Writing links

My friend Bill Ferris has begun a weekly humor column at Writer Unboxed. First post is on affectations for writers to adopt.
•This article suggests we think of stories as upheld by two pillars. One early in the first act that gets the protagonist into their trouble, one at the start of the third act that makes the final showdown inevitable. I find this just as arbitrary and useful (or not) as every other structural breakdown (including Lester Dent’s breakdown of which I’ve spoken in the past)—it’s great if it works for you, but if you have some other approach you like better, go with it. There’s no miracle answer here.
•LGM on Juan Williams being caught plagiarizing—which in this case means the flunky who typed his column plagiarized it and Williams didn’t catch it.
•Courtesy of Kate Traylor, we have an interesting discussion of omniscient viewpoint and how to use it. For a good example of how it’s done, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast books are excellent.
•Patricia Wrede discusses the problem of losing interest in the story you’re working on. I’ve discussed this before, and I’ve recently realized I have more examples.
Bros Before Ho’s started out as a darkly satiric look at dating and dating advice, but it either needs to go a lot darker or a lot funnier.
I began writing Eye of White Cathay because of reading about Islamic Spain, an era when for several centuries Jews and Muslims got along fine (this flies in the face of our usual images enough to intrigue me). The trouble is, while I had a setting, I’ve never really come up with a plot. However, the lead character in one draft (a mediocre kabbalist unaware his father brags about him as a mystical master—which draws much more attention than he can handle) really works for me, if I can come up with the right story for him. I also think I need to read more about kabbalism so that I can get the magic in synch. If that doesn’t work, this one may be doomed.
All Things to All Men was inspired by an idea, from the early Christian teacher Carpocrates that we don’t get to Heaven until we’ve experienced all of life, happy, sad, good and evil, and if we blew it, we’re reincarnated for another try. Although I’ve written stories from ideas successfully before (Everybody’s Doing It, which sold to Allegory some years back), this one isn’t catching fire. I’ll give it maybe one more thinking session, then consign it to the back of the queue (which given the length of the queue probably means Never).
•Last week I linked to discussion of Alibi, Random House’s ebook mystery line, and its contracts. Here’s some more criticism of Random House regarding their SF e-imprint, Hydra, which Science Fiction Writers of America has delisted as a SFWA-qualifying market. On the plus side, the bloggers concede Hydra might work out, which is more than anyone said about Harlequin’s attempt to set up a subsidy press.