The Word Cloud

Well, recently I started on a short story based around the legend of La Loba, the Bone Woman. I then promptly took out a book I hadn't read for years, and discovered that one of the short stories was eerily similar. I worry that perhaps my subconscious had drawn on this story, though I didn't consciously realize I was doing it. 

To be fair to me, the legend of La Loba does have similarities to the short sotry anyway.

To be fair to the other story, there is a line or two that is too close for comfort.

Looking for advice here about whether it's too close (I'm reluctant to change my story, since I'm quite proud of it- on the other hand, I don't want it to seem like I'm stealing the wonderful authors ideas.)

So, the short stories plot is along the lines of:

-Girl is in a plane.
-Plane crashes- girl loses an eye. 
-Girl wakes up and meets a coyote.
-Coyote takes girl to a sort of village of animals- the girl sees all of the animals as humans.
-Coyote eats poison and dies.
 -Girl meets a wise woman figure- The 'Grandmother'- (who is a spider.)
 -Girl returns back to human lands.

And my La Loba plot is basically-
-Girl's plane sort of dies mid air.
-She falls, badly damaging her spine, though she doesn't realise just how bad it is at the time
-A wolf tells her that if she wants to find her 'pack' (the people on the plane) then she has to find La Loba.
-Girl sets out with wolf to find La Loba.
-They travel a long way, and the wolf doesn't wake up one morning- she's passed away.
 -The girl grows gradually weaker as she travels, carrying the wolves body. She finally collapses, an when she wakes up she is in La Loba's home.

I don't want to spoil the ending, so I won't finish my plot summary, but suffice to say it is NOT the same as the short stories.

So, what do you think? Are the plots too similiar?
 

After having a really interesting conversation with Islander8 this morning about the nature of writing romance in novels, I've decided to blog about it to open it up a bit.

It may not come as a surprise to those who know me, but I'm a bit of a boy when it comes to my taste in entertainment. Give me a beer, a copy of Tomb Raider and a film with explosions in it, and I'm pretty much happy. But I am also a romantic at heart, which does make me a bit girlie (well, that and my love of shoes and chocolate, of course). Whilst I don't do romance for romance's sake (Mills and Boons style romances make me want to jump in the shower to wash the skeezy feeling away), I do like a romantic subplot in my novels; it gives me something to root for, and it makes my heart feel good that, despite all of the trials, tribulations and dragons / ancient evils / megalomaniac wizards the characters face, they can find a little bit of happiness as well. Awww. What a soppy old sod I am.

Problem is, I am also very, very self conscious about writing romance. 'Cos nothing opens you up to your readers like romance does. I can write violence. I can write conflict. Hell, I can even write explicit sex (way hey!). But I hold back on the mushy stuff because I get really self conscious about it. Probably because, out of everything I write, it's the most 'real'. The other stuff I write is so out there - dragons and swordfights, evil sorceresses, massive willies that never wilt - it's obvious it's all imaginary. But romance... that's real. That comes from the heart. When you write romance, you let people in.

I think it all stems from something I wrote a long time ago. Ages ago (about 8-9 years ago), I wrote a romance mod for the computer game Baldur's Gate. And, as always, rather than holding on to the positive reviews, I took on board the negative ones. And boy, did those negative ones hurt. I was accused of being a sad, fat woman with no life who was living my romantic life vicariously through my character (even though I was a happy, fat married woman in a good relationship!) - yep, that's what one of the reviewers said - and it has made me very, very wary of letting go like that again. Stupid thing is, I love crafting romances. I love throwing two characters together and seeing what happens to them. But I have been bitten so many times by so many cynics, I'm a bit scared to even offer my hand now.

And this seems to be a common thread amongst books where a romance is highlighted. Go to any negative review on Amazon for Twilight, and it will slag off the romantic language and imagery. People seem to like bashing romances – there is no middle ground there. Hell, it was laid on so thick that I couldn't read it (although I do like Meyer for her balls – she wrote a novel that broke most of the writing rules and ended up with a mahooosive bestseller... you have to admire the woman's moxy!), and so I won't be going down that road. But I do have a little romantic subplot, because I like romantic subplots and they make me smile and feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Problem is, I am so self conscious about being perceived at writing cliched naffness that I hold back. What goes on in my head does not get on the page. I edit it before it has even drawn its first breath. And this means that, whilst in my head my two protagonists are the new Romeo and Juliet, on the page they may as well be strangers. So I have to learn to let go. To write something and then not immediately delete it because I am worried that a small bunch of people will sit there, rolling their eyes and sniggering at me. Now, I'm not ever going to be one for a Mills and Boons style romance (either with or without vampires!), but I do want to write a sweet, believable romantic subplot that makes the heart feel good.

But how to do that?

Seriously – how do you get over something that you like in private, but makes you feel a bit vulnerable and self conscious when it goes public? (Gosh, that sounds a bit dodgy, doesn't it?!)

I've come to the conclusion that we writers are rather strange. When viewed by the rest of the population, that is. I prefer to think it's the other way round and that civilians (as I regard non-writers) are the odd ones.

Isn’t it natural to enter a room of people and want to stand in the corner, watching them all and taking mental notes? Or when sitting in a restaurant to ask the person you’re with to stop talking because you’re so transfixed by the conversation taking place on the next table?

This can, of course, create the wrong impression. Civilians can think we writers are nosy (up to a point, Lord Copper) or standoffish (no, merely born  observers and often shy). A few years ago I decided to try writing a crime novel. So I began to think seriously about motives for murder. Living in a small village where I knew most of the neighbours and was privy to all the gossip, I heard all sorts of stories that triggered my imagination. Occasionally, when completely stunned by the fictional possibilities of what I was hearing, I would forget myself and blurt out something like ‘That sounds like a fantastic idea for a murder!’ or ‘Why hasn’t someone bumped her off?’ People would stare at me nervously, or remember they’d left something on the stove, and leg it. I’m sure they were very relieved when we moved away. They probably thought I was on the run from the police.

My attempts at writing crime didn’t work so now I’m having a go at chick lit. We’ve only been living in our new village for just over a year, and I’d like to live here for a good deal longer, so I can see I’ll have to be very careful about what I say when talking to neighbours. If I start mentioning the romantic possibilities in everything that happens, it could lead to all sorts of embarrassing misunderstandings.