I Don't Speak Subplot - Do I?

I'm using my mom's laptop this morning. It's kind of a longish story, but she bought this snazzy ASUS on my recommendation a couple of years ago and she just HATED it. We could never adjust the cursor to a good speed and, though I looked up solutions to the strange cursor-jumping she experienced, none seemed to definitively solve the problem. I even disable the touch pad and set her up with an external mouse. Finally, in March, we bought her a new laptop for her birthday and she is SO much happier with it.

Big win!

So, a couple of weeks ago, she gave me her ASUS. Just in time, too, since my much-beloved ASUS netbook is receiving each new Windows Update like an octogenarian being tossed in the pool to swim twenty laps.Gasping and drowning, yes. Not to mention the cramps. It remains to be seen if I have the same troubles my mom did. The damn cursor *does* randomly jump. I've turned off the precision select options, so if anyone has other ideas, please let me know!

At any rate, the point of this long story is that I now have the unexpected bonus of accessing all of my mom's photos - including ones like this that I didn't know she took. I feel all spy-ish and am fascinated by the different point-of-view - something I explored in a similar way last week on Word Whores.

All of which has little to do with this week's topic: Subplots - to compare or contrast.

Actually, I'm not entirely sure what this means. Are we meant to compare and contrast subplots or discuss how subplots can be used to compare or contrast... something?

The thing is, and you all know this about me, I'm just not Plotter Girl. Not only do I not pre-plot, I really don't think in terms of PLOT at all. Sometimes my plotter friends ask me questions like "what's the purpose of this scene?" or "how will this fit into the overall arc?" These kinds of questions fill me with panic because I simply *cannot* answer them. I don't KNOW what the purpose of the scene is - it's just what happens. (Every time someone repeats the writing advice that all scenes must have a purpose and move the plot forward, I kind of giggle to myself. How do you know?? But, so far, no one has told me to delete a scene, so I figure I'm doing okay.)

Whenever someone asks me where something fits into the overall arc, I want to say this:

Yeah, my crit partners pretty much hate me.

All of this is a long way of saying that I simply don't speak subplot. I suspect a lot of this comes from me being such a strongly character-driven writer. I mean - do you think of your life in terms of subplots? Sure, we all have to prioritize and focus energy on some tasks and goals above others, but do we think of our children's problems as subplots to our own lives? If we had a plot built, say, around a divorced woman seeking a better life, then her adult daughter's infertility issues and desperate struggle to become pregnant might be a subplot to that, but in real life, it wouldn't feel like that to the mother. It would feel to her like One More Thing to worry about.

That's as much as I can wrap my head around it. I'd be curious, though, to hear from those of you who've read my stories if you think I've used a subplot. I kind of think I don't, but I'm willing to be taught!

Hey, it could happen...

Holidays. Plot Device or Prop?

by Allison Pang

For the record, I'm really of two minds about stories using the holidays as plot devices. Actually, I'm not even sure if this actually applies to just holidays or not, but here goes.

If whatever it is - holiday, character type, sex scene, violence...whatever...if it adds to the story, great. If it's just there as a placeholder...then, not so much.

I'm not sure I even explained that right -but let's take that lovely picture up there and see if I can make it more clear. If the story requires, say, Christmas, as a relevant part of the plot, go for it. If it's just there so you can have hotties blowing candy canes...eh. Get my point? (You could replace that candy cane with something else, and it's probably not going to have any impact whatsover on what's going to happen next, I'm guessing.)

So I guess that's what I mean. If you can tell the same story in a different setting, then the holiday doesn't really mean much.  (Sorta like those Santa Buddy movies I was ranting about on KAK's post the other day. My kids love those movies. I want to pour salt in my eyes every time a puppy starts talking about its bling. The holiday themes here are just excuses to make a buck on using pretty much the same exact plot - just with different bad guys or whatever. That drives me a little crazy. Although you'd think in that case, I'd hate classics like the Charlie Brown specials too, but maybe it's all about presentation. That can go a long way, I suspect. There's really no comparison between dogs that say "Dawg" and watching the Peanuts gang dance.)



To be honest, I don't usually ever pick up theme books (I guess you see those mostly  in contemporary romance though, I think - and I don't read contemporary at all, so I'm not particularly interested in book about secret santa babies and the like.)

Actually - I *do* pick up anthologies, so that's not entirely true. Sometimes it's nice to know what you're getting and to see your favorite authors put an interesting spin on an old trope. (I have to admit to being a tad disappointed in the last few I bought - you'd think that Halloween and vampires would make for some great stories. A few were...but a few were definitely nothing more than plot devices to push some well loved characters through the motions, so there you go...and here's a shameless plug for my own anthology - Carniepunk will be available July 30th, 2013. Hypocrite? Yeah, maybe. *shifty eyes*)

Oh Go Scrooge Yourself: The Holiday Plot

The holidays. The Holy days. They span the year. They are common to all faiths even though their tenets vary. The more wide-spread the faith, the more abundant the available pockets and the more rampant the exploitation.

Bah! Humbug.

Yes, I am one who sees the Mighty Holiday Marketing Machine behind 80% of holiday-centric stories. Yes, publishers are among the businesses powering the machine. The calls for Christmas submissions, the profusion of Valentine anthologies; heck, even Halloween and Easter releases make my cynical eye twitch.


I'll admit, being a Scrooge on the topic of using holidays as a plot device is partially due to my utter lack of interest in contemporary books. While I love historicals, I'll avoid the ones in which a notable religious holiday is centric to the plot.

The exception to my disdain? Samhain.

Wha? hypocrisy? Moi? I'll read a contemporary if it has a unique and heavy paranormal element. The holiday many authors of paranormals use as plot device? Samhain. Perhaps Samhain's reference is so pervasive in specific contemporary sub-genres, the publishers don't hold their releases for the actual holiday. Perhaps it is because many authors focus more on the magical/mystical and less on the religion supporting the holy day, that Samhain books aren't driven by the Mighty Holiday Marketing Machine. Perhaps now that Paranormal and Urban Fantasies are no longer the darling sub-genres of publishing (casts a wary eye at "New Adult"); anything referencing the holy day is bound to the sub-genre rather than ascending it.

Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.

Whatever the reason, whichever the holiday, I'd rather read about grumpkins and hobbits. You can keep the candy-hearts and the mistletoe. 

What about you, dear reader? Are there holiday-themed books to which you are attracted? Are there holiday-themed books you avoid?

Using the Holidays as a Plot Device - from Perky to Perfect

The new weekly theme asks if holidays make for a useful plot device or if they're just a marketing scheme.

Ironically enough, before last night, I would have answered this question differently.

See, I've never been much for "holiday stories." I read a Christmas romance a while back, that a friend gave me, and just *hated* it. Worse, I was trapped on an airplane with nothing else to read - ah, those dark, deprived days before e-readers let us carry huge numbers of books around! - so I read the whole thing. It was about a woman who loves Christmas - she may even have been and elf and I'm pretty sure her name was Holly - who meets this widower with two kids. He's all depressed and the kids are bummed because he's Scroogey. You can guess what happens - she brings Christmas joy into their lives and the two fall in love, sealing it with a Christmas kiss.

Blergh.

Now, to be fair - my friend gave it to me because she loved it. And I know there are plenty of readers out there who are perfectly happy ending with a chaste kiss. That's my own particular parade, that a single, sweet kiss doesn't seal the deal for me. But the rest? Yeah, I totally see that as marketing cash in. As much as I'm a personal fan of the baking and decorating and gift-giving, I know full well that for people who don't enjoy the holidays, dragging them kicking and screaming into it doesn't help anyone.

I've also never written a holiday story. Much as I enjoy the holidays, and as much as I can usually spin a story on most any topic, I just have never seen my way into that kind of story. Every time I try, I think about Holly in all her sprightly perkitude and throw up a little in my mouth.

Not the image we want.

But then, last night, I read Anne Calhoun's story in the Red Hot Holidays anthology from Carina. I confess I read the anthology mainly as research - since I don't read holiday stuff for fun, ever since the Holly Incident - because I'm contemplating something for next year's anthology. Her story, Breath on Embers, had me in tears by the end.

In that story, she took the enormity of holiday pain and used it. The heroine is a woman who lost her husband just before Christmas and her grief is killing her. She avoids everything that smacks of Christmas and seeks out sex to distract herself from the pain. It's hot and erotic sex, yes, but the hero reaches a point where he won't let her use him anymore. He reaches her emotionally through the intimacy of the sex they share. It's powerful and moving and everything a really good erotic story can be.

And it wouldn't have been the same without accessing that very real suffering so many feel during the holidays.

It may have helped that the hero is a brawny fireman and not a perky elf.

Just saying.

Now I'm off to write my story for next year. Though how I'll match what Anne accomplished, I have no idea.