Plot Cliches 3 - "To Do" list of the Evil Bitch Other Woman

Now we all need a villain. Who better than a gorgeous, sophisticated but shallow other woman. The bitch! But the Evil Bitch Other Woman has an agenda. Torturing the heroine both mentally and physically are at the top of that "To Do" list. So here it is...

The “To Do” list of every evil bitch other woman…

1. Lock the heroine into a dank and gloomy, dungeon, attic, wine cellar or other musty cobweb filled location.
2. Tell the heroine she is ugly, fat, skinny, short, or gawky so she feels inferior to my physical perfection and desirability.
3. Slip into the hero’s bed nude while he is showering, just in time for the heroine to burst into the room to talk to him.
4. Make sure the hero sees I’m really a bitch so he can fall more in love with the heroine.
5. Claim to be pregnant with the hero's baby.
6. Go shopping with the hero and heroine. Flirt with the hero to get him to buy me furs, designer clothes and jewelry, while the heroine reluctantly yet meekly accepts the hero’s lordly gift offerings, thereby offering the hero a clear comparison between the golddigger (me) and the woman who loves him for himself (the heroine).

These are just a few overused ideas which drive readers nuts. However, just like the hero and heroine list , I've seen authors use these cliches and really fly with them. I knew they were a cliche, but I bought it anyway. And yes, I admit it. I've used them myself. Who among us is without sin on this point? No one. Feel free to add more cliches to the comment section.

Software Upgrade? New blog location!!!

I can hear you asking, why are you on blogger instead of your old location? You had a perfectly good location before! In two words?

Software Upgrade…

Didn’t blogger recently have a new upgrade to their systems? Yup. I logged in, created a google account with an existing e-mail address I had, then the software did the upgrade. No fuss, no muss. I like those kinds of upgrades.

My old blog was maintained with WordPress. I like WordPress, you can do some cool stuff with it. However, they recently instituted a system upgrade. Now I could stay at the old version indefinitely, but then I wouldn't get new capabilities and possible bug fixes. So I checked out the upgrade instructions.

First do a backup. Now this is always good advice, but I haven’t done this kind of backup in years. I’m not a technology librarian for a reason! So I get the backup done - I think. Then I read further. Go to the FTP server and locate such and such a directory. Delete these named files (which I’m not gonna name here) then upload these other files.

Huh?

Now, I may have been a technogeek back in the late 80s/early 90s. I could scoot around MS-DOS like Harry Potter can fly a broom, but it’s been years! And years… And years…. You get the picture.

I looked at my blog. It was pitifully short. I didn’t have tons of entries to transfer. However if I stayed there too much longer, I would. I already use blogger as a public services librarian. My library has a blog (which I created - tooting my own horn here). I know how to use blogger and damn it’s simple. Not only that, but it looks good. The designs are somewhat limited, but manageable. So I switched.

However, I didn’t want to abandon my other blog entirely in case someone had bookmarked the location. (If you did, thank you). I left a redirect. A compass for the directionally challenged (of which I am one). Yes, the directionally challenged is learning to fly a plane. I have a VERY brave flight instructor.

For the record, I didn’t disappear in a flash of smoke. I was not carried off by an alpha male, no matter how much I might want to be. No, I just moved. Blogger is my new home. Visit me here often. Make comments. Have conversations. It’ll be great.

P.S. If you’ve taken the time to comment on my other blog, I want to thank you. I haven’t figured out how to port comments to the new blog. But if I could figure it out, I would do it. If anyone knows how - please post instructions. Remember... Short simple sentences non-technogeeks can understand.

Breaking News - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Book 7

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, book 7, will be released at 12:01 a.m. (just after midnight) on July 21, 2007. I am really looking forward to the book release! Don't expect to talk to me on the 21st or the 22nd. I'll be reading.

BTW, I will be Siriusly ticked if JK kills off Harry.

For more info, check out Scholastic's Web site

Plot Cliches Part Deux - Heroes too stupid to live…

I’m all about equal rights or in this case equal stupidity. Today let us visit heroes who should be removed from the gene pool, preferably by drowning.

Things I’d do if I were a hero too stupid to live…

1. Order the heroine around instead of talking to her as if she possesses a brain capable of cognitive functioning.
2. Assume any male she has a conversation with, or hugs, is her lover, when it is more likely he is her brother (or father).
3. Kidnap the heroine to have her all to myself for no apparent reason (other than as a plot device).
4. View the heroine as a whore because she is sexually active, but praise past lovers as vibrant sensual women.
5. Refuse to tell the heroine I think she’s hot, even though I get a hard on every time she’s in the same room with me.
6. Keep some deep dark secret from the heroine because a.) I want to protect her. b.) I don’t think she’d understand.

That’s just a few to get you started. Feel free to list your pet peeves for heroes in the comment section. Tomorrow, the evil bitch other woman’s “To Do” list…

Plot Cliches - heroines too stupid to live

I put out a chapter or two for critique. At one point (fortunately it was one comment about one thing), my critter said “if your heroine says this she is too stupid to live,” or words to that effect. It got me thinking about plot cliches. We’ve all read them. It doesn’t matter which genre you read or write, cliches abound.

I remember running across a great Web site a few years back (a LOT of years back, but who’s counting). The first time I read it, I was laughing so hard tears rolled down my cheeks and I managed to make it to the bathroom before peeing my pants, but it was a near thing. I don’t go quite that silly over it anymore, but it still has the power to make me laugh. Visit ”The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord” by Peter Anspach and you will begin to understand the mental workings of an evil genius.

In the spirit of the Evil Overlord and as a nod to my critique partner, here is my start to a new compilation list:

Things I’d do if I were a heroine too stupid to live…

1. Who cares about condoms? STDs or pregnancy have no power over me.
2. I solemnly promise to disappear pregnant with the hero’s baby without bothering to ask the hero if what the evil bitch other woman told me was true.
3. I shall allow a minor misunderstanding to become a major issue, when a simple conversation would have cleared matters up on page 10.
4. I will always believe that a man who treats me like crap is a wounded soul who will be made whole solely because I love him.
5. His overprotective mother will love me someday - ditto on dad.
6. If the hero’s overly controlling father offers me money to get out of his life, I'll take it. He deserves someone better than me anyway. codicil: If he truly loves me, he’ll hunt me down someday.
7. If I have a deep dark secret, I will allow some asshole to hold it over my head so that I betray the man I love (aka- the hero). After all, he’ll forgive me because he loves me.

These are just a few. Feel free to add on your own and be thinking. Coming soon to a blog near you, actions of a hero too stupid to live!

Reading as a Writer - A Christmas Carol

Okay, I just had the weirdest experience. I LOVE the Charles Dicken's tale, A Christmas Carol.

To elucidate.... I'm one of those really geeky people who can do comparative analysis about the movie versions based on who starred as Scrooge. There's the Reginald Owen version (1938), the Albert Finney musical version (Scrooge -1970), the definitive Alastair Sims version (1951), etc.

Every so often I return to the book to READ it. This time, I received a visitation from the Ghost of Critique Writers. The ghost who is normally invisible except when you pick up an old favorite to read and he whispers in your ear about how someone could have written something better. Now this is Charles Dickens I'm reading. Right? Widely famed in song and story.

So I curl up to enjoy a good book but as I'm reading through chapter one, I think, "Damn Chuck, what voice is this?" I think it was third person omniscient, but I'm not completely sure. Took me right out of the story. Well, crap.

I push past the Ghost (who is giggling by the way) and keep reading. Well, Dickens digresses maundering about in Scrooge's mind. Okay, keep going. Then I get to a couple of beautifully written paragraphs about the London fog. Though they help to set the tone, these paragraphs in no way advance the story. What are they doing there? Dickens wrote for Londoners. They already knew what the fog was like....

I stopped reading. The Ghost was laughing maniacally by now. I am cursed. Doomed to forever read Dickens like a modern writer. Sigh. I guess I'll just stick to the movies from now on...

Merry Christmas, gov'nor. Merry Christmas!

Midwestern nice can derail your pitch…

My muse has returned from Tahiti, or the NASCAR race where he was hanging out, and damn he’s horny again, thank god! That’s the good news.

I’ve been working on my story, a query letter, and a synopsis while I get more nervous by the minute. I’m almost ready to pitch my story and I’m scared spitless. I could say something else, but I was trying to be polite. I’ve gotten some wonderful feedback from various critique partners, so I think the story will be ready to go when I am.

Now granted, being this close to pitching something isn’t bad news, but being scared sure is. I’ve never been good at selling myself. I’m one of those people who receives a compliment and says thank you, but…. Maybe it’s the midwestern nice in me.

Midwestern nice? What the hell is that, you ask? I’m sure people in other parts of the country do the self-deprecating thing, but it is dangerously prevalent in the midwest. You always have to defer your good acts, cool thoughts, etc. onto other people.

“Yes, I did think of (whatever cool thing you thought of), but I was inspired by Barney Rubble (or whoever), who was instrumental in making it work.”

Instead of grabbing your own limelight and standing smack in the middle of the warm glow, you tug other people in to share the limelight with you until you get lost in the crowd.
I need to get over it. I’m the first one to step up and say, yeah I screwed up and take the hit myself. But when I should be out there selling my own idea or basking in my own glory, I’m trying to duck and cover like a nuclear explosion would occur if I had the temerity to accept a compliment gracefully.

It’s time to learn to toot my own horn, or whatever other cliche applies.

Like Stuart Smalley used to say on Saturday Night Live,

“I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.”

Okay, it wasn’t my idea, but I like the sentiment.