Writers in the Storm

Just a quick note: if you're getting ready to query, and are feeling overwhelmed by the prospect, Laura will be teaching an online class at Lawson's Writer's Academy beginning September 2, Submissions That Sell! You can get the details HERE.

by Sharla Rae

If we knew the next hottest genre, many of us would jump on that horse and take a ride.

But wait!

Since the 1990s, editors have chanted the same mantra, “Don’t worry about what’s hot, write the 'book of your heart.'”

Problem is, they didn’t really mean it OR we misunderstood what they meant. Many of us thought the statement meant we could write any genre we wanted as long as the book was well done with emotions that grabbed the heartstrings.

It turns out, that's not exactly true.

Oh sure, if editors receive a super book that blows them away, they “might” take a chance. But we’re talking one in a million -- especially in today’s ever-changing markets. And let’s be realistic. The economy isn’t that great. Editors want to keep their jobs and that means going with the flow and buying only the current high-earning genres.

How many of you have written the "book of your heart," only to receive a letter like this?

 Love your characters, love your plot, love your writing style, but we just can’t sell your book in the current market or it isn’t what we’re looking for.

An indie writer may choose to ignore a letter like this, but writers who want to "traditionally publish or bust" know that choosing a popular genre will probably be in their best interest.

Laurie Alice Eakes wrote about her take on this in the August issue of RWA [Romance Writers Report] in the article, It's All in Your Head: Writing from Your Heart While Writing for the Market, she wrote: "'Write from Your heart'" is the worst advice you will ever receive as a writer."

The argument goes that if a writer waits until a genre is hot, it’s already too late to catch that ride.  But look how long vampires have lasted!

This begs the question: Do publishers and agents know what the next hot genre will be?

I recently heard a young editor at a conference say that she believes watching the new wave of television programs is a very good way to predict the next hot fiction genre.

Ann Rice's book, Interview With A Vampire was made into a movie and the movie made the book more famous. From there we saw the Vampire rage take off. I suppose you could argue the age old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Young people have their fingers on the pulse of everything new and I’ve seen writers follow their lead to develop popular genres. Checking into subjects of the latest and greatest YA books is definitely a consideration even for adult romance genres. Being around teens doesn’t hurt either. What entertains them? What scares them? How do they see the future? What fads are they into?

What else can we do to predict future popular genres?

They say history repeats itself, and I think this is also true in publishing.

DC Comic was founded in 1932 during the Great Depression that began in 1929. From these comics we gained Superman, Green Lantern, and other superheroes. During this difficult time, the stock markets crashed, people lost their jobs and many a family lived a hand-to-mouth existence.

Is it any wonder that young and old alike glommed onto escapism and hope in the form of fantasy and superheroes?

Along with these escapism stories came great realistic stories like Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, a story of a family seeking hope in the form of jobs in California and later they hoped to better their lives and that of others, through labor unions.

Does this time period sound familiar? Could it explain why the paranormal, fantasy  and futuristics are again so popular?  Could it explain why strong women surviving tough odds in Women’s Fiction novels are so popular now? It just might.

The 30s and early 40s also had its share of sweeping technology: FM radio, stereo records, Nylon, jet engines etc. These might seem nothing compared to modern innovations, but at the time, they were every bit as important as our ever evolving computers and cell phones.

What about the more affluent, post war Fabulous Fifties? This period saw women being told they must leave their wartime jobs and return to their "traditional" roles.  Harlequin published many a romance about nurses, a traditional role for women who insisted on working outside the home. And don’t forget June Cleaver, the perfect TV mom in high heels!

Also during the 50s we saw many books and movies of teen rebellion, [Rebel Without A Cause] defiant young people who encouraged broader thinking than conservative parents who endured the depression as youngsters and then wartime. It was Sing Along With Mitch verses Elvis Presley. The dominant romances during this time were squeaky clean and most sex happened behind closed doors. But young people wanted it more real and times were changing.  So were the novels.

I could keep comparing time periods and the novels they produced, but I don’t have the time, research, or space here. Still, I think there’s at least a vague pattern that writers can see.

Perhaps choosing the next hottest genre is a matter of understanding the theme (s) of the times and choosing a genre that supports those themes and/or hopes. Who knows for sure? I don’t.

I think we can only try to understand what our readership/target audience wants, and then do our best to give it to them on a platform that best demonstrates our creative talent.

Okay, you knew I was going to ask this: What do you think the next hottest genre will be and why?  Will it make you change what you currently write?

Sharla has published three historical romance novels: SONG OF THE WILLOW, LOVE AND FORTUNE, and SILVER CARESS. SONG OF THE WILLOW, her first solo effort, was nominated by “Romantic Times Magazine” for best first historical.

When she’s not writing and researching ways to bedevil her book characters, Sharla enjoys collecting authentically costumed dolls from all over the world, traveling (to seek more dolls!), and reading tons of books. You can find Sharla here at Writers In The Storm or on Twitter at @SharlaWrites.

By Laura Drake

It sometimes seems that everything around us is negative: coworkers complain, kids whine, and don’t get me started on politics or the news. I think social media magnifies this. Hop onto Twitter and look right now – just look at the posts you can see without scrolling. We’ll wait.

You back? I’ll bet you found a liberal dose of complaints about everything from traffic, to weather, to rude people, right? Amping that is the latest trend to be snarky and deprecating. That’s okay, I guess – the pendulum swings to every point eventually.

If you follow a lot of writers, as I do, I’ll also bet that you also read people complaining about editing, submitting, and writing in general. ‘It’s so haaard!’

Well, I’m not here to be all holier than thou – I’ve done it too. I read a list of why you shouldn’t become a writer the other day (you can read it Here.) I couldn’t even argue with most of them.

I’m also not here to blow happy sparklies up your backside.

Writing IS hard.

But.  (You just knew there was going to be a ‘but,’ didn’t you?)

Yesterday I was writing and I had one of those rare moments – when you become aware of yourself and what you’re doing, from almost an omniscient point of view. When step outside your life and see yourself almost as others would see you.

There I was, creating something from nothing - playing with words, creating sentences that built to scenes that eventually become novels. I literally giggled. Is this not the best gig on the planet?

“Oh sure,” you say. “She sold. It’s easy for her to be content.” But I’m not talking about selling. I’m talking about loving the act of writing.

It took me a long time, but I finally bumbled my way onto what makes me happy, sixteen years ago. Nothing I’ve ever done has made me as joyous, as fulfilled, as complete, as creating one iridescently perfect sentence.

I’m not saying it flows out of my fingers. I’m not even saying it happens often.

But ah, when it does. You know the feeling. When you slave to capture an elusive complex emotion and you somehow manage write it fresh and new – that’s as close to heaven as I’m going to get on this earth.

I know, we all get wrapped up in the selling part. It’s the golden ring we all chase.

I live in Southern California, the land of the beautiful people. Home to 90210, the Housewives of Orange County, Hollywood. L.A., where money talks, and nobody walks. I see people every day who are trying to keep up to their neighborhood, conspicuously consuming themselves to bankruptcy. They buy into the illusion, and forget that money don’t buy you love. (wow, how many musical references can I fit in one paragraph?)

They’ve forgotten that the goal isn’t money – it’s to be HAPPY.

And the act of writing makes me happy.

I believe that if you don't love that, you'll never finish a book. If you do somehow struggle through one, it won't be saleable.

Can we all just take just a moment out of the snarkiness, the whininess, the it's-so-hardness, to rejoice in that?

I do love quotes. So I’ll leave you with a few pertinent ones:

If you don’t actually like to write, love to write, feel driven and compelled to write — then you’re probably better off abandoning your ambition in favor of a more legitimate career.” Tom Robbins

“Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything. … It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.”
—Enid Bagnold

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
—George Orwell

“For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen

“Style means the right word. The rest matters little.”
—Jules Renard

“Long patience and application saturated with your heart’s blood—you will either write or you will not—and the only way to find out whether you will or not is to try.”
—Jim Tully, October 1923

“Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.”
—Ray Bradbury, WD

“I think all writing is a disease. You can’t stop it.”
—William Carlos Williams

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is … the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
—Mark Twain

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say ~Anais Nin

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~ Anton Chekhov

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth

Laura's latest release, Her Road Home, is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and through Harlequin.

Romantic Times gave it 4 stars:

"A minor motorcycle accident leaves builder Samantha Crozier stranded in Widow’s Grove, Ca. While she recovers, she hires mechanic Nick Pinelli to fix her bike. But while recuperating in town, she finds the house of her dreams to buy and restore, and she realizes that Nick just might be the man to go along with it. 

With realistic emotions and nicely depicted characters, this is a powerful story."

Today I'm proud to welcome to WITS a debut historical author, Alina K. Field. You may not have heard of her yet, but trust me,  you will! Take it away, Alina!

Thanks to the Writers in the Storm crew for inviting me today.

You’ve probably heard of “thinking outside the box.”  For many years I worked in a highly structured, byzantine business culture. “Thinking outside the box” was a pleasant activity for team-building days, but my sad, cynical heart knew it wasn’t at all a realistic endeavor in that rule-bound bureaucracy. When I could finally lift the lid, climb out of that particular box, and sit down to fulfill a dream of writing fiction, the great yawning freedom made me giddy.

But what to write? My goals weren’t limited to writing stories; I wanted to sell them as well. The empty page stared back at me.

Embracing the Box

I soon learned that in writing fiction, boxes can be good. Boxes can be liberating. As author Andrew Knighton says, “We underestimate the value of limitations in art. If I sit down without any restrictions, without a word count or a genre to work towards, I can do anything. But that doesn’t give me any focus.”

Last year I took author Laura Baker’s class, The Fearless Writer: Discovering your Story, and learned, among other things, the concept of creating a Story Box. In the simplest terms, a Story Box is a limit, a framework, or a set of specifications for your story.

The conventions of a genre create a story box. The characters and setting of a sequel create a story box. A writing prompt creates the simplest story box.

Laura’s approach is a little more in depth.

From Story Box to Story

I took the results of the first few homework assignments—favored themes and emotions, preferred characters, and conflicts—and zeroed in on an idea I’d been thinking about for some time and, with Laura’s guidance, built a box.

1)      I started with a story idea:

A recently retired FBI agent visits a bitter undercover cop's widow to remove the bugs he himself planted in her home, and warn her that someone (the agency, a rogue agent in the agency, a criminal - maybe all three) is seeking something of value that her husband hid from his handlers, as insurance.

Obviously, this is noodling out an idea, not writing a logline!

2)     Next, I looked at the list of my compelling themes and emotions and assign one to each of the three main characters:

For the villain—Greed: The villain is seeking money or power.

For the hero—Redemption: The hero is seeking redemption for his inadvertent participation in the villain’s betrayal.

For the heroine—Betrayal: The heroine feels betrayed, possibly by her husband, possibly by the government.

3)      Then I looked at premise. What is a premise you ask? In logic, a premise is a proposition helping to support a conclusion. My premise states the conclusion of the story’s conflict:

Seeking redemption defeats betrayal.

(This is a romance. If you’re writing a tragedy, swap the themes.)

4)      I defined hero and heroine’s roles in terms of their emotions:

The heroine will show what it looks and feels like to always wonder if people can be trusted.

The hero will show what it looks and feels like to have his trust in his own judgment shaken and to seek to redeem himself for his errors in judgment.

5)      I identified some ways in which the roles can create conflict:

The heroine resists the hero’s attempts to communicate with her.

She needs his help to find the truth, but she doesn’t trust him.

This is his personal quest, so he is not always willing to share information with her.

6)      I identified what the heroine, the protagonist, must learn:

She learns that by opening up and relying on someone else, she can find the truth, learn to trust, give forgiveness, heal wounds, and find true intimacy with another person.

Was this easy? No. But Laura provided invaluable feedback at every step. It was helpful on more than an intellectual level. When my fingers hit the keyboard, some things changed, but this Story Box was the genesis for my NaNoWriMo project that placed first in the FabFive contest this year! (First contest win; pause for a SQUEE!)

But does a Story Box Have to be Long and Complicated?

Shortly after the Fearless Writing class ended, a friend shared a publisher’s call for submissions for novellas, each one with its own specifications and a deadline that would put a rambling writer like me into cardiac arrest.

I decided to brave the call for a Christmas novella with a three month deadline. Besides the Christmas theme, there were two more must haves: a) a historical setting; and b) a ring that played a central role in the romance.

Three things: Christmas, historical setting, and a ring; that was the short and sweet Story Box for my new release, Rosalyn’s Ring, pretty much written organically in eighteen days.

Making your own Story Box

If you’re writing genre fiction, you’ve already embraced a framework. And if you’re writing a series about, hmmm, say, biker chicks, or bull riders, you’ve raised the sides of your box a little higher.

But if you’re facing a frighteningly blank page, why not set some specific limits? A compelling theme, a particular setting, a certain prop, a stock character. Restrictions can narrow focus, force us out of our comfort zone, and create new challenges that make us grow.

And for more information on Laura Baker’s approach, visit www.fearlesswriter.com.

How about you? Have you ever found limits or story requirements inspiring? I’d especially love to hear from the absolute pantsers, the folks who set their fingers to the keyboard and ask the muse “what comes next?”

Alina K. Field earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and German literature, but she found her true passion in reading and writing romance. Though her roots are in the Midwest, after six very, very, very cold years in Chicago, she moved to Southern California and hasn’t looked back. She shares a midcentury home with her husband and a blue-eyed cat who conned his way in for dinner one day and decided the food was too good to leave.

Visit her at AlinaKField.com.