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I've been working on a few articles for L.A. Romance Authors' newsletter. This month I have two, but there's another I'm working on. Last year I wrote one titled Writing Into Battle about how plotting a battle is different from how a person usually plots a book. This next article is an expansion into the different types of battles there are and how to handle the characters involved. It's not really about weapons, but more along the lines of how different types of characters would match up against each other.
I'm considering doing this as a presentation at Nationals in Dallas next year. The workshop would include how to plot a battle, which characters are involved in what battles, and how to make the match visceral to everyone reading.
I'm just not sure how to spin my "credentials" on this one. I know about this from watching the WWE and examining how they tell a story with a fight. I've studied how battles are done in books and films when there's lots of them within the story. I'm a baseball fan and that's all about a pitcher outwitting the batter--or the manager outwitting the other manager. And I've been coached about it by my husband, a man who, until his knees gave way at the tender age of 16, had been offered a chance to train with professional wrestlers and had been scouted for three major league baseball teams.
Let me be clear, this isn't a workshop about tactics. It's about what the WWE calls the "psychology" of a match. How to make the audience boo the "heel" and cheer the "face." And how to make a "tweener" believeable when they switch sides.
On to other things.
The other day my August Romance Writers Report came in the mail, and I sat down and read my little eyeballs out. The interview with Nora Roberts was particularly fascinating. I took some of what she said and used it. I did the revision of Spellbinder's first chapter and finally am in love with it. Now I know what she means by she has to fall in love with the characters. And I've discovered that some of what works for her just might work for me.
My best friend has the camera, so I can't take a picture of my new Spellbinder collage until she returns from work. The collage is huge, though. I'm not sure it'll fit on my desk while I'm writing. I'll have to get an easel to prop it up.
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