LIVE! #62
8 September 2024
Agenda
- Why We're Here
- Literary Forensics
- - What do I bring?
- - What do I feel?
- - What do I notice?
- - What do I study?
- Next Month's Reading & Study
Why We're Here
We Writers want to improve our craft
by Reading like a Writer
through Literary Forensics training
we learn from each other
Roundtable Rules
Always refer back to the book
We practice active listening & serendipity
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but not every conclusion
Always refer back to the book
Meet today's author: Rebecca Yarros
- Yarros met her husband Jason at a karaoke bar in Colorado Springs, CO, when she was studying at CU.
- She dropped out when they got married and had their first child, but Yarros eventually earned a degree in European History and English from Troy University, Alabama.
- She read "a book a day" during her husband's first two deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Began writing her first novel during his third deployment, in 2013.
- Since 2014, Yarros has published 22 novels, most of them New Adult, all of them romance except her Empyrean series.
- She plots her novels and writes to music.
- Her reader group is called Flygirls.
- Lives with her husband and six children in Colorado Springs, CO.
- In 2020 Yarros was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, as were her four sons.
- Founded, with her husband, One October, a non-profit assisting families with foster children, after fostering a daughter who has been diagnosed with autism.
"I'm a romance writer. And romance writers have a certain contract with our readers."
- Rebecca Yarros
"I get to play with dragons today."
- Rebecca Yarros
What do I feel?
What in the book elicited that feeling?
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but every conclusion should be questioned
We practice serendipity
- nothing is too crazy
Always refer back to the book
What do I notice?
- • Language and Grammar
- • Context
- • Point of view
- • Character & character development
- • Pacing
- • Horizontal structure
- • Layering of themes
- • Overall effect
Writing Fourth Wing
- Yarros's first love was fantasy and as a girl she read novels by Mercedes Lackey and Marion Zimmer Bradley.
- Her first novel was a fantasy (as yet unpublished), but it was still on submission when her debut New Adult Romance novel sold.
- In 2022 when Yarros learned her publisher was going to do a romantic fantasy line, she submitted 5 proposals.
- They accepted pitch #3--the Empyrean series--because it contained dragons.
- 1st relationship: Vi & Tairn; Yarros gave Violet Ehlers-Danlos.
- Vi's and Xaden's height difference mirrors Yarros and her husband.
- Fated Mates: their dragons create a Forced Proximity between Vi and Xaden.
- Why is last chapter in Xaden's POV? When Vi awakes and asks many questions, Yarros wrote as info-dump chapter, which her editor didn't like.
- Yarros wrote Fourth Wing in three months--it is her first published fantasy novel & published novel #20.
- Wrote most of book to Taylor Swift's Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince; & Halsey
- After writing the second book, Iron Storm, Yarros realized that her trilogy now required five books.
Stats & Background
- Marketing: Romantic Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Action & Adventure Fantasy, Dragon & Mythical Creatures Fantasy
- Genre: Romantasy-Action Alternate History Long-Form Archplot
- Print Pages: 528; Word count: 184,847
Reading Grade: 6th; Avg. wds/sent.: 10.38
Lexical Density: 47.86; Flesch Reading Ease: 79.89 - POV: Violet (Xaden, Ch.39); Person: 1st; Tense: Present
- Publish date: May 2, 2023
- Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
- Audio book length: (21 hours 22 mins)
- Narrators: Rebecca Soler, Teddy Hamilton
- Recognition: #1 NYT Best Seller, Best Books of 2023: Amazon, Audible, Apple, Google Play, Indigo, NPR, Newsweek, Paste Magazine • Barnes & Noble Best Fantasy Book of 2023 • Hudson Book of the Year • Waterstones Book of the Year finalist • Goodreads Choice Award Winner
- Empyrean TV series: is in development at MGM Amazon Studios with Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society.
- From the foreward:
The following text has been faithfully transcribed from Navarrian into the modern language by Jesinia Neilwart, Curator of the Scribe Quadrant at Basgiath War College. All events are true, and names have been preserved to honor the courage of those fallen. May their souls be commended to Malek.
See you at Colorado Gold!
RMFW Conference - September 27-29
WritersWhoRead.com/LIVE
October 6: Tom Lake - Ann Patchett (USA, 2023)
November 3: Holly - Stephen King (USA, 2023)
December 1: Let Us Descend - Jesmyn Ward (USA, 2023)