Several months ago, I read a blog post about do's and don'ts for conference panels. I would cite the author and post if I could remember where I found it, so I'm terribly sorry. It may have been Janet Reid's , but I can't be sure. One of the no-no's was asking a question that was truly a thinly veiled pitch. Example: "How do you think a story about robots that pick your nose would sell? I can show you what I'm talking about, as I have the manuscript in my hand." Earlier today, I participated in my first UF Chat on Twitter. It was a blast and the discussion was great, and the other participants seemed very knowledgeable. Several of them are published, and I had a question I wanted to ask regarding the genre of my novel, The Rider of Nealra . I was afraid to ask, just in case I might look like Robot Pitch Girl above. Just before I actually asked, though, my toddler woke up and I had to leave. Several par...
I wrote a review last month for the Portal, and one of the stories had slang that really bothered me. It wasn't because the language was foul. It bothered me because the author had an American Southerner calling a television a "telly." Much of the slang and nicknames he used just didn't ring true, and it almost ruined the story for me. Most of my stories are through the eyes of a Montana rancher, and all of the slang I use is derived from my family. I really like dialogue to sound authentic. Below, I've written examples of idioms and slang that my family uses, especially the older members. In the comments below, please offer up slang, accents, and idioms from the places you've been, but be sure to tell where you've heard them. Grandma's Idioms "I feel like I've been rode hard and put up wet." (People always gave me funny looks when I said this at college, for some reason.) "I burnt the hair right off my tongue." (C...
Tweet I grew up in a town so small that traffic lights were, and still are, completely unnecessary. There were seven bars, but to balance things out, there were also seven churches. Main street was only a couple of blocks long. There were only about 80 kids grade 7-12 when I was in school, and that number has since dropped to around forty or so. I started shooting a rifle when I was four, just like all of the other country kids, and I started driving about the same time. (No lie.) According to the latest census, seventy-nine percent of the U.S. population lives in urban/suburban areas. I don't know if seventy-nine percent of U.S. authors live in urban areas, but I think it's safe to say that the majority of America's authors do. To me, the disparity shows. If a small town is used in a setting in a story, it's nearly inevitable that one of the following negative stereotypes will be included. Nosy gossips. Ignorant yokels. Inbred...
I like the t-shirt that points out that "Let's eat, Grandma" and "Let's eat Grandma" are entirely different propositions.
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