I went ahead and chose first person, as I think it would allow me the greater oppertunity, as the story is almost entirely about one character, their growth, and adventure. When I sat down and tried to write it third person, I found that I had no intentions of revealing the other character's thoughts or motives, as they weren't strictly important to the story, and as my lead's POV will give the reader a better since of the world and would be more interesting than anybody else's a chose first person. As my main character gets turned into a wolf, I found it even more amusing to be inside his head, and have to go through the journey that he has to. Then lastly, as stated, as he is technically retelling his life story, it made perfect since to do it this way.
So for now... first person it is...
On another more humorous note. A friend of mine was shopping at B&N and came across a cheapo romance novel by the same title as mine. As my script/title was copyrighted long before her story was ever even published, I had to reach out to my manager/agent to see if any actions needed to be taken, but in the end, it appeared that she had done her home work and had already discovered that my work existed. Upon closer inspection of her book title, it had an additional title, of which was the title of her alien-shapeshifter series. In the end, as I my project is being geared for a YA audiance, I changed my own title a bit, to include another larger series title along with the standard, "Wolf Prince". I have no intentions of changing the script name, but I had to make a novel distinction, as I could just see some unwitted parent buying their son or daughter this book by mistake.
Alpha, I'm going to suggest again that you are very careful with what details you discuss on this board. Someone else could easily see the title of your piece and like it so much they change the name slightly so, like this other author, they avoid the copyright infringement.
So I just signed up for the daily "WitFit" writing prompts for the month of April on the Fictionista Workshop site. Just wondering if anyone has done this before or know someone who has and if you liked it or found it helpful/useful.
In case you are not familiar, from what I can gather they send out two daily writing prompts... I will write about one or both then email back my work which they will post ?somewhere? so all the participants will be able to provide feedback to each other. Sounds great in theory.
I really hadn't thought much about it but what AmandaBeth was saying about being careful what you post publicly is always something to consider. I am not sure where they post the daily submissions. Hopefully one must be a registered and current user before being able to view everyone else's work.
And AB is certainly right about posting ideas here. Just by nature of the site "guests" can view our posts, which is great and I would never discourage it but someone who NEVER logs in or posts could be reading all your great ideas. I doubt she was trying to insinuate people we know here are out to take advantage of each other.
Plus, I believe our posts come up on Google searches. So if you have a few distinctive words or combo of words and someone has a similar idea and decides to do a bit of research online -- well you get the idea. Plus, I think a lot of that can be done unintentionally too. People don't remember where they saw something and eventually, to them, it becomes their own idea. Make sense? Oh well, not I have any great ideas worth ripping off but those of you on a more professional level certainly do.
StellaBlueBella wrote:And AB is certainly right about posting ideas here. Just by nature of the site "guests" can view our posts, which is great and I would never discourage it but someone who NEVER logs in or posts could be reading all your great ideas. I doubt she was trying to insinuate people we know here are out to take advantage of each other.
I'd love to agree with you Stella, and say of course I'm not insinuating people here would take advantage, but I'm trying to be realistic. Of course I AM more concerned about the people who lurk and don't post -- but I'm not going to give anyone the all clear. I'd never tell someone on here to trust anyone on a public web site -- especially when it came to writing their own story (non-fanfic I'm talking here). We actually don't "know" each other and while I love talking and posting here -- this is still the Internet and unless I met the person and truly got to know them and trust them, I wouldn't tell a sole about my story until it's release date is announced.
Maybe spending so many hours on my own novel has made me overly possessive and neurotic lol.
It is always important to be very careful as to what information you post, especially if it is specific information in regards to the plot, characters, and such as those can be easily be stolen. As for titles... To protect myself, I copyright all of my material. It costs a bit, but my copyright registration does protect me in case somebody would try to seal a title I am using. If they try and use it, as long as I've copyrighted it, legal action can be taken and they would be forced to change their title. In truth in this day of age, it is extremely important for writers to copyright material... if needs be.
Granted AB, you are right. All writers need to be careful as to what details they post online, especially plot points and such, because anybody could steal that, switch it around, and call it theirs'.
^^^^ I didn't think you could. From the US Copyright Office website:
How do I copyright a name, title, slogan or logo?
Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases. In some cases, these things may be protected as trademarks. Contact the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, 800-786-9199, for further information. However, copyright protection may be available for logo artwork that contains sufficient authorship. In some circumstances, an artistic logo may also be protected as a trademark.
You can TRADEMARK your title meaning that if someone tries to mooch off of your book or character you can sue them -- but it would need to already be published to do that. That's how BB Dakota got in trouble for call the jacket Bella wore in Twilight the "Bella Jacket"
Blasphemous Contessa: Good for you! I hope it all works out.
AB: Thank you. Yes, you have it right. You cannot use the Star Trek name or logo because both are Trademarked. You cannot use the names Kirk, Spock and Bones in a SciFi novel because they are copyrighted. Trademark is harder to get.
Only those phrases and titles and designs or logos that can be claimed as unique to the product can be trademarked. Even certain colors can be (see American Express and Coke), but you must prove both authenticity and unique authorship.
Openhome wrote:Blasphemous Contessa: Good for you! I hope it all works out.
AB: Thank you. Yes, you have it right. You cannot use the Star Trek name or logo because both are Trademarked. You cannot use the names Kirk, Spock and Bones in a SciFi novel because they are copyrighted. Trademark is harder to get.
Only those phrases and titles and designs or logos that can be claimed as unique to the product can be trademarked. Even certain colors can be (see American Express and Coke), but you must prove both authenticity and unique authorship.
Actually as far as I know that's not correct. You do not have to even register your trademark...you can just put that TM there (The (R) is for registered trademarks)--but it won't hold up in court if you try and sue someone for infringement. Technically you can use the name Star Trek, but because of what the name "Star Trek" has come to mean, you'll not only get sued, but you'll lose in .5 seconds -- because it's kind of a given a person would think it's related to the ever famous series. There were books named Twilight BEFORE Stephenie wrote hers, but they couldn't sue her because she didn't use those books' reputation (since they had none) to further hers. If you went and tried to use Twilight now you'd be SOL. Character names are also under trademark, not copyright. You could name a character in a book completely irrelevant to the saga Bella and that's not infringement. BB Dakota using the fact that Bella wore that jacket in the series, is. Naming a character Spock would be iffy since it's so unusual--that's all up to a court judge. Trademarks can also be geographical. A store named Amanda's Books in Florida can't go sue one of the same name in Arizona if they limit themselves and advertising to a specific area.
The actual words of the book are copyrighted. They can never be used again in any way shape or form.
I'd love to read some of your fan fic sometime, do you have any links to them?
