Debra Dixon, GOAL, MOTIVATION & CONFLICT, and Plotting

This last weekend I was lucky enough to attend a workshop headed by Debra Dixon and hosted by the Southwest Florida Romance Writers.

For those of you who are writers, you probably know who Debra Dixon is. She wrote GMC: GOAL, MOTIVATION & CONFLICT, from Gryphon Books for Writers. I consider this to be an essential text for writers, and especially those writers just starting out.

When I first started writing fiction, I was finishing my BS in Geology, starting my Masters in Writing Popular Fiction, and perpetually broke. Buying GOAL, MOTIVATION & CONFLICT at that time, a hardcover book at $20 a pop + shipping, was a splurge for me. But I had heard it referenced time and time again by writers, so I took the plunge and bought it.

Thank the void I did!

No writing book is a bible. No one book will give you all the answers. As writers, we’re all looking for a formula, a magic bullet, a 1, 2, 3 step-by-step guide to best seller fiction.

That does not exist. (Sadly!)

However, this book is one of the VERY BEST tools you can add to your writing toolkit.

I have read it cover to cover at least 4 times over my writing career so far. That is the max number of times I have read any writing book.

What I love about this book:

• Basic language, very approachable. It is not wrapped up in theory.
• Excellent examples that perfectly illustrate the concepts Dixon is preaching.
•   Worksheets. I’m a sucker for something tangible I can take away from a book, and Dixon’s GMC worksheets are excellent.

I have used Dixon’s GMC worksheet on every character, minor or major, in every book I’ve written or worked on, since I first read GMC. It’s not a magic formula, but it is a great jumping off point.

“But, I’m not a plotter, I’m a pantser! This book is useless to me!”

Not true! Dixon takes no concrete stance on whether you need to do this first, mid-book, or when revisions start. She just lays out a basic formula that resonates with the human experience (based on Joseph Campbell’s and Christopher Volgler’s works on storytelling and myth).

The idea of GMC is worth considering no matter what stage of the draft you’re at.

The book is now (finally) available in ebook, if you want that format. Otherwise, if you want the physical book, like me, you want to go directly to the publisher’s website: 

www.Gryphonbooksforwriters.com. It’s cheapest there.

 Now here I am, a decade after I started out as a very poor college student writer, and you can bet your sweet bippy that I STILL have that book, and that I very proudly, like the fangirl that I am, got it signed by Debra Dixon.

Go Forth. Read GMC. And Conquer. 

Quinton Hoover Died???

The homework for the first week of drawing class was to pick a favorite artist and draw a replica of something of theirs. Now, I’m a reader/writer and gaming nerd, not an art history buff, so my favorite artists are all book cover artist and Magic: The Gathering card artists. So, it’s no surprise that Michael Whelan, Quinton Hoover and Rebecca Guay.

I decided against Michael Whelan b/c, while he might be my favorite, what I love most about his book covers is his use of color. For instance, look at this gorgeous cover series for Tad William’s Otherland.

Quinton Hoover was probably an easy first choice because he illustrated one of my all-time favorite MTG cards, Archangel:

That had waaaaaay too much going on for me to draw though, so I looked at some of Rebecca Guay’s stuff. I love her style, it’s very flowy and feminine, but I feel like the power of the image is so color-based that drawing it really wouldn’t look like much.

Quinton Hoover’s style is more graphic, imo. So while I was looking at some of my favorite cards of his, I learned that he had died!!! I had no idea!! He was only 49 when he died. Here’s a great article about Quinton Hoover.

I was heartbroken, and decided that of course I had to draw one of Hoover’s cards! I debated between many, but in the end I settled on Pixie Queen.

Quinton Hoover’s Pixie Queen

My pencil drawing of it, week 1 of class.

Obviously, my Pixie Queen eats a little better than Hoover’s does ;-) She likes her sweetmeats! But overall, for having zero training, I’m pretty happy with it. It’s not 100% done, but I think I’m calling it “done.”

Dreams Do Come True – I got THE CALL

I can finally answer that most magical of questions we writers ask each other: “What were you doing when you got THE CALL?” (“The Call” is that amazing moment when an editor/or your agent calls to say, “we/they want to buy your book!”)

I got THE CALL after work, and I was doing two of my fave things: Listening to The Brother Kite and playing World of Warcraft.

Earlier in the week, my agent, Richard Curtis, had called to tell me that we had “a nibble” on Empress Game, my space opera. Titan Books was apparently interested, and they wanted to know if Empress Game was going to be part of a trilogy. The honest answer? I have no idea! I’d lost a little faith that Empress Game would be “the book” that I sell to a major publisher, and had already moved on to working on a new epic fantasy novel. I hadn’t thought past Empress Game as far as space opera was concerned.

But hey, if you’ve got a publisher’s interest, you better be ready with something!

So I scrambled to come up with 2 book blurbs that might be possible for books 2 and 3 of a trilogy. My two critique partners, Diana Botsford and Jen Brooks were a tremendous help. I called them in a panic, saying “I have no ideas!” and they helped me to realize that of course I had ideas, I just hadn’t considered any of them seriously yet.

The two blurbs were sent and I held my breath, waiting to see if Titan Books was more than just “interested.” When my agent called me two days later with THE CALL, he surprised the heck out me, but not for the reason you’d expect. Here’s what he said:

“I haven’t heard back from Titan yet. I’m calling because Ace Books made an offer on the trilogy.”

I might have fainted.

I definitely said “Holy shit!” (Real professional of me, right?)

So that started off what would be a tense wait. Richard brought the offer over to Titan Books to see if they wanted to counter-offer. One week of intense nail-biting later, I got more amazing news…Titan wanted the book too!

I definitely fainted at that point.

Negotiations ensued, and now I can proudly say, I am the newest Sci-Fi author of TITAN BOOKS!

Here is the announcement of the deal as it appeared on Publisher’s Marketplace:

February 11, 2014
	International rights: UK Fiction		Rhonda Mason's debut EMPRESS GAME, the first in a space-opera trilogy, in which an exiled psionic gladiatrix goes undercover to fight and free her homeworld from imperial occupation and discovers she holds the key to a galaxy-wide struggle for political domination, to Alice Nightingale of Titan, at auction, by Richard Curtis of Richard Curtis Associates (world English). Translation: Baror International Agency

Scandalous -- call for stories!

One of my favorite newer publishers, Entangled Publishing, has an awesome open call for submissions in the historical romance category. Check it out!

Who's That Girl?

Scandalous Books invites you to answer....

 

Who's That Girl?
We invite you to participate in a unique anthology opportunity using a book cover as a writing prompt. Who is the woman in the picture? What is her story? You tell us. We'll choose four stories that entertain us the most. They need to be romance, they need to happen in the early 20th Century, they need to be 20-25k, and they need to be submitted by February 15, 2014. The rest is up to you. We are open to any heat level and any tone. Let your imagination take you someplace fun, intriguing, and most especially...scandalous. 

Please submit to: https://entangledpublishing.submittable.com/submit/19013 

and put Who's That Girl in the ATTN: box.

Get the Elephant Gun, We’re Hunting Agents

I’ve been through the Great Agent Hunt three times now, once with a Regency-set Historical Romance, once with an epic fantasy novel and now with a space-opera. Third time’s a charm, as they say—I landed myself an agent with the space-opera, Empress Ascendant!

I will be represented by literary agent Richard Curtis of Richard Curtis Associates, Inc.

I hate when authors don’t list their agents on their website like it’s some kind of great secret. Especially when, as an unpublished author looking for an agent, one of the first things you’re supposed to do is research which agent represents your favorite authors (the ones your writing is most similar to). Why do we make things so hard for each other?

In the spirit of maybe helping another author out, here are the stats on my agent search:

First queries sent out: January 20^th, 2013
Offer for representation made: February 24^th, 2013

Queries sent: 21
In-person pitches made: 2
Responses: 12*
Requests for partials: 1
Requests for full ms: 3
Query letter rejections: 8

* The number of responses is skewed because I withdrew my query for consideration after receiving the offer from Richard Curtis.

If I can find the stats on how many queries I sent out for my epic fantasy, Sworn Sword, I’ll add that in here too.