Behind the Book: IRISES by Francisco X. Stork

Earlier this year, the ARCs of Francisco Stork's latest novel, Irises, went out with the letter below. It's about the best introduction I can give the book, I think, so I decided I'd just reproduce it here. . . . Irises is in stores starting January 2012 (and there have already been sightings in the wild), and Francisco will be at ALA in Dallas later this month. Thank you for reading it, if you do.

Dear Friend,

As Francisco X. Stork’s editor, I often face a unique challenge:  how to summarize the stories of his extraordinary novels without making them sound totally cheesy. “A young man with Asperger’s syndrome investigates the meaning of suffering”? It seems unlikely, but that was Marcelo in the Real World, which became one of the most acclaimed YA novels of the past few years. “A cancer patient and a boy planning a murder become friends”? Oh, please—but The Last Summer of the Death Warriors just won ALAN’s Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award. In both cases, the marvelous reality and honesty of Francisco’s characters, his fine, spare writing, and his bravery in probing these profound spiritual topics resulted in novels that were so much more than the summaries of their plots, and were embraced by critics and readers alike.

And now you’re holding Irises, in which—deep breath—“Two very different sisters must deal with the death of their father and the life of their mother, who is in a permanent vegetative state.” “But wait!” I want to grab you and say, because again it’s about so much more than that: Kate has ambition and dreams and drive, but how does she weigh the needs of her deepest self against her responsibility to her family? Mary is an artist because she can’t be anything else, but what can she do when she’s lost her own light? Both girls wrestle with the weight of love, for each other, for their mother, and for the three very (very) different young men in their lives. And while none of this is easy, Kate and Mary are so real, our sympathy for them so deep, that this ultimately becomes a book about connection more than division, and about finding new depths of love, vision, and sacrifice.

I believe that Irises will speak not just to Francisco’s many fans in the YA community, but to lovers of books like My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult or The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold:  novels about young women facing life-and-death decisions, for people they love and for themselves. And in these fast-paced times, I truly appreciate you picking up a book that goes beyond easy summary to the very heart of our human dilemmas . . . which sounds cheesy, I know, but what can I do? It’s Francisco X. Stork, and it’s wonderful.

Thank you again for reading Irises, and for sharing it with your fellow readers.

With all best wishes,

Cheryl Klein
Senior Editor

Five Quotes, Three Announcements, and One Link

"Power always thinks it has a great soul." -- John Quincy Adams

“Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change. . . . What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes." -- Gustave Flaubert
    
"In writing, punctuation plays the role of body language. It helps readers hear you the way you want to be heard." -- Russell Baker

"'The cat sat on the mat' is not a story. 'The cat sat on the other cat's mat' is a story." -- John LeCarre

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1. The winners of the StarCrossed/Liar's Moon/Second Sight giveaways were Lindsay Mead, Rachel Stark, Cathy C. Hall, Pat Esden, and Leslie Jordan. For those of you interested in giveaway strategy, both Cathy and Lindsay took full advantage of the opportunity to enter multiple times, and it clearly paid off for them. Congratulations to all!

2. If you live in New York and you're interested in supporting the Occupy movement:  My awesome church, Park Slope United Methodist, is housing protesters in the sanctuary each night, and we're looking for volunteers to sleep overnight there as hosts. (You do not have to attend the church to volunteer.) I did it on Thursday, and it was actually quite lovely -- not the most sleep I've ever gotten, certainly, but an opportunity to chat with some really interesting people devoted to building a better world, in their very particular way, and to give them a place to lay their heads, as the carol goes. If you'd be up for it, e-mail me at the address on my website and I'll put you in touch with the coordinator.

(My friend Rachel, being mischievous, asked me if we would put up Tea Party people as well should they ask for shelter; and I'd like to think we would, though I also think most Tea Partiers would be too horrified by my church to want to shelter there. A soup kitchen, an all-inclusive marriage policy, a Christmas pageant that included "Occupy Bethlehem" jokes, an emphasis on social and economic justice . . . The Koch brothers' heads would implode! (I admit the glee I take in that idea is neither particularly welcoming nor becoming. It's a process.))

3. Registration opens on December 22 for my March 3, 2012 Master Class on Plot in Spokane, Washington, via SCBWI Inland Empire. Details: here.

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Finally, if you saw "Breaking Dawn," you also need to see this: "Breaking Dawn" in 15 Minutes.

Behind the Book: Three Things Writers Can Learn from Liar's Moon, Part III

Again: If you are here for the giveaway, scroll on down!
If you are here because you're interested in the $2.99 e-book of StarCrossed, yay you! Click here for details about where to buy it.
And if you are here for writing craft stuff, read on. 

3. Recognize the Power of a Damn Good Outline. 

As anyone who’s read Second Sight knows, I love a good outline (or a bookmap, as I call them there), and as pretty much all of my authors know, I am sort of insane about using them. That’s because an outline allows you both to see the action of an entire book laid out in just a few pages, and to break down how that action and the characters involved are developing scene by scene . . . what's changing, what’s not feeling necessary, what maybe should be added, how I as a reader am reacting to the characters and events as we go along. Sometimes I will ask authors to outline their book at the same time I’m doing it, and it’s always fascinating to compare what I as a reader am taking away from each chapter versus what they see in it.

Anyway, because the narrative structure of Liar’s Moon was so complex, I ended up outlining it in four different ways at various stages in the process, and I thought it might interest you all to see those various drafts. In the first one, my Basic Bookmap, I outlined the events in detail in the order in which they unfolded in the plot, in which Chapter 2 was described like this:

Ch. 2/11 – Durrel helps her clean up. He’s there because they think he murdered his wife Talth Ceid by a poison called Tincture of the Moon. Only people against him = Talth’s family. Account of murder night on p. 17. Raffin Taradyce has joined the Acolyte Guard. Someone has bailed Digger out, and she leaves. Durrel asks her to take a message to his father.

(The “11” was the page number on which the chapter started.) That helped me wrap my head around the basic events of the book, and I made notes in bullet points underneath or sometimes within those descriptions. The first draft of this outline is just for me, but later, after I’ve processed all my reactions to the book and determined what’s most necessary and helpful for an author to hear from me at this stage, I’ll often edit both the chapter descriptions and the notes and send this outline to the author as part of an editorial letter.

Once I had the whole book in my head this way, I broke this down into my second outline, a Mini-Map with just the key events of this chapter, to wit:

2 – meets Durrel, learns about murder of Talth

 A Mini-Map is useful for quick reference—answering questions like “Okay, now when did she find that dead body again?”—especially in long or plot-dense novels like this one.

The third version, the Plot Points Map: I went through and identified where each of the many mystery plots started, labeling it in bullet points and all caps under each chapter. Then I added any LIES told in the chapter, or any TRUTHS UNCOVERED, to help keep track of what Digger knew was true when; and polished it off with a SETS UP, so I knew what the reader was expecting to happen based on the action of this chapter, and I could be sure that the later action of the book followed up on that and paid it off. (I also sometimes added TO ADD if there was information we needed earlier, TO MOVE if something was going elsewhere, or TO CUT if something wasn’t feeling necessary.) That changed the look of this Chapter 2 outline to this:

2 – meets Durrel, learns about murder of Talth
    •    MYSTERY: Who killed Talth Ceid?
    •    LIES:  Durrel says that he doesn’t know how the poison got into his room
    •    SETS UP:  expectation that Digger will go by Charicaux and talk to Ragn
    •    UNDERSTOOD THREAT & MOTIVATION:  The Ceid are out for Durrel’s blood in revenge for Talth’s death.

Finally, because this is a mystery novel, and mysteries move forward in part by digging backward, I created a chronological list of events that started a couple of years before the action of this book began—before the murder was even committed, in fact. This “Backwards Outline” chronicled all of the complex series of events leading up to the murder, and also narrated the events of the night of the murder itself. That way we could be sure that the backstory structure was sound by seeing that all of its events were there; and once that backstory structure was in place, and events arrived at the point at which the action of the book actually began, we could concentrate on when to reveal those backstory events in the frontstory for maximum effect. While revealing any of that backstory would be spoiling you for the reveals in the book itself, here’s where the action picks up with the book’s beginning:
 


TWO MONTHS LATER (when the book begins)
    31.    (Ch. 1) Digger, pickpocketing, is roughed up and arrested by the King’s guards.
    32.    Taken to the King’s Keep, she is thrown into Durrel’s cell and (2) they talk about the murder.
             a.    MYSTERY:  Who killed Talth Ceid?
    33.    Digger’s friend Rat bails her out (courtesy of a note attached to 50 crowns) and she leaves the Keep.
             a.    MYSTERY:  Who sent the note to bail Digger out? And if this was arranged on Durrel’s behalf, who got her sent there in the first place?
    34.    (3) Digger asks Rat to track the paper of the note. (4) She decides she will investigate the murder.
             a.    Digger’s belief:  Durrel is innocent; no idea about other suspects.
    35.    Digger goes to Bal Marse and finds it abandoned and empty, but with traces of magic about.
             a.    MYSTERY:  How is Talth tied to magic?

Here, you can see, I started numbering the events so that it was easy to refer to them later—for instance, later in the outline, after Talth’s murderer was revealed, I noted in the outline that that SOLVED MYSTERY 32a. Such a strategy helped me keep track of all the plot threads flying in the wind and making sure there weren’t any loose ends we didn’t intend to leave dangling. (Some we intended.) And when Elizabeth and I were having editorial conversations about the book, it was very easy to say, “Okay, so let’s move events 45-49 to Chapter 8 so that we don’t reveal that information too early in the process.” If I can speak as a proud editor for a moment, the fact that I could make a Backwards Outline for this book is precisely what makes Elizabeth such a great writer: how densely and completely she’s imagined and written the world she’s created, and how well she brings it to life. 



Lesson for Writers:  I am completely agnostic on whether writers should outline their books before they do a first draft: That’s up to the writer and their working style and their relationships with their stories and characters. But once that first draft is done, do consider making an outline like one of the ones above, tailored to your own manuscript’s needs, to help you see the book afresh in both its component pieces and as a whole.

And did all this work on Liar’s Moon pay off? Well, check out these reviews:

• Leila Roy at Bookshelves of Doom and Kirkus Reviews: "The first time through, you’ll concentrate on figuring out the world and meeting the characters and following the story. But when you read them again, you’ll notice how multilayered they are. You’ll notice hints and subtleties of character and plot, and you’ll notice just how carefully they are crafted. You’ll notice that the characters are fully realized people—so much so that it’s easy to forget that they’re fictional creations, even if they do live in a world with three moons."
• Publishers’ Weekly Children’s Bookshelf Galley Pick of the Week: "It's a very versatile story—perfect for a display of mysteries, fantasy, adventure, or novels with powerful heroines. Liar’s Moon will definitely be one of my very favorite handsells for the fall and holiday seasons, particularly for my fans of Patricia Wrede, Kristin Cashore, Tamora Pierce, and Megan Whalen Turner."
• VOYA: “As with StarCrossed, Bunce excels in weaving together several plot points and characters without weighing down the novel. Fan of [Kristin] Cashore’s Graceling will greatly enjoy Digger’s unique voice and strength of character, along with Bunce’s ability to fully immerse readers in a finely crafted world.  This book, along with its prequel, should be on most library shelves as both have a wide appeal….”

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The Giveaway Runs Through Midnight Wednesday!

I wrote earlier about the terrific deal we’re offering on the digital version of StarCrossed, which continues through the end of the month. But there is no time like the present to get the word out about it! To that end, I’m having a giveaway here, with the chance to win a signed hardcover set of BOTH StarCrossed and Liar’s Moon, OR a signed paperback copy of my Second Sight . . . and I’m offering five prizes in total, so your odds are very good! To enter:

If you’re on Twitter, retweet this message between now and 11:59 p.m. next Wednesday, December 14:

Elizabeth Bunce’s STARCROSSED is now $2.99 on e-book—RT for the chance to win a hardcover + LIAR'S MOON! http://bit.ly/uNZiKv @chavelaque

Or you can post about this on your blog or LJ (with a link back to this blog post) and leave the link to your post in the comments below, also by 11:59 p.m. EST on Wednesday the 14th. Or both! Each individual tweet or blog post counts as a new entry, so each one increases your chances. (They’re like tesserae in the Hunger Games!) (A link on Twitter to YOUR blog post does not count toward the giveaway, though.) Once all the comments and RTs are in, I’ll pick three names out of a hat and announce the winner on the 16th.

So to do this legal-style:

1. How to Enter via Twitter: Using your Twitter account, follow @chavelaque and then re-tweet my original tweet of “Elizabeth Bunce’s STARCROSSED is now $2.99 on e-book—RT for the chance to win a hardcover + LIAR'S MOON! http://bit.ly/uNZiKv @chavelaque” Please note that the phrase “@chavelaque” MUST be in your message or your entry will not be counted. Tweets must be retweeted between 12/7/11, 9 am EST and 12/14/11, 11:59 pm EST (the “Entry Period”). You can tweet as many times as you like in the Entry Period.
2. How to Enter via Blog/LJ: Post about the $2.99 sale or this giveaway on your blog or unlocked LJ, then leave a link to your post in the comments below. Your post MUST include a link to this post. Also, you MUST leave your own link in the comments on this post between 12/7/11, 9 am EST and 12/14/11, 11:59 pm EST or your entry will not be counted. Post as many times as you like during the Entry Period.
3. The Prizes: Three (3) winners will each receive one (1) hardcover copy of both StarCrossed and Liar’s Moon (Approximate Retail Value $35.98). Two (2) winners will each receive (1) copy of Second Sight (Approximate Retail Value $16.99). Everyone will receive my undying gratitude.

Thank you for participating, and I hope you win!

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili

One more for my personal-blog-recipe file. . . . There are surely other recipes for this, but I love this one for its extra tang of cocoa and lime. Note:  The recipe is very black bean-heavy as written, so you could easily drop a can or double the sweet potatoes and red peppers to even out the proportions.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
Zest and juice of 1 lime
1 28-can diced tomatoes
4 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed and drained (or 6 cups freshly cooked)
1 jalapeno chile pepper, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
1 lime, cut into wedges
1 cup chopped cilantro leaves, washed and dried

1. Warm the oil in a large pan over medium heat and add the onion, red pepper, garlic, and salt. Saute until soft, about 4 minutes.
2. Add the sweet potato and lime zest, and cook 10 to 15 minutes more, continuing to stir occasionally.
3. Add the tomatoes, black beans, jalapeno, lime juice, cumin, chili powder, and cocoa, bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for 10 minutes.
4. Serve over brown rice, if desired, with lime wedges and cilantro, or with corn bread, biscuits, or taco chips alongside.

Serves 6.

Behind the Book: Three Things Writers Can Learn from Liar's Moon, Part II

Again: If you are here for the giveaway, scroll on down!
If you are here because you're interested in the $2.99 e-book of StarCrossed, yay you! Click here for details about where to buy it.
And if you are here for writing craft stuff, read on.

2. The More Readers Find to Be Interested in a __________, the More They Care, and the More They’ll Read

The blank above could be filled with “Plot,” “Character,” or ultimately “Book”—but here I’m going to talk about character, because really what I want to discuss is stakes, and the best stakes an author can create is the reader’s interest in the characters. If readers want to hang out with your protagonist, because he or she says or does interesting things, then they’ll just generally go along with stuff for a while, I think, even if they’re a little puzzled or nothing seems to be happening. More importantly long-term, readers will experience all the action that happens to your protagonist the same way the protagonist experiences it, as well as the joy, the fear, and the pain that goes along with it—and as the creation of emotion is the highest goal of an artist, having your reader be interested in your characters is a significant first step.

Liar’s Moon had an advantage here in that it was a (standalone) sequel to StarCrossed, so a fair amount of our readership would be coming to us from the previous book, and they’d already be interested in Digger, the sneak-thief who pretended to be an escaped nun, got caught up in a rebellion, and then fomented religious civil war.* But when you have an Act I like that in StarCrossed, you need a pretty spectacular Act II; and that means making readers care not just about Digger, but the people around her and the action she’s pursuing.

In this book, as established on Wednesday, that action is a mystery—a murder investigation. Readers get invested in mysteries because they care about (A) the abstract idea the mystery represents (in this case, justice), (B) the victim of the mystery, if there is one, (C) other people affected by the crime, or (D) what’s in it for the detective . . . though really I don’t think readers ever really care about (A) until it’s played out in (B) or (C). With (B), the murder victim here is Talth Ceid, Durrel’s much older wife, who wed him in what was acknowledged by everyone involved to be a marriage of convenience, uniting her wealth with his noble name. Digger never met her personally, so everything we know about her we get from the people Digger talks to -- and Talth’s pretty quickly established as a woman whom no one liked, including Durrel.

That leads us on to (C). In Liar’s Moon’s case, the primary “other person affected by the crime” was Durrel, who was being framed for Talth’s murder. So we had to make readers care about Durrel -- a guy whom Digger had met briefly, and liked, at the beginning of StarCrossed, but who was then absent for four-fifths of the book.** Since the mystery of Talth's murder structures all of this book, and the mystery is driven by Digger’s connection to and interest in Durrel, we had to get Digger to like him again and feel pretty invested in him tout suite once the story started. Fortunately, they're very quickly thrown into contact (literally), as Digger gets picked up on the street (also literally) and tossed into Durrel's jail cell for unknown reasons.

I have a list on my bulletin board at work of fourteen qualities that make characters attractive to readers (or at least to me, I suppose). As I reread Digger’s first encounter with him now, Durrel quickly fulfills #9, Kindness, in the way that he immediately is concerned about Digger when she appears in his cell:

     “What’s going on? What are you doing here?”
     “I don’t know,” Durrel said. “This is very odd. You’re injured.” I touched my face, which was streaked with blood from the cut under my eye. “Let’s get you cleaned up, at least.”

#11, Humor/Wit, in that he has a sense of (black) humor about his situation:

“They think I murdered my wife.” . . . Durrel saw the expression on my face and gave an attempt at a wan smile. “It surprised me too.”

And most especially #8, Jeopardy, because all the circumstantial evidence points to him:

“Isn’t it always the husband?” A twisted smile tried to form itself on his lips, but died prematurely. “They found vials of the Tincture in my rooms. But it wasn’t mine—” He turned back into the shadows. “They’re going to execute me, Celyn.”

As their conversation goes along, it warms up, as Digger rediscovers her appreciation of his company:  “Something about Lord Durrel made him too easy to talk to.” He becomes more optimistic about his situation in talking to her as well (#10, Positivity):

    “We’re left with a puzzle,” Durrel said, and there was a lively spark to his voice that seemed all out of place.
    “Pox,” I said. “I hate puzzles.”

And thus Digger discovers her own (D) above, what’s in it for her to investigate this case—both a personal mystery, in finding out who would have arranged for her to be thrown in with Durrel, which is surely not a coincidence; and a personal desire, that she likes Durrel (and maybe even starts to "like­-like" him), and doesn’t want to see him executed. Thus, by the end of Chapter 2, the plot is set; Digger and we readers care, so the stakes are set too; and the book is well on its way.

Lesson for Writers:  Cheryl’s Fourteen Qualities of Attractive Characters***:

1. Newness (someone I haven’t seen before)
2. Viewpoint (the POV character)
3. Desire (the character wants something)
4. Expertise
5. Friends (the character likes or is liked by people the reader likes))
6. Enemies (the character is disliked by people the reader dislikes, so we like the character -- Harry Potter being hated by the Dursleys is the classic example)
7. Action (the character does something)
8. Jeopardy (being in it)
9. Kindness
10. Positivity (a good attitude in general)
11. Humor/Wit
12. Enthusiasm (passion for one specific thing)
13. Complication (meaning that while they have at least one likeable element, as per #9-12 generally, they do experience darker & deeper emotions)
14. Mystery (the character is keeping secrets, even from the reader)

This is by no means an exhaustive list -- I actually added two more qualities today in talking about it with Elizabeth -- and it's mostly a first-impressions list, too, as the qualities I find attractive in a character at the beginning of the book are different from the ones I expect to have developed by the middle, somewhat. But as a rule of thumb, the more of these qualities your characters demonstrate, the more readers will be inclined to be interested in them, and the more they’ll be invested in the action of your book as well. And if someone tells you they don't like your protagonist (and you want them to), or they find him boring or bland, see if you can develop some of these qualities in her, or place her in circumstances that create these qualities, and go from there.

On Monday, Part III:  Outlines, outlines, outlines!
_________________________________
* Yes, Digger is that awesome. And hey, don’t you want to read StarCrossed? It’s $2.99 on e-book right now…
** Since we knew Durrel would play a major role in this book, we were at pains to keep him present in the reader’s mind throughout StarCrossed, which Elizabeth accomplished by having him give Digger a present she used throughout that book.
*** I will be talking about these qualities in more depth at the Florida SCBWI conference over Martin Luther King Day weekend, if you’re looking for a January break.

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The Giveaway Is Still Going On!

I wrote earlier about the terrific deal we’re offering on the digital version of StarCrossed, which runs through the end of the month. But there is no time like the present to get the word out about it! To that end, I’m having a giveaway here, with the chance to win a signed hardcover set of BOTH StarCrossed and Liar’s Moon, OR a signed paperback copy of my Second Sight . . . and I’m offering five prizes in total, so your odds are very good! To enter:

If you’re on Twitter, retweet this message between now and 11:59 p.m. next Wednesday, December 14:

Elizabeth Bunce’s STARCROSSED is now $2.99 on e-book—RT for the chance to win a hardcover + LIAR'S MOON! http://bit.ly/uNZiKv @chavelaque

Or you can post about this on your blog or LJ (with a link back to this blog post) and leave the link to your post in the comments below, also by 11:59 p.m. EST on Wednesday the 14th. Or both! Each individual tweet or blog post counts as a new entry, so each one increases your chances. (They’re like tesserae in the Hunger Games!) (A link on Twitter to YOUR blog post does not count toward the giveaway, though.) Once all the comments and RTs are in, I’ll pick three names out of a hat and announce the winner on the 16th.

So to do this legal-style:

1. How to Enter via Twitter: Using your Twitter account, follow @chavelaque and then re-tweet my original tweet of “Elizabeth Bunce’s STARCROSSED is now $2.99 on e-book—RT for the chance to win a hardcover + LIAR'S MOON! http://bit.ly/uNZiKv @chavelaque” Please note that the phrase “@chavelaque” MUST be in your message or your entry will not be counted. Tweets must be retweeted between 12/7/11, 9 am EST and 12/14/11, 11:59 pm EST (the “Entry Period”). You can tweet as many times as you like in the Entry Period.
2. How to Enter via Blog/LJ: Post about the $2.99 sale or this giveaway on your blog or unlocked LJ, then leave a link to your post in the comments below. Your post MUST include a link to this post. Also, you MUST leave your own link in the comments on this post between 12/7/11, 9 am EST and 12/14/11, 11:59 pm EST or your entry will not be counted. Post as many times as you like during the Entry Period.
3. The Prizes: Three (3) winners will each receive one (1) hardcover copy of both StarCrossed and Liar’s Moon (Approximate Retail Value $35.98). Two (2) winners will each receive (1) copy of Second Sight (Approximate Retail Value $16.99). Everyone will receive my undying gratitude.

Thank you for participating, and I hope you win!

Behind the Book: Three Things Writers Can Learn from Liar's Moon, Part I

If you are here for the giveaway, scroll on down!
If you are here because you're interested in the $2.99 e-book of StarCrossed, yay you! Click here for details about where to buy it.
And if you are here for writing craft stuff, read on.

Three Things Writers Can Learn from Liar's Moon by Elizabeth C. Bunce

1. Know What Sort of Story You're Writing.

This was Elizabeth’s and my third book together, after the Morris Award-winning A Curse Dark as Gold and the acclaimed StarCrossed. It was also her third mystery novel. But we had a significant advantage in approaching Liar’s Moon editorially: We knew it was a mystery novel from the beginning!

You see, if either one of us had had to describe Curse or StarCrossed early on, we would have called them historical fantasy. They had magic, they were each rooted in a sense of a specific time period and place (though both exist in fantasy versions of that place), and most of the historical details were accurate to that time and place. But in the course of working on both books, we realized that while the clothing on these books was most definitely historical fantasy, the skeletons beneath them were Mystery plots -- where our heroine needed to uncover a piece of information -- twined with Conflict plots, as forces or people worked to keep that information from her.

And this changed our approach to both books, because mysteries require so much advance setup: the creation of a coherent backstory that established the thing that’s a mystery to our heroine; the laying-in of the clues; scenes dramatizing the discovery of those clues; red herrings, and the demolition of those herrings; the creation of obstacles both passive (a giant castle to be searched, say) and active (a relative who wants to keep the information hidden); a climax dramatizing the revelation of the answer . . . all paced properly and carefully interwoven with the other plotlines. And as a result, we had to go back and invent new scenes, hide new clues, even add or delete other plot threads to give those central structuring Mysteries their proper weight. This is all part of the novelist’s job, of course, and Elizabeth pulled it off beautifully in both books. But we definitely experienced small but significant moments of brain-shift when we said: “Oh yes: Mysteries”

Liar’s Moon was by far the easiest editorial process of the three books so far, partly because we always knew it was a mystery novel: Digger’s friend Durrel Decath has been imprisoned for murdering his wife Talth, so Digger sets out to prove his innocence, which also involves proving someone else’s guilt. These questions spring up straightaway:

• When and how did Talth die?
• If that method of death requires skill or particular equipment (in Liar’s Moon’s case, it’s a rare poison called Tincture of the Moon), who has access to that skill or equipment?
• Who did she interact with before she died?
• When and by whom was she found?
• Who might want Talth dead?
• Why would they want Talth dead?
• Who could attest to her relationships with these people? 
• What was Durrel's relationship with Talth in particular?
• Is he an innocent bystander, or is he being framed? If the latter, why?
• Is anyone hiding anything? (Answer in this book’s case: Oh hells yes.)

So by the end of Chapter 2, Digger has about thirty things to do for her investigation, and the game’s afoot, and the action in the novel is flying forward. And that is why mysteries are so useful in novels, and worth all the complications involved in setting them up:  because the payoff in terms of intriguing the reader and making things happen is so huge and immediate.

Lesson for Writers: Once you have the story of the book down, figure out what the underlying skeleton of your plot is, and rethink your book accordingly. An easy way to determine the nature of that skeleton is to look at the climax. . . . To immodestly quote a formula from Second Sight:

• If your story’s climax involves a big fight and someone wins and someone loses, that’s a Conflict.
• If it involves a piece of information being revealed, that’s a Mystery.
• And if two characters get together, or the character can achieve something they haven’t been able to before—that’s probably a Lack plot.

On Friday, Part II in this series: How to make a murder matter.

And now: GIVEAWAY!

I wrote earlier about the terrific deal we’re offering on the digital version of StarCrossed, which runs through the end of the month. But there is no time like the present to get the word out about it! To that end, I’m having a giveaway here, with the chance to win a signed hardcover set of BOTH StarCrossed and Liar’s Moon, OR a signed paperback copy of Second Sight . . . and I’m offering five prizes in total, so your odds are very good! To enter:

If you’re on Twitter, retweet this message between now and 11:59 p.m. next Wednesday, December 14:

Elizabeth Bunce’s STARCROSSED is now $2.99 on e-book—RT for the chance to win a hardcover + LIAR'S MOON! http://bit.ly/uNZiKv @chavelaque

Or you can post about this on your blog or LJ (with a link back to this blog post) and leave the link to your post in the comments below, also by 11:59 p.m. EST on Wednesday the 14th. Or both! Each individual tweet or blog post counts as a new entry, so each one increases your chances. (They’re like tesserae in the Hunger Games!) (A link on Twitter to YOUR blog post does not count toward the giveaway, though.) Once all the comments and RTs are in, I’ll pick three names out of a hat and announce the winner on the 16th.

So to do this legal-style:

1. How to Enter via Twitter: Using your Twitter account, follow @chavelaque and then re-tweet my original tweet of “Elizabeth Bunce’s STARCROSSED is now $2.99 on e-book—RT for the chance to win a hardcover + LIAR'S MOON! http://bit.ly/uNZiKv @chavelaque” Please note that the phrase “@chavelaque” MUST be in your message or your entry will not be counted. Tweets must be retweeted between 12/7/11, 9 am EST and 12/14/11, 11:59 pm EST (the “Entry Period”). You can tweet as many times as you like in the Entry Period.
2. How to Enter via Blog/LJ: Post about the $2.99 sale or this giveaway on your blog or unlocked LJ, then leave a link to your post in the comments below. Your post MUST include a link to this post. Also, you MUST leave your own link in the comments on this post between 12/7/11, 9 am EST and 12/14/11, 11:59 pm EST or your entry will not be counted. Post as many times as you like during the Entry Period.
3. The Prizes: Three (3) winners will each receive one (1) hardcover copy of both StarCrossed and Liar’s Moon (Approximate Retail Value $35.98). Two (2) winners will each receive (1) copy of Second Sight (Approximate Retail Value $16.99). Everyone will receive my undying gratitude.

Thank you for participating, and I hope you win!