Learning, Cookies and an Opinion…

Fun Things About This Time of Year…

Tonight, Kris baked Christmas sugar cookies and I slathered on white sugar frosting. I managed to only eat about four of them due to the fact that I wanted to spend some hours working tonight without fighting a sugar coma. Yes, the cookies were that good.

This afternoon, in the Kickstarter Design Class webinar, I learned that younger people than me (most everyone) these days will buy three states of any book. They want the electronic, an audio copy, and a physical copy.

Now, back in the traditional publishing days, that would have made zero sense, but as it was explained to me today, it makes total sense in this new world. Total.  I got some thinking to do…

Last night, as I was just working to shut off my brain before heading to bed, I was watching a Lifetime Holiday Romance. And I started to imagine the trope diagram for the movie as a book and it just made me laugh.

Now, I hate those things. Writers take an image of their cover and then beside it put all the tropes from the book pointing at the cover as if we readers are too stupid to figure out they mean the trope is in the book. Writers put them in kickstarters, and they tend to just give away the entire book and the reason for readers to buy the book. But in romance, it can sort of make sense. Except for the romance movie I watched last night.

On one side of the book it would have “Holiday Decorations” with a twisted arrow pointing to the cover.

“Dead Mother” trope pointing to another part of the book.

“A Second Dead Mother” trope pointing at the book on the other side. (Might have been a third dead mother, but I lost track.).

“Hot, Shirtless Handyman” trope. “Gay Best Friend” trope. “Comic Relief Couple” trope. “Heartless Ex-Girlfriend” trope. “Holiday Drinks and Cookies” trope. “Putting on an Event” trope.

And there is the entire story. Only thing out of the story not made clear by the diagram of twisted arrows are the two dead mothers. Think resistance to the romance and you got it. What would dear old, very dead mommy say?

I really do think those trope diagrams are just flat silly and hurt Kickstarter sales more than they help them. But just my opinion.