FYI for Twitter Users

Thanks for the heads up Tas!

I know I don't usually follow hashtags, because things get so overwhelming so quickly, but joining in this last saturday was well worth it.

I've seen that a few times, but was never able to join in. I won't actually be around for the next few Saturdays, but one of these days I'd like to participate.

One of these days I am so participating. Right now, allergies are making me dead on my feet.

Lol, I was the "guest" for the very first UF chat. It, ah, didn't go well; we had a self-publishing snob show up and proceed to tell all of us who were actually published that we were total liars for claiming we hadn't been censored and forced to change what we wrote in order to be published. I finally told him to bugger off, basically. Not in those words. I think I said something like, "Yes, we know, we're just a bunch of untalented hacks while you are a beautiful artiste. Good for you," or something.

Oh, and someone I thought was my sort-of Twitter friend said something really rather rude about my book, but that's neither here nor there.

The chats are really fun; I'm not putting them down, just sharing a funny story.

The ones I remembered to turn up to stayed on track (in the sense that people talked about UF rather than the evil publishing industry... people go off on tangents, but that's Twitter).

Hey, what IS the difference between UF and Paranormal Romance? I mean, apart from the fact there must be a sexual relationship brewing...

quickreaver said:

Hey, what IS the difference between UF and Paranormal Romance? I mean, apart from the fact there must be a sexual relationship brewing...

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It depends on whether any romance plots are the main plot or subplots. It's hard to make the call with some books, but others are obviously one way or the other.

The distinction doesn't matter much to me, because a fair number of clearly urban fantasy books focus too much on the romantic subplots for my tastes. If it's described with words like sexy, hot, etc, I know it's probably not a book for me, regardless of genre classification.

That's kinda what I thought, Polenth. I've got something brewing that has a pretty strong 'relationship' component, but only in that it forwards tension and plot. I never want it to devolve into sex-for-sex's sake. But what do readers want? Or should that even be a concern?

quickreaver said:

That's kinda what I thought, Polenth. I've got something brewing that has a pretty strong 'relationship' component, but only in that it forwards tension and plot. I never want it to devolve into sex-for-sex's sake. But what do readers want? Or should that even be a concern?

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There's a market for urban fantasy with strong romantic elements and a market for books with little. It feels like the romantic market is much bigger... but I haven't let that stop me writing a low romance book. I think it's best to write what you're interested in, rather than what the market says.

Tasmin21 said:

Just in case folk didn't know, on Saturdays at 5 p.m. Central time, there's an organized urban fantasy chat. We usually talk about a certain topic for the week, and sometimes have guest authors in to answer questions.

Past topics have been paranormal romance vs. UF, pet peeves/wishlists for UF, and the definition of UF.

To participate, just start following the #UFChat hashtag on Twitter, or use a site like Tweet Chat to follow the hashtag easier. There are quite a few published authors who sound off there, as well as avid readers, and the discussions can be very interesting.

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Good idea to post about the twitter chat here! I've really enjoyed them.