4 Articles for February 2012
Click on "comment" above to leave message
Leap YearWe all know that ever four years February has an extra day for the purpose of keeping our calendar in alignment with the earth’s revolution around the sun. Our year has 365 days, but it takes an additional 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds for the earth of revolve around the sun. Without adding the extra day every four years, our western calendar would lose about 6 hours every year and within a hundred years, we’d be 24 days off.
Instead, we accumulate those hours for four years and add a day to February. Pretty simple concept, and it works.
Who figured this out?
In ancient times, all cultures had created ways to track the year, usually using the seasons, the sun and the moon. Probably the oldest is the Chinese lunar calendar which doesn’t number years, but counts in 60-year cycles, divided into five 12-year cycles named after different animals.
The Hebrews also used a lunar calendar. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks followed the sun with a 10-month calendar, each month from 20 to 35 days in length. The early Romans added two months, with the year starting in March. That calendar had 355 days, and, in order to keep festivals occurring around the same season each year, a 22 or 23 day month was created every second year.
Needless to say, after hundreds of years the Roman calendar was in serious trouble. In 46 B.C., called the Year of Confusion by the Romans, Julius Caesar adjusted the Roman calendar to 445 days, beginning the year in January, changed, Quintilis to what we call July, and divided the months into 30 and 31 days — except for February which had 29 days and 30 every fourth year. So it was Julius Caesar who is the Father of the Leap Year.
Julius Caesar - Father of the Leap Year Pope Gregory XIII
The Julian calendar was off by only 11 minutes and 14 seconds, but those added up. In 1582, under Pope Gregory XIII, a correction was made and eleven days were dropped. And I believe the Gregorian calendar we use today is considered almost completely accurate with the additional day in February.
Obscure Facts about Leap Years
Basically, leap years occur every 4 years, and years that are evenly divisible by 4 (2004, for example) have 366 days. This extra day is added to the calendar on February 29th. According to Mary Bellis in the About.comGuide.
“However, there is one exception to the leap year rule involving century years, like the year 1900. Since the year is slightly less than 365.25 days long, adding an extra day every 4 years results in about 3 extra days being added over a period of 400 years. For this reason, only 1 out of every 4 century years is considered as a leap year. Century years are only considered as leap years if they are evenly divisible by 400. Therefore, 1700, 1800, 1900 were not leap years, and 2100 will not be a leap year. But 1600 and 2000 were leap years, because those year numbers are evenly divisible by 400.”
Also, in about 530 A.D., when the monk Dionysius Exiguus (know as Denis the Little) took on the task of calculating the exact date of Easter, he created a formula counting back to the birth of Christ, a historically unknown date at that time. However, it later came to light that he’d miscalculated by four to seven days. He also counted from A.D.1, not the Year Zero, so our present millennium began with 2001, not 2000.
Leap Day Tradition of Women’s Privilege
Most of us associate Leap Day with the tradition of women proposing marriage. According to Louis J. Boyle, a professor of medieval literature and Arthurian legend at Carlow University, Leap Days comes with a variety of medieval Urban Legends which are impossible to document.
One suggests on the origin of Women’s Privilege comes from St. Brigid, a patron saint of Ireland who died around A.D. 525 and is known to have founded a convent in the Kildare region of the country. Named after the Celtic goddess Brigid (Brighid), she was born to a Druid king and his Christian wife in the exact moment the sun rose so that a beam of radiant light burst around her forehead like a flame. She is credited with a number of miracles.
Celtic goddess Brigid Saint Brigid
Over time, stories of the patron saint intertwined with those of the Celtic goddess Brigid who was the goddess of fire (the forge and the hearth), poetry, healing, childbirth, and unity.
The origin of the legend dates to the 5th century, around the time St. Patrick supposedly drove the snakes out of Ireland. The tales says St. Patrick was approached by St. Bridget, who had come to protest on behalf of all women the unfairness of always have to wait for men to propose marriage.
After due consideration, St. Patrick offered St. Bridget and her gender the special privilege of being able to propose marriage to men one year out of every seven. St. Brighid disagreed, and they finally settled on one year out of four—leap years, specifically.
It’s not clear to me why St. Patrick had the final say on this matter, but what do I know?
In one version of the tale, after the deal was cut, unexpectedly (because it was a leap year and St. Bridget was single), she got down on one knee and proposed to St. Patrick on the spot. He refused, of course, bestowing on her a kiss and a beautiful silk gown in consolation. This is reflected in a statement from Professor Boyle.
"The tradition was that if the man said 'no,' he had to provide a gift to the woman. Traditionally, [the gifts] were a garment or money. Sometimes the tradition reads there was some penalty designated or the woman had the right to say, 'This is what you have to do for turning me down.' "
In another legend, Women’s Privilege resulted from a law passed by Scottish Parliament in 1288, of which one of the many quoted versions reads:
“It is statut and ordainit that during the reine of hir maist blissit Magestie, ilk maiden ladye of baith highe and lowe estair shale hae libertie to bespeak ye man she likes; albiet, gif he refuses to tak her till be his wif, he sall be mulcit in ye sume of ane hundredth poundis or less, as is estait mai be, except and alwais gif he can mak it appear that he is betrothit to ane other woman, then he shall be free.”
Because this text cannot be sourced, it was considered suspect, even by the Victorian authors who quoted it. The only authority for the statement is the Illustrated Almanac' for 1853, and scholars believe the statue was “manufactured” as a kind of joke.
Queen Margaret of Scotland is also given credit for this 1288 law (even though in 1288 she was five years old and lived in Norway). In this version, the law required that fines be levied if a marriage proposal was refused by the man.
The earliest verified reference in the English language is a couplet from an Elizabethan-era stage play called The Maid’s Metamorphosis, first performed in 1600, a leap year.
Master be contented, this is leape yeare,
Women weare breetches, petticoats are deare.
TimeandDate.com indicates that Leap Day is known in some places as "Bachelors’ Day.” The tradition here is similar to the story about the Scottish statute in that a man was expected to pay a penalty, such as a gown or money, if he refused a marriage proposal from a woman on Leap Day. In certain European countries, tradition has it that if a man refuses a proposal on Leap Day, he has to buy the woman twelve pairs of gloves (so she can hide the embarrassing fact that she doesn’t wear an engagement ring).
Persons born on Leap Day, are called “leapings” or “Leapers”. There’s actually a society “leapings” can join. It was once thought that leapling babies would inevitably prove sickly and "hard to raise," though no one remembers why.
□
Resources
http://www.timesledger.com/stories/2012/8/hellman_all_2012_02_23_q.html
http://inventors.about.com/cs/inventionsalphabet/a/leap_year.htm
http://www.terracestandard.com/community/139765403.html
http://www.toledoblade.com/Mary-Alice-Powell/2012/02/19/Leap-Day-2012-is-nearly-upon-us.print
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/historical/a/leap_year.htm
http://www.timeanddate.com/date/leap-day-february-29.html
http://www.goddessgift.com/goddess-myths/celtic-goddess-brigid.htm
http://www.annistonstar.com/view/full_story/17573876/article-A-leap-forward?instance=home_opinion
Like many seasonal celebrations and Catholic holidays, Carnival likely has its roots in pre-Christian traditions based on the seasons. Some believe the festival represented the few days added to the lunar calendar to make it coincide with the solar calendar; since these days were outside the calendar, rules and customs were not obeyed. Others see it as a late-winter celebration designed to welcome the coming spring. As early as the middle of the second century, the Romans observed a Fast of 40 Days, which was preceded by a brief season of feasting, costumes and merrymaking.
Some sources claim the festival of Fat Tuesday traces its roots back to the Roman festival of Saturnalia., a celebration held in mid-December to honor the god Saturn. It is also described as a Winter Solstice ritual which compresses the Consualia (for Consus, God of the Storage Bin), the Saturnalia (for Saturn, God of Sowing), and the Opalia (for Ops, Goddess of Plenty) into a single festival, Brumalia.
Either way, because Saturnalia was celebrated first with sacrifices to the gods and then with a public banquet, gift giving, role reversals, and continual partying in an atmosphere that overturned Roman social norms, it’s associated both with Christmas and with Shrove Tuesday.
One author claims, “As often happened with such festivals, Catholics found a way to work the festival into their own liturgical year.” I find this a bit of a stretch, but a number of sources acknowledge that Fat Tuesday has pre-Christian pagan celebrations (but are not specific about which ones).
Shrove Tuesday
According to early Christian ritual, the week immediately before Lent, Christians would meditate and consider the sins or wrongs they needed to acknowledge and changes they had to make in their lives to enhance spiritual growth. To prepare for Ash Wednesday, Christians were expected to go to their confessor and confess their sins. Shrove Tuesday, a reference to "shriving" or confession, is meant to prepare Christians for the fast ahead which lasts for forty days.
Some communities use Shrove Tuesday to burn palm fronds from the previous year's Palm Sunday to create the ashes that are used on Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is the first day of the season of penitence and fasting that leads to Good Friday and Easter.
Fat Tuesday (Martedí Grasso, Mardi Gras)
The Tuesday before Lent is the last day to “indulge.” Not only was it a last chance to indulge in the “passions of the flesh,” but the last opportunity to consume any fat, milk, eggs, and meat which had been put up for winter that might not stay fresh enough for consumption until spring brought the end of Lent and Easter.
Many foods were not eaten during this time such as fish, meat, fats, eggs, sugar, and milky goods. Thrifty housewives would use up all the fats in the house in the cooking of the festive meal on Tuesday (since they could not use them for forty days).
Pancake Tuesday
In England, Fat Tuesday is also called Pancake Tuesday. The pancake bit comes from the fact that in order to find it easier to abstain, one should use up all the flour, milk, sugar and eggs on Shrove Tuesday. While a lot of things can be made from those basic ingredients, long ago the Brits decided pancakes were the thing to make to get rid of these foods.
Carnival (Carnivale, Carnevale)
The word carnival (Italian: carnevale) possibly comes from the Latin carnem levare or carnelevarium, which means to take away or remove meat. A more probable etymology for the word carnevale may be derived from the Latin carne + vale, meaning "farewell to meat". Developed around the Roman Catholic festival of Lent (Quaresima - derived from the Latin term Quadragesima, or "the forty days"), carnival was associated with the pre-Lenten festivals.
The Carnival of Venice
The Carnival of Venice is an annual festival, held in Venice, Italy. It starts 58 days before Easter and ends on Fat Tuesday (Martidí Grasso). It is said, "A carnevale, ogni scherzo vale!" In other words, "At a carnival, every joke goes!"
While the Carnival of Venice may have begun with the usual Fat Tuesday celebrations, it gained momentum from a victory of the "Repubblica della Serenissima", Venice's previous name, against the Patriarch of Aquileia, Ulrico in the year 1162. To honor of the victory, the people started to dance and celebrate in San Marco Square. Apparently this festival started in that period and become official in the renaissance.
By the eighteenth century the wearing of masks by Venetians continued for six months of the year as the original religious association and significance with carnevale diminished. On October 17th, 1797 (26 Vendémiaire, Year VI of the French Republic) Venice became part of the Austrian-held Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia when Napoleon signed the Treaty of Campo Formio. The Austrians took control of the city on January 18, 1798 and it fell into a decline which also effectively brought carnival celebrations to a halt for many years.
After a long absence, including being banned by Mussolini, the Italian government in 1979 decided to bring back the history and culture of Venice, and sought to use the traditional Carnival as the centerpiece of their efforts. Today, approximately 3,000,000 visitors come to Venice each day for Carnivals. One of the most important events is the contest for the best mask, placed at the last weekend of the Carnival. A jury of international costume and fashion designers votes for "La Maschera piu bella" (the most beautiful mask).
Venetian Carnival Masks
Venice (and many Italian cities) in the Middle Ages and Renaissance had a long tradition of mask-wearing among the nobility while engaging in activities of a questionable nature -- gambling, drinking, not to mention romantic and sexual rendezvous. Their activities were so outrageous that laws were passed to restrict the wearing of masks to certain times of year. One of those times was Carnival.
Masks were also worn by the lower classes to allow them to mix unfettered with the aristocrats in such situations. The mask, after all, was a great equalizer in a social setting. This was especially common in Carnival, with its traditions of role reversal and celebration of the fool. Some of those typical costumes include the following:
Moretta is a traditional mask, worn only by women (only by patrician women in the 18th century), a black oval mask that is held in place not with a band or string, but by a button on the inside of the mask that is held clenched between the teeth of the wearer.
Bauta is the whole face, with a stubborn chin line, no mouth, and lots of "gilding". One may find masks sold as Bautas that cover only the upper part of the face from the forehead to the nose and upper cheeks, thereby concealing identity but enabling the wearer to talk and eat or drink easily. It tends to be the main type of mask worn during the Carnival.
It was thus useful for a variety of purposes, some of them illicit or criminal, others just personal, such as romantic encounters. In 18th century, the Bauta had become a standardized society mask and disguise regulated by the Venetian government. It was obligatory to wear it at certain political decision-making events when all citizens were required to act anonymously. Only citizens had the right to use the Bauta. Its role was similar to the anonymizing processes invented to guarantee general, direct, free, equal and secret ballots in modern democracies.□
Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_of_Venice
http://www.twistedimage.com/productions/carnivale/
The Portale de Venezia "Carnivale in Venice" Site
http://www.venetianmasksshop.com/history.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia
http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/Saturnalia.htm
Will The Real Saint Valentine Please Stand Up?
Finding out about the origins of our holidays and celebrations can sometimes be a real buzz-kill. So often they turn out to be something different that we’ve always believed or been taught.
Still, it doesn’t hurt to be informed, and that doesn’t need to spoil the holiday for you. I find that in ways adults are just like children: If they want to believe something, they believe it, no matter what you tell them or how convincing your proof is.
So just keep on believing that Valentine’s Day is all about romance, love, and fealty.
Earliest Link
In the ancient Greek calendar, mid-January to mid-February was the month of Gamelion, dedicated to the sacred marriage of the god Zeus and the goddess Hera. That appears to be the earliest link to February festivals.
Lupercalia
Yup. We’re back to the Romans again. Lupercalia, an archaic rite connected to fertility and local to the city of Rome, was celebrated February 13 thru 15. The more general Roman celebration was called Juno Februa (“Juno the Purifier” or “The Chaste Juno”), February 13 and 14.
It appears that the purpose of the festival and the rituals are a bit obscured by time, but one historian describes the rite in the following manner:
“Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.
To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat's hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide.
Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city's bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.”
Some historians, including Noel Lenski, University of Colorado at Boulder, depict the rites as a bit more brutal than “gently slapping” and indicate the pairing was only for the duration of the festival, not a year, although sometimes the couplings lasted for longer. I guess this is where the idea of “love” and “romance” comes from.
Although the festival survived the rise of Christianity, around the end of the fifth century Pope Gelasius I determined to put an end to this eight-hundred-year-old practice of Lupercalia. The Roman Catholic fathers eventually found a likely candidate to replace the pagan deities, a priest who had been martyred on February 14, 269 A.D. The Pope outlawed Lupercalia as “unchristian” and replaced it with a celebration honoring the martyr St. Valentine.
Combining Lupercalia with St. Valentine’s Day apparently toned down the pagan festival, but Lenski adds, “It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn’t stop it from being a day of fertility and love.”
Who was St. Valentine?
Good question. That’s not too clear, either, but historians agree there was nothing romantic in any of the histories of the three early Christian martyrs (recognized saints) named Valentine (Valentinus). To complicate things, two of the Saint Valentines were executed on February 14 but in different years of the third century.
● Valentine of Rome (Valentinus presb. m. Romae) was a priest in Rome who was martyred about AD 269 and was buried on the Via Flaminia. His relics are at the Church of Saint Praxed in Rome, and at Whitefriar Street Carmelit Church in Dublin, Ireland. Not much else about him is documented, and what we know for sure isn't very romantic.
The legend, however, spices it up, telling us that when Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families and, therefore, outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine defied the Emperor’s decree and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When this was discovered, he was put to death on February 14, 269 (Some sources say the year 270 or 273 A.D.).
Some references indicate that Valentine’s cause to unite lovers with holy vows of matrimony landed him in prison, which is likely to be true. During his incarceration, he struck up a friendship with the blind daughter of his jailer, Asterius. (In one version of the legend, he miraculously restored her sight). Supposedly, they exchanged love letters and on the day of his execution (February 14th, 269 A.D.), he left a final letter for his love and signed it "From your Valentine."
Still another variation recounts that Claudius took a liking to this prisoner – until Valentinus tried to convert the Emperor to Christianity – whereupon he condemned the priest to death. Valentine was beaten with clubs and stoned. When that failed to kill him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate.
● Valentine of Terni (Valentinus ep. Interamnensis m. Romae) was bishop of Interamna (Modern Terni) about AD 197 and is said to have been martyred during the persecution under Emperor Aurelian.
He is also buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location than Valentine of Rome. His relics are at the Basilica of Saint Valentine in Terni. There doesn’t seem to be much more known about him.
● A third saint named Valentine is mentioned in the Catholic Encyclopedia, also executed on the date of February 14. He was martyred in Africa, along with companions, but nothing else is known about him, either.
When did February 14 become associated with romance and love?
Again, the real history is fuzzy. After Pope Gelasius I did away with Lupercalia, young Roman men instituted the custom of offering greetings of affection to the women they wanted court on February 14. These cards soon acquired St. Valentine’s name.
By the Middles Ages, Christianity and the Saint Valentine legends had spread throughout Europe. Valentine was revered as one of the most popular Saints in England and France. It appears that the first written reference to Valentine’s Day in the romantic sense, is a poem in Parlement of Foules (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer, to honor the engagement of King Richard II to Anne of Bohemia.
“For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.”
["For this was Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."]
The treaty providing for the marriage was signed May 2, 1381, and Richard and Anne were married eight months later. (Both of them were only fifteen at the time). While many assumed Chaucer meant February 14 in his reference to Valentine’s Day, in fact, in the liturgical calendar, May 2 is the saint’s day for St. Valentine, the bishop of Genoa who died around 307 A.D. Not too many birds mate in February.
On February 14, 1400, Paris established a “High Court of Love” which addressed love contracts, betrayals, and violence against women. I only found one reference to this and couldn’t find out more about it or its significance.
The earliest surviving valentine card, as we know it, was written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife. It now resides in the British Library in London.
Je suis desja d'amour tanné
Ma tres doulce Valentinée...
—Charles d'Orléans, Rondeau VI, lines 1–2
Not many years later, King Henry V hired writer John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.
Shakespeare mentions Valentine’s Day in Hamlet (1600-1601).
In the sixteenth century, the Bishop of Geneva, St. Francis de Sales, tried to get rid of the custom of Valentine’s Day cards and failed. Their popularity grew and they became decorated with naked Cupids armed with arrows dipped in love potion.
And the rest is history. Well, actually, it’s all history.
□
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day
http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day
http://www.ehow.com/about_4759730_origin-valentines-day.html
http://grove.ufl.edu/~leo/val.html
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133693152/the-dark-origins-of-valentines-day
There are 62 pages of interesting reading. Over 1,500 comments from readers. I had to restrain myself from writing responses. While some of them are a little [or a lot] off the wall, many of the readers had something worthwhile to tell us. Many of the don'ts we’ve heard from agents, editors, and other authors.
As authors, we may not agree, but each comment represents the personal reaction of a reader. To me, they speak volumes about what people read and what is getting published by today’s industry.
The posts gave me the impression that readers [at least romance readers] want “realistic fantasy” in that they want the setting and indicators of everyday real life but at the same time fantasized situations and satisfying endings.
To be sure, these comments come from different people—some want one thing, others want another, and tastes vary—but I couldn’t help comparing statements about not giving the hero (or heroine, for that matter) a moustache or a smoking habit or restraining from giving heroines green eyes, with other comments such as:
● “Don’t describe many bouts of love-making without at least once reaching for a wash rag or the proverbial handkerchief”
● “Don’t have your main characters make love every night for months without referring to that monthly challenge”
A couple of my favorites, which I believe are good advice, include:
● “Don’t allow your hero behave like a sociopath. If the hero is, in fact, a sociopath, then the heroine should kill him and get on with her life.”
● “Don’t over dramatize the alpha male to the point where, if he was a real person, he could be diagnosed as clinically insane.”
Just to give you a sample, I’ve grouped the comments into loose categories, although they don’t appear in this order in the thread. I didn’t repeat any readers’ names, but these are quotes.
Names: Dear Author, Please Don’t…
● “…name your heroes Hunter, Connor, or [insert any other over-used name here] no matter how much you like the name. If you must use an over-used name go with classics like John, Sam or Robert. You guys are killing the 'exotic' names by making them common!”
● “…give your characters 20 different names (nicknames).”
● “…name several characters with the same first initial in their name: Cindy and Cissy or Tom and Todd. For goodness sakes, you've got the whole alphabet to choose from.”
● “…give the heroine a name which could be mistaken for a male: Morgan, Joey or Danny (Believe me, I've seen each of these!!)”
● “…give the hero or heroine names that are so unusual that the reader doesn't know how they're pronounced. It's very distracting when you're trying to enjoy the book and you don't know how to "read" the name. At the very least, have a character (the person him/herself, or a sibling, etc.) demonstrate the pronunciation, even if it's by correcting someone.”
Characterization: Dear Author, Please Don’t…
● “…forget about your secondary characters, even if you have limited space. Try to have them all as real as possible; it takes away from the overall effect if they're all cardboard cutouts.” and “Please, flesh out your secondary characters.”
● “…make your villains one-dimensional. Since everyone has a reason to do villainous things why not the ones in books?”
● “…base your characters (especially in a series) on yourself, your current husband/lover or a close friend/family member. We can tell and it burns us; we hate it...especially when you get divorced and turn the hero you make us love in books 1-4 into a prick we are supposed to hate in books 5-7.”
● “…make the villains easily identifiable by their greasy hair and bad fashion sense.”
● “…have everything your character does automatically be the 'right' thing to do.”
● “…let your heroine behave like an idiot and write it so that the hero finds this stupidity cute, winning, charming or adorable. There's a difference between making an error and lacking any common sense.”
● “…Don’t forget that not all heroines have to be petite and blonde with huge breasts.”
● “…make your heroine's innocence unrealistic. Your heroine experiencing her first kiss at age 25 is odd.” And “If you're writing a twenty-five year old college student, don't make her act like a 60 year old matron who’s never seen a guy naked.”
● “…have your hero and heroine unite after several years apart where he was a slut during that time, and she didn't have another relationship.”
● “…forget to develop your characters along with your plot. Loveable, well-rounded characters are what make a story stay with a reader long after the book is finished.”
●“…wait until halfway through the book to begin describing your characters. On too many occasions I have felt I was left to my own devices to envision the characters, then --BAM-- suddenly my Kate Beckinsale is supposedly a Gwyneth Paltrow. VERY aggravating.”
Love/Sex Scenes: Dear Author, Please Don’t…
● “…forget to put a little variety in your love-making.”
● “…tell the reader what a great lover the hero is, then give him only a short paragraph or two to prove it. Speed sex is not sexy, spend some time on these scenes and give it at least a few pages.”
● “…discuss the amount of body hair your heroine has.”
● “…have a fight in the bedroom while they are naked in bed and then allow him to stomp out and jump in the car…without any clothes on.
● “…forget to give your characters some sexual quirks. Not every character is going to like it the same way.
● “…muddle through the sex. Either dedicate yourself to more than just a sigh and light touch, or let the scene fade away with dignity . . . Spice things up. Characters are people, and every person in the world has a kink. Big or small, discovered or un-, every person has something just a little out of the ordinary that turns them on.”
●“…give graphic descriptions of the hero's and heroine's genitals and please do not use pages and pages of explicit sex, either in the character's imaginations or their reality, to cover up the fact that there is a paucity of plot! Boring, boring!”
● “…have the heroine lose her virginity, then go on to have sex 8 times the same night in 6 different positions (Can you say ouch??)”
● “…have the hero stop after 3 solid pages of foreplay, look deep in the heroine's eyes and ask "are you sure you want to do this?" Duh! If she has been enthusiastically participating for said 3 solid pages, why would the hero suddenly decide to double check just before hiding the you know what?? Talk about a mood killer.”
Plot: Dear Author, Please Don’t…
● “… forget to include a plot. The days when I read romance novels for sex are pretty much over. A storyline would be nice.”
● “…make me read the roller coaster ride of a plot you've put the hero through and then, on the last page, in the last sentence, a shot rings out and I have to wait for the sequel except it won't come out until two years from now.”
● “…make every hero a man whore. Sometimes less experienced guys are hot too.”
● “…forgive too easily. No matter how much love is between two people, when one makes a mistake, the other doesn't just forget about it. There are always consequences for stupidity.”
●“…have your character set out to ruin someone's reputation. Usually this is the hero ruining the heroine in historicals, but recently reading a heroine who is setting out to ruin a man's reputation for cash and I find it extremely unattractive plot device.”
● “…have the entire book hinge on some stupid misunderstanding that could be cleared up with two sentences. Please, let's have some books with real relationship issues!”
● “…have the hero and heroine bicker like children for most of the book.”
Dialogue: Dear Author, Please Don’t…
● “…talk slang, outside of the dialogue, in the narration.”
● “…include too much girl talk. I don't have a clutch of gossiping girlfriends who dis men, and reading about it is boring. I can't enjoy the heroine if she's acting like a gossiping cat.”
● “…sermonize in your fiction. I don't care if its vegetarianism, your favorite brand of shoes, or social responsibility. Having your character lecture your readers is annoying!”
● “…have the hero or heroine say those dreaded words, "We have to talk." “
Writing Craft and GMC: Dear Author, Please Don’t…
● “…explain things to me. I like to figure it out on my own.”
● “…use foreign words or phrases unless you know what you're talking about. A little research would be appreciated.”
● “…sanitize awkward situations. Sometimes a little awkwardness is exactly what the story--or the character--needs.”
● …give the reader “too much stuff about...feelings. Do we really need five (or seven, or ten) paragraphs about someone's emotions? . . . I mean, I know it's a romance, and the conflict is important, but to have the same song play out every third or fourth page... it gets old.”
● …give the reader a reason to say, “Why do I hear the director in the background crying "Reach deep into yourself! What's...your...MOTIVATION???"
● “…don't resolve the conflict in a few sentences just because someone cried or said, "I Love You."
● “…shy away from the hard stuff. Don't wallow in it either.
Technical Craft: Dear Author, please don’t…
● “…forget to proofread carefully.
● “…send a manuscript to the publisher without having at least five people--other than yourself--read it. Misspellings and plot holes are the most annoying mistakes, and the easiest to fix.
● “…allow Microsoft Word to suggest your writing style. Contractions are important. I downloaded a book today and couldn't get past the first five pages because the writer never used them.
● “…write without a dictionary, thesaurus, and an atlas at your side.
● “…forget to let the reader know how much time is passing. Was it a day, a week, an hour? Help me keep up; I can't read your mind.
● “…give detailed descriptions of how to get somewhere on a freeway across town including the turn right and left thing.”
● “…write the book in first person.”
● “…jump POV's to the hero's baby momma's cousin.”
● “…switch tenses throughout your whole story.”
□
