite a few LDS authors who never lived in Utah or went to BYU as well. Sometimes bios don’t include that information, for obvious reasons—it’s not a professional credit to announce your church affiliation.

Remember, this is just the preliminary nomination—books of merit that should be considered. From there, the committee will whittle each category down to five finalists, and then (I’m fuzzy on the process, but they outline it on their site) will vote on which ones get the awards. So, in my opinion, the list of nominees should be pretty long.

In case anyone was wondering, below are the titles I nominated, to ensure that a large range get considered. I didn’t re-nominate anything that had already had enough votes to get on the list. If you like these books, consider nominating them, or others published last year by LDS authors. My list focuses on the national market, because that’s the market I know best, but you can also nominate books published in the LDS market (sold in LDS bookstores and catalogs).

I had several nominations. This first was for debut novel, but I’m not sure if the author is actually LDS. She has some affiliation with BYU and lives in Utah, but as we all know, that doesn’t mean she is. If anyone can confirm or deny (privately), I can let the committee know.

  • Kristin Chandler, Wolves, Boys, and Other Things that Might Kill Me, Viking

In speculative and/or young readers:

  • James Dashner, The Scorch Trials, Random House (YA or speculative)
  • Ally Condie, Matched, Dutton (it comes out at the end of this month; I’ve read an ARC)
  • James A. Owen, The Dragon’s Apprentice, Simon & Schuster
  • Aprilynne Pike, Spells, HarperTeen
  • Becca Fitzpatrick, Crescendo, Simon & Schuster
  • Mette Ivie Harrison, The Princess & the Snowbird, Bloomsbury
  • Bree Despain, The Lost Saint, Egmont (it comes out Dec. 28; what with the cutoff being so late but the nominations coming so early, I wonder if her Dark Divine ever got nominated for debut last year?)
  • Carol Lynch Williams, Glimpse, Paula Wiseman Books/S&S
  • Julie Berry, Secondhand Charm, Bloomsbury

Meeting authors, Kitty Saturday

- Stacy

I haven’t had a chance yet to post about my time at the Ventura/Santa Barbara SCBWI conference over Halloween weekend. I had a great time—the organizers, including Lee & Low author Alexis O’Neill, the V/SB SCBWI RA, were extremely organized, and it was so nice to meet so many authors and illustrators who are either currently published and working on more books, or who are working toward publication. The other guests, Reuben Pfeffer (agent at East-West Literary Agency) and Andrea Welch (Beach Lane Books) were so nice to talk to. It was a lot to fit a lot into one day! But the organizers were able to do it because they kept everyone on track time-wise.

I had my camera with me, but didn’t take many shots. But one thing I did get a shot of was a milestone that any editor would count as a highlight: getting to meet one of my authors for the first time in person. This time it was Karen Sandler, whose book, Tankborn, will be out with Tu in fall 2011. (And I finally met her agent just this Thursday when we and my coworker Miriam met for hot chocolate at Burdick’s—it makes me happy that Burdick’s opened a New York shop just in time for me to move here. I was in love with their Boston shop when I was in graduate school.)

So here’s me and Karen in California on the day before Halloween:

And just for good measure, we haven’t had some good pictures of my cats around here recently, so here’s a whole buncha cute fluffies for ya.

Resources for writers: Links for reflecting on white privilege and writing the Other

- Stacy 1 Comment

I promised the writers of the Ventura/Santa Barbara SCBWI that I’d post the list of resources I flashed at them at the end of my talk so they’d be able to actually reference them. These should also have been emailed out to the local listservs, but for those who aren’t on those listservs, and I’m sure this list will be of use for anyone thinking about writing someone who is, as Ursula Le Guin says, “a being who is different from yourself. This being can be different from you in its sex; or in its annual income; or in its way of speaking and dressing and doing things; or in the color of its skin, or the number of its legs and heads.” I can’t help but add for that last item: this is speculative fiction we’re talking about, after all. (That’s from her book mentioned below, The Language of the Night, in the essay “American SF and the Other”—a GREAT read for anyone thinking about these issues.)

Nisi Shawl’s Writing the Other—both a workshop and a book
“Appropriate Cultural Appropriation” by Nisi Shawl
“Transracial Writing for the Sincere” by Nisi Shawl
Le Guin, Ursula K. “American SF and the Other,” The Language of the Night. New York: HarperCollins, 1979/1989. (Out of print—your best bet is your local library/interlibrary loan or finding it online used.)
Le Guin, Ursula K. “Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?” The Language of the Night. New York: HarperCollins, 1979/1989.
“Being Poor” by John Scalzi
“Things I Don’t Have to Think about Today” by John Scalzi  paired with his next post on narrative usurpation, covering why he wrote the previous post