Thank you, Shalanna -- I've been ill for quite a while and it's taken a toll.  I
even had a heart attack last weekend, the had surgery (angioplasty); tomorrow I
start the work out phase of cardiac rehab.  I went yesterday, but by the time I
found them I was huffing and puffing and told them I'd had a workout!

Hey, if anyone wants to know exactly what angina feels like for a character, let
me know.  I can describe it in detail, ah for the verisimilitude.

CinderFella was actually the first one I thought of when I was looking at the
basic plot and characterizations.  I tend to think Pygmalion has a root in Ugly
Duckling, and completely agree that The Princess Diaries is an excellent
adaptation of same.  One of the best Cinderella remakes is "Pretty
Woman," which
also has a bit of Pygmalion influence.

Congratulations on getting your first Jacquidon Carroll mystery to the agent!
On the postage; you can ship media -- that definition has been expanded.

I tend to think that most of the work is a synthesis of everything we read, see,
smell, feel, touch, absorb -- it is life when the characters tell their story
through you, the mere author.

We met in one of those groups that disbanded because of PMS, I think.

viki



Shalanna wrote:

> At 01:43 PM 3/31/2003 -0800, Victoria Tarrani wrote:
>
> (Hey, welcome to the echo/list!  Or welcome back, perhaps.  I think I
> remember you from years ago on FidoNet.  It's quiet sometimes, but we may
> get a good fight going yet!  Or even a discussion of craft of writing.)
>
>  >How many ways has Cinderella been told?
>
> That's what I mean.  Think of "CinderFella" with Jerry Lewis
(apologies to
> the Lewis-phobes who may lurk among us, but I love him and think he's a
> genius--and I'm not even part French!), "The Cinderella Syndrome" by
> Jennifer Crusie, "The Princess Diaries" (which is part Pygmalion,
> actually), and many others.  I'm sure there are many stories that just do
> Cinderella straight.
>
> It's interesting to think about this, because I'm just starting on the
> sequel to my first Jacquidon Carroll cozy mystery.  (The ten-pound,
> 600-page package went to the agent at Donald Maass this morning . . . she'd
> seen the first fifty pages of the Ariadne's Web novel, turned it down
> 'cause she said she lost interest when Ari met the relatives, which I think
> is a function of her not being so familiar with the way cozies work and
> somewhat a function of my not letting the reader know that these were
> actually the suspects . . . but then she let me send the first fifty of
> Nice Work (Jacquidon) and loved it and asked for the full.  Did you realize
> that it co$ts almost $20 to mail the durn things post office ($14 if going
> by mule train parcel post, $28 by priority mail) and around $14 to go UPS
> (ground)?  Dang, it's more expensive than sending stuff to the troops in
> the middle east!)  *Anyhow*, what was I saying. . . .
>
> Oh, that's right.  I'm working on the next book in the series.  I start out
> with a kind of diagram/outline of who is the killer and why, who is the
> victim and why, the crime scene (and how Jac discovers it and why she has a
> reason to be there and also be a suspect and so forth), and *three* ways
> that this could have happened, only one of which is the real way.  It's
> left-brained that way.  So what I have so far is everything but the three
> ways it could've happened.  This guy gets stabbed with a letter opener (!)
> that's been stolen from the desk Jac sits at . . . she's a contractor at a
> new job and is sitting at the desk of a woman who's gone for maternity
> leave.  The new mom is a suspect 'cause they know she dated this fellow and
> there was bad blood--it's a single mom, no dad involved and she says it was
> a one-nighter and he'd have no interest in the child.  The new mom also has
> probably got keys to the office, etc.  And then there's a lady who says
> Bill (victim) sold her a house with leaky plumbing, bad foundation, etc.,
> and came in and made a scene earlier in the week.  *And* then there's our
> real killer.  So . . .
>
> . . . at this point, my plot is very similar to EVERY cozy mystery you'll
> find out there on the genre shelves.  It constantly worries me because when
> I think I have some clever new thing or plot twist, I always soon discover
> a published mystery using that twist.  For example, the first Jac novel has
> a "poisoning" via anaphylaxis due to unexpected quinine
exposure.  Last
> night someone lent me a Susan Wittig Albert novel (also set in small-town
> Texas, drat it all) in which a chilli cookoff judge dies from anaphylactic
> shock after eating something with peanuts in it.  Oy.  You can't find a
> completely NEW thing, though, so it's really tough.  How can I
"check" my
> plot against other works before I spend all this time constructing a clever
> web of clues and alternative solutions and so forth, and then spend even
> more time writing the book with clever words and interesting settings and
> situations and intriguing characters and the like . . . but then have it be
> said to be "copied from such-and-such," when no conscious copying took
> place?  It's really tough.
>
> This isn't the same question as the Potter/Grotter suit, of course, but
> it's related.  Just how much "original" work is anything,
and how much is a
> synthesis of what you've seen before?  And is that okay?
> - - - -
> Nine out of ten doctors recommend reading my books.  The tenth is a quack.
> Shalanna Collins                                          shalanna{at}attbi.com
> _Dulcinea: or Wizardry A-Flute_ by Shalanna Collins (e-mail me for excerpt)
> ISBN 0-7388-5388-7 trade paperback  http://home.attbi.com/~shalanna/>

--- Rachel's Little NET2FIDO Gate v 0.9.9.8 Alpha