Current Affairs

Teach Your 14-Year-Old How To Write Gay Fanfic Porn

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Skrike discovered a lengthy primer at Fanthropology on teaching 14-year-olds how to write better explicit gay fanfic.  Here’s some of their advice:

So how do you make a fourteen year old write better fan fiction? More important,
according to a fourteen year old acquaintance, how do you make your fourteen
year olds write better m/m slash?

Sex and intimacy, important components of slash and good slash. Another
component is fan fiction, m/m slash culture. The last component, and possibly
the most important one, is putting all of that stuff together.

Teaching
all this is not a simple thing. Remember, this age group isn’t always the most
receptive to valuing feedback in certain forms, isn’t necessarily writing to
learn about writing to become better writers. They write for fun, like feedback,
can and do use it to become better writers.

But hot damned, how do you teach a person to write in character? How do you
teach your teenage m/m slash fan to write in character in the context of a story
involving two guys going at it? There are two options that come immediately to
mind.

Sex and intimacy. Ouch and wow. My fourteen year old Good Charlotte slash
writing buddy’s answer to teaching her teen friends on how to write better
slash? Pop them all in front of a television, watch a little gay porn and they
should be set. My reaction to that as a twenty-five year old not interested in
gay porn was horror. There is this double edged sword here. Younger writers can
teach their own, to a certain degree, about the sexually explicit material and
how to write it using those examples. Adults teaching a fourteen year old how to
write erotic or pornographic sex scenes featuring two guys, citing pornography
and adult material, this might be a bit of an ethical nightmare and legal
liability.

The next thing to do is create general rec
lists of stories featuring m/m sex scenes. To cover your butt legally,
make sure the story ratings and contents are spelled out and don’t
explicitly label your rec list as “Read these teenage writers! Read
them and behold the writing of good m/m slashy sex scenes that will
make you wet! Yeah!” Try for something a bit more subdued and less
obvious. You get good examples out there and no one needs to be the
wiser that you have ulterior motives of teaching the teeny fangirls how
to become better m/m slash writers.

If it wasn’t for the good people at Fanthropology, imagine all the poor kids who wouldn’t have a clue how to write convincing fanfic sex scenes for Kirk and Spock, Harry and Ron,  and Willy Wonka and friends. Thank you, Fanthropology, for this important public service. I’m sure pedophiles everywhere appreciate it.

Maybe now professor Robin Reid will write an article for kids on how to write "Real Person Slash Fanfic." Wouldn’t that be nice?

The Dangers of using Boilerplate Text In Your Writing

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My friend author Twist Phelan pointed me to a NY Times article about comic Chris Elliott who, in researching his new comic novel  SHROUD OF THE THWACKER  on the web, inadvertently mistook an online spoof for genuine history and now has to share his royalties with the man he inadvertently stole from.

To his satirical 19th-century mix of gas-powered wooden cellphones and imagined New York landmarks like the original Ray’s Pizzeria, Mr. Elliott adds a minor but
intriguing character named Boilerplate, a robot said to be developed by the inventor Archibald Campion in the late 1800’s. According to a deliciously detailed Internet site that tracks the robot’s history (bigredhair.com), Boilerplate was designed to replace humans in combat; it took part in Roosevelt’s campaign at San Juan Hill, joined the hunt for Pancho Villa, and fought in and, ultimately, disappeared during World War I.

But in fact, Boilerplate never was. It is the creation of Paul Guinan, an illustratorBp and graphic novelist in Portland, Ore., who with his wife, Anina Bennett, is the author of "Heartbreakers Meet Boilerplate," published in July by IDW Publishing.

In the acknowledgments section of his book, Mr. Elliott says that Boilerplate came to
his attention thanks to research performed by his brother, Bob Elliott Jr. "You
can’t make up something like ‘Boilerplate,’ " Mr. Elliott writes. "Well you can,
but it’s a lot easier when your brother just shows you a picture of
it."

Soon, Mr. Elliott heard from friends of Mr. Guinan, who said that he was considering legal
action for the "fairly blatant and quite unauthorized" lifting of a copyrighted
character.

Elliott and Guinan reached an amicable financial settlement without having to bring in lawyers. This should be a cautionary tale for anybody who does their research on the Internet. Not everything that shows up in a Google search is fact.

Lost Author Found

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I always wondered what became of thriller writer Bob Reiss…he just seemed to have disappeared. The mystery was solved in a tiny item in this week’s issue of Publishers Weekly, which revealed that Reiss has been writing as Ethan Black and sold his newest novel to Paramount for big bucks.  The item got me wondering about some other disappearances… like James Colbert, Brad Soloman, Zachary Klein, Jerome Doolittle, A.W. Mykel, Robert Sims Reid, Tom Eidson, Doug Swanson, Robert Ward, Gaylord Dold, Jim Cirni, Edwin Shrake, and Michael Stone. 

I know some tidbits. Colbert went into comics for awhile. There are rumors that Jerome Doolittle is K.C. Constantine. One of Eidson’s novels became the western THE MISSING, but how long has it been since his last novel? And I see Robert Ward showing up at signings and events (like Terrell Lee Lankford’s publication party), but his last novel was quite a few years ago.

Anybody know the stories on the others?

Ball Vamps & ‘Medicine’ wraps

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Variety reports that Alan Ball’s next TV series for HBO will be based on Charlaine Harris’ SOUTHERN VAMPIRE novels. I’ve met Charlaine and she’s a very nice woman — to be honest, I expected someone more, well,  goth.  She’s so sweet and polite…she  struck me as the kind of person who’d write cozy mysteries in the world of baking or knitting instead of vampire novels.

Project is set in a world where vampires and humans co-exist after the
development of synthetic blood. First book, "Dead Until Dark," revolves around a
waitress in rural Louisiana who meets the man of her dreams only to find out
he’s a vampire with a bad reputation.

"It’s not a high-concept pitch," Ball said. "Charlaine has created such a
rich environment that’s very funny and at the same time very scary. I bought the
book on impulse and I just couldn’t put it down."

HBO entertainment prexy Carolyn
Strauss said she’d been sure Ball would leave the television
world for movies after he wrapped "Six Feet," and she was surprised and grateful
that he came back to the network with yet another passion project.

"Alan really fell in love with the books," HBO entertainment prexy Carolyn
Strauss said. "At its heart, the books are a metaphor for difference and
outsiders and fitting in. That’s Alan’s bailiwick and what he writes so well
about."

In other TV news, Lifetime has axed STRONG MEDICINE, saying the show has "run its course" after six seasons, three different stars, and 132 episodes.

Strong Medicine" is one of the "truly remarkable success
stories in cable TV history. We’re grateful for all the contributions of exec
producers Tammy Ader and Whoopi Goldberg and the cast," he said. But it’s time
"to offer our viewers another option."

"Medicine" won’t necessarily be leaving the air anytime soon: Lifetime has
exclusive rerun rights to the medical drama through 2010.

This leaves MISSING as the only original drama left on the network…assuming it’s picked up for a fourth season.

The New TV Guide

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I’ve picked up the first two issues of the new TV GUIDE and I have to say, it’s
a big improvement in just about every way. There’s far more content — and
livelier, too —  and the listings are much easier to browse. The old TV Guide
had a musty, dull, dated feel…but was comfortable, familiar, and dependable.
While I have some affection for it, I can’t say I miss it. It’s like
having your cranky, but lovable  78-year-old next door neighbor move to
an assisted living facility and a bright, 22-year-old college student with a
porn-star’s surgically-enhanced body moving in and inviting you to her parties.

Auto-Pilot

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TV writer Paul Guyot continues his unflinchingly honest and informative chronicle on the development and production of  the pilot he wrote for TNT. The network subsequently brought in a big-name showrunner and Paul found himself relegated to the sidelines (despite assurances to the contrary). Sadly, this happens all the time in our business and Paul, being a pro, knows that. Even so, it still hurts when it happens.   

What has been the hardest thing for me to deal with is that the network has
completely supported the showrunner and his "tweaking" of my script. My story.
My setting. My characters. After telling me (in the beginning), that they wanted
something unique and edgy (sic), what they now have that they so dearly
love, is the very thing they told me specifically they didn’t want… a typical
TV show. And not a conference call goes by that someone doesn’t rave about how
much better the script is now.

Hey look, it may be better. The
guy has Emmys and I don’t. I just wish the network had given me a shot to do
this other version, and then brought in their high-priced Showrunner.

It’s like this – the network wanted me to hit a home run. So in my first
at-bat, I hit a double to left. But instead of getting another swing, they bring
in another guy and he hits a double to right, and they all cheer and say,
"That’s just what we wanted! A double to right!"

But again, nature of
the beast, folks. Don’t feel sorry for me – I already took care of that. No need
to post comments about how much they suck or whatever. This is TV. Ask Lee.
Happens all the time. As I said earlier – you have two choices in these matters
– quit or ride it out. I chose to ride it out. Though it’s being done
differently than how I’d do it, and I’m being basically ignored throughout the
entire process, I’m holding on. I want to feed my kids. I don’t have the luxury
of conviction. And someone much smarter than me once warned about the paralysis
of conviction. Especially when it wasn’t your story to begin with.

New Hope for the Dead

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If BookExpo is where new books and dreams are born, then the Chicago International
Remainder & Overstock Book Exposition (CIROBE). is where
they go to die. Bookseller Robert Gray talks on his blog about the big sales expo for
remainder, overstock, and damaged books that’s coming up this week:

I’ll think, as I always do, about the rampant optimism of BookExpo in the spring,
when all is new and every book on the list has the potential to sell through.
"We’re very excited about our fall list," they say. And they should
say that. They should be excited. Every book is a gem at BookExpo, every
book a winner in waiting.

Well, maybe not every book.

Still, nobody expects a book to die needlessly. And yet they do, every day, die ugly
deaths and pass through to the underworld, Hades, or, in modern English, The
Bargain Table.

Maybe it’s not a cattle drive at this stage, after all. Maybe it’s a boat trip across
the River Styx.

Charon, the old man who ferries the dead to the underworld.

CIROBE, the show that ferries dead books to bargain book world.

Writing Scams

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My friend author Joe Konrath has an excellent post today on writing scams. He discusses Fee-Charging Agents, Writing Contests, Paid Anthologies, Vanity Presses, and POD Publishers, among other things. It should be required reading for all  aspiring authors. Here’s a sample of his wise counsel:

PAID ANTHOLOGIES: Here’s another quick scam. You submit a poem, and it gets
accepted into an upcoming poetry collection. You get excited, tell all your
friends and family, and then get a letter in the mail saying that you can
purchase the anthology at $40.

Naturally you buy a copy, and so does Mom, and so does Aunt Grace and your
best friend Phil. When you get the anthology, you see it is 700 pages long, and
your wonderful poem is crammed on a page with seven others.

Do the numbers. If there are 3000 poems in the book, and each writer in the
anthology bought at least one copy, the publisher made $120,000.

Poetry.com was infamous for this scam. They’d also invite writers to awards
ceremonies, at staggering costs to the gullible writer, to receive a worthelss
award along with 1000 other ‘winners’.

Please pass the link to his post along to any struggling writers you know…they should print out his article and keep it handy. It will help avoid the temptation to pay an agent to read their books, pay to publish their book with iUniverse  or pay to enter one of those Writers Digest contests…

 

Breaking In

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Author Joe Konrath talks about the advice he gave to an aspiriing writer…and what happened next. It’s an inspiring story, not just for writers trying to break in, but for everyone who writes books. I wish more aspiring writers would find motivation from stories like this than from the get-rich-quick/get-published-quick come-on of  self-publishing.