Some c/e highlights...

I do work on a wide variety within genre. Horror, dark fiction, GLBTQ sf/f romances, fantasy, sf/f alternate universes, YA, urban fantasies, paranormal fantasies, and much more. Just because I enjoyed working on a project doesn't mean you'll automatically like reading it, of course.

So I highly recommend checking genre first -- unless you, like me, have widely catholic tastes in reading (catholic the adjective, not the religion). If you like being surprised, then just leap in. That's what I do. :D

=-=

In 2014, I was offered Tekken: The Dark History of Mishima. That was fun. Only time I've ever been allowed to use "cartoon physics" as a guideline.

Tekken was translated into English, by an editor I knew... and who'd recruited me for my first paying gig as a freelancer. I really enjoyed working again with her.

Short break for Cabin Pressure.

Quotes in Tweets provided by the ever brilliant Cabin Pressure transcriber, Ariane Devere, over at the Cabin Pressure Fans site.

"This week, Abu Dhabi."

How long can a cat survive in an unheated hold at 34k feet? | I used to know this one. It’s always coming up in pub quizzes. #CabinPressure
— Anne Zanoni (@ninja_CE) September 29, 2014

Douglas: Now then, is it three hours and twenty-eight seconds, or is that a weasel in a submarine? #CabinPressure
— Anne Zanoni (@ninja_CE) September 29, 2014

Doctor Who

Friends, acquaintances, and even chance-met Whovians will ask me why I don't watch New Doctor Who.  It's not my Doctor Who, really.

I would rather read about New DW.

I can name the actors who played the first seven Doctors (even if I sometimes get the incarnation numbers out of order, until I do run through the names).  I loved all the old Doctors... well, except for Colin Baker's Doctor, who I think needed to be in that booth that helps the Doctors adjust to new regenerations.

It's hard to explain how New DW just doesn't appeal to me.

So think of it this way:  Book covers are chosen to appeal to the target audience.  The art may not match what is exactly described inside the book, but that is what they're meant to do.  Attract the right readers.

Speech tags: volume 2

So why don't action tags replace speech tags?

Because what you do isn't what you say.  Plus, action can happen at the same time as dialog, and frequently does.  Just to make things more exciting.  :)

When I'm working, or even talking about them, I tend to divide books into two categories of What Characters Do.  This might be a holdover from reading lots of dramas, possibly -- but if you think about it, that's how plays are.  Action or dialog.  Doing or speaking.

There's actually more categories, but as I haven't got OSC's writing book handy, you're stuck with my categories today.

Speech tags: volume 1

I'll be typing up a short series of posts about speech tags. I want to lay down what speech tags are -- and why action tags don't replace speech tags -- and where you really deeply need to use them. What the point of having speech tags is. All that good stuff.

I'm going to pretend for this that exceptions don't exist until I'm done with these posts.


Let's start with my best worst example, Ellery Queen.

"That's it!" cried Ellery.

"Well, if that's what you think," laughed Ellery.

"Not again," Ellery muttered to himself.


Only one of these is a speech tag. One is almost a speech tag.

The first two are action tags. If Ellery 'cried out' then it would be a real speech tag. Crying is an action; laughing is an action.

A speech tag is what you use with dialog -- he said/she said, or asked, or any of a number of words that mean you spoke. Exclaimed is a speech tag. Whimpered, giggled, gasped, smiled, frowned, sighed... are all action tags. They're actions. Hissed is an action, even though it's often used [without sibilants!] as a speech tag.


Speech tags are important. Readers need them. I'll be saying that frequently, or variants on that theme. I'm not there, I can't see your characters; I'm not on the phone, I can't hear them. Make them clear to me when they speak!