Writers in the Storm

Thank-you to Shannon Donnelly for supplying a "handout" to a workshop I was looking forward to - SUBTEXT.  We are truly fortunately at Writers in the Storm to have Shannon as a contributing blogger the first Monday on every month.

by Shannon Donnelly

There was supposed to be a workshop on this at RWA national conference—it was canceled and I heard some folks regretting that. So in the interest of helping out, here’s some easy advice on subtext:

Let your characters talk about everything EXCEPT what they are thinking and what’s really going on.

A great example of this is to have your characters meet for breakfast the morning after they first go to bed. Instead of the guy talking about how he doesn’t want this to be a commitment, have him bring up and talk about sports—about the game that afternoon, about how it’s going to be good since the home team traded for a better player from another team, about how it’s changed a lot since the team picked up a new coach (message in all of this is that nothing stays the same).

Heroine—being a smart girl—gets the point, and she then starts her own subtext conversation. Oh yeah, well, you’re going to regret passing up someone like me—that’s what she’s thinking. But this is subtext. She doesn’t say any of that. She throws back at the guy that the other team’s star pitcher—who has been with them for five years—is going to wipe the field with them. Oh, and by the way, she goes on to burn his toast, and leave seeds in his OJ just to get back at him for being such a jerk.

In other words—the character talk about anything EXCEPT what they are thinking and what’s going on.

This is often something you have to do in revision. First draft you may find yourself letting him tell her he’s not ready for commitment, and she cries and tells him he’s a jerk, and the reader is bored, bored, bored. You’ll be bored just writing it, too.

And here’s the thing—most people, most of the time, want to avoid conflict.

We don’t want to ask the boss for a raise. We don’t want to tell the girl/guy we just met that last night is not going to be repeated. We don’t want to tell a loved one that something must be done with that morning breath. We don’t even want to tell the favorite kid that the person picked out for marriage is soooo very wrong.

So we duck and cover, and we try to slip in what we mean between words.

Instead of asking the boss for a raise, we take on a project, do an amazing job, and then mention to the boss how sales are up in this past month (subtext is you should give me a raise because I did that).

Instead of telling the girl/guy last night is not going to be repeated, we refuse breakfast, take down the phone number, tell ‘em we’ll call, and duck out the door with excuses of other things we’re late to (subtext I’ll call you).

Instead of telling a loved one about that morning breath, we buy them a bottle of mouthwash and leave it in a conspicuous place (yes, subtext can be through action not just words).

Instead of telling the truth to our kids, we smile, and ask that very wrong person a bunch of embarrassing questions designed to show the kid that this person is the wrong one. Alternate strategy is to trot out embarrassing stories about the kid (subtext is you guys are so wrong for each other).

Subtext works best with strong contrast—and it can work, too, with characters that don’t play along. It’s sometimes fun to have a guy who doesn’t get the subtext of a woman trying to brush him off without her saying, “Get lost, jerk.”

Subtext is all about how we negotiate in a conversation for what we want—we want to play nice, be polite, and still get what we want.

And, yes, you have a few folks who don’t do this—who are blunt and rude and say exactly what they think. But they’re not as much fun to write.

Do you have questions about subtext? Examples of subtext in your life? We want to hear about them in the comments!

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About Shannon...

Shannon Donnelly’s writing has won numerous awards, including a RITA nomination for Best Regency, the Grand Prize in the “Minute Maid Sensational Romance Writer” contest, judged by Nora Roberts, RWA’s Golden Heart, and others. Her writing has repeatedly earned 4½ Star Top Pick reviews from Romantic Times magazine, as well as praise from Booklist and other reviewers, who note: “simply superb”…”wonderfully uplifting”….and “beautifully written.”

Her latest Regency Historical Romance, Paths of Desire, can be found as an ebook, along with her Regency romances, now available from Cool Gus Publishing. She has had novellas published in several anthologies, has had young adult horror stories published, and is the author of several computer games.

Shannon is a regular speaker at writing conferences, and will be speaking at the 2012 RWA  National conference in Anaheim. She gives online workshops and is the author of Story Telling; Story Showing, an ebook that compliments her popular online class Show and Tell: An Interactive Workshop.

She lives in New Mexico with two horses, two donkeys, two dogs, and the one love of her life. Shannon can be found online at sd-writer.com, facebook.com/sdwriter, and twitter/sdwriter.

Writers In The Storm welcomes back Kara Lennox, a.k.a. Karen Leabo for some more plot-fixing magic. Look for Kara's writing tips the first Friday of every month. This is the fifth in an ongoing series of Plot Fixer blogs by double RITA finalist Kara Lennox. Kara is an award-winning, bestselling author of more than sixty novels of romance and romantic suspense for Harlequin and Random House. Here are the links for  Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Part 4, on conflict, can be found here.

by Kara Lennox

Plot Problem #7

Stakes are too low

For the reader to care about your book, something important has to be at stake. Otherwise, the reader is likely to say, "Who cares?" or "Why is the heroine making such a big deal about this?"

What are high stakes? When the following are threatened:

• Loss of life
• Loss of limb
• Loss of health
• Loss of livelihood–not just the loss of a job, because most of the time, when someone loses a job, it's bad, but they can and usually do get another job. So you have to set up your story where THAT job is the ONLY job that will do.
• Loss of a loved one
• Loss of affection
• Loss of belonging
• Loss of the ability to pursue a passion (a serious injury to a dancer, for example)
• Loss of sanity
• Loss of your soul
• Loss of a home (but again, only if THAT home means something special, like it's a family homestead that has been in the family for generations)
• Loss of a business (see above, must be a special business, one that can't be replaced or duplicated somewhere else.)
• Loss of faith
• Loss of ideals
• Loss of a dream
• Loss of freedom

This is not an exhaustive list, but I think I've hit all the big ones.

This can be tricky in a romance, especially a straight romance that does not involve suspense (as in romantic suspense, where lives are at stake) or some paranormal element. As a writer, you have to convince your reader that this romance is SO SPECIAL, it cannot be duplicated or replaced. If these two people lose each other, they've lost all chance to be happy, and those are perhaps the highest stakes of all:

Loss of happiness, forever.

Some ways to accomplish this are:

--indicate that this romance is somehow fated. It was predicted, or the hero and heroine wished on shooting stars, or their grandparents were lovers who were torn apart, history is repeating itself--something magical.

--involve a child. If the hero and heroine had a child together, nothing will ever be the same for that child if the parents break up.

--show that these two people are so perfectly matched, no one else could ever do for either of them. The movie JUNO worked that way for me. Both characters were misfits; they had so many things in common. Only they understood each other. If they hadn't both been just 16, they would have gotten married and kept their baby.

You also want to escalate the stakes.  The stakes should get higher as the story progresses. In a suspense book, this is easy; you kill someone else. Each successive death brings the threat closer and closer to your main characters, until finally one or both of them are about to die.

Sometimes, the stakes are high from the beginning. Take the movie MY COUSIN VINNIE. From the beginning, the boys are threatened with being convicted and executed for a murder they didn't commit. But that very undesirable outcome becomes more and more probable as their incompetent lawyer makes mistake after mistake after mistake. No matter what he does to fix things, he just makes things worse until the viewer can't imagine how the boys will escape their fate.

So, ask yourself: What's at stake in your story? In the infamous words of literary agent Donald Maass, how can you make it worse? How can you make this even worse? What is the worst thing that could possibly happen? Find a way to make that happen, or at least introduce the probability that it will happen. (Whenever I ask my husband this question, he always says, "The whole universe could turn into anti-matter and we could be sucked into a black hole ..." Yeah, yeah, yeah.)

Do you have trouble taking your characters from bad to worse? Do you have questions about raising the stakes?

Kara Lennox, author of Project Justice series for Harlequin SuperRomance

Six titles now available in e-book or print!

Hidden Agenda now available

Sweet Romance Hard to Resist now available from Harlequin Heartwarming

Karen Leabo, author of Callie's Cowboy, August release from Bantam Loveswept e-books

Next Monday we're welcoming Shannon Donnelly who is kind enough to share her thoughts on subtext, since that workshop was cancelled at conference and many of us bemoaned that fact outside the doors to the session.

Writers in the Storm welcomes Susan Spann, contributing guest for Part 5 of her Publishing Decisions series. If you missed Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, or Part 4 and would like to read that blog, just click on the one you missed.

by Susan Spann

Welcome back to our ongoing discussion of publishing options and how to choose between them!

Today we dive into the thorny thickets and plumb the pitfalls that sometimes distract an author from the proper path.

The good news is, you can avoid them if you know what you’re looking for!

As we’ve discussed in previous weeks, smart authors make choices by understanding their personal goals, preparing business plans, and engaging in realistic evaluation of the various publishing options.

By treating publishing as a business, every author can decide which options best meet the needs of the writer and his or her work.

Unfortunately, authors sometimes make decisions for other, less helpful reasons. Even experienced authors fall into these traps from time to time – and it’s important to keep the pitfalls on your radar to ensure you avoid them on your publishing road.

Let’s take a look at three common decision-making traps:

1. The lure of “big money.” Some authors make a living by writing, but the vast majority don’t generate sufficient income from publication to support themselves and their families.

Let’s repeat that for emphasis: most authors don’t get rich by writing. This is true of both traditionally published and independent (aka self-published or “indie”) authors, so money alone is not a good reason to choose a publishing path.

Yes, there are breakout successes in both indie and traditional publishing. Authors in both areas do get wildly wealthy from sales of their work. But smart authors know that you can’t – and shouldn’t - plan to be the exception.

2. Impatience, Frustration and Prejudice. Publishing is often a frustrating process, no matter which publishing option you choose.  The key is not letting impatience – or prejudice – lead you to an inappropriate choice.

Some authors grow impatient with the difficult, drawn-out nature of traditional publishing. Others mistakenly view indie and self-publishing options as inferior or unprofessional.

Don’t make these mistakes!

Many polished, professional authors enjoy successful indie careers.

And sometimes traditional publishing seems difficult because the author’s work isn’t ready for publication. A work that’s not ready probably won’t succeed in any field.

Choosing a publishing path is a business decision. Aspects of the various paths may appeal to you – or not – for various reasons, but successful authors decide on the basis of facts and concrete goals, not impatience or prejudice.

3. Peer pressure. Blogs, websites, and traditional media outlets increasingly debate the merits of traditional vs. independent publishing. Everyone has an opinion, and some of those opinions are voiced with a vehemence that discourages contradiction. It can be easy for an author to feel pressured to “choose a side” or pick a path on the basis of other people’s experiences or arguments.

Don’t fall into that trap!

Traditional publishing is the right path for some writers. Indie publishing fits many authors’ goals and needs. No path or choice is one-size-fits-all. Every author must make an independent decision on the basis of his or her individual needs and talents. The minute you let someone else’s opinion control your decisions, you’ve lost control of your publishing career.

That doesn’t mean “ignore everything you hear.” Smart authors listen, evaluate arguments on their merits (meaning factual content, not emotional impact), and determine whether and how each opinion fits with the author’s own experience, goals, and business plan.

All of these traps have a couple of things in common:

- The traps cut for and against both traditional and independent publishing, depending on the way you spin the issue.

This means a writer can fall for these traps regardless of the publishing path (s)he chooses.

- Each trap is based on emotion or “feelings” rather than logic and business sense.

This doesn’t mean “discard emotion altogether.” Wishes and dreams have a place in the planning process. The danger lies in allowing emotion to overwhelm common sense to the point where the author replaces reality with emotion or proceeds on the basis of feelings alone.

Writers are emotional people – we have to be, to convey realistic emotion on the page. Dreams are important. Without them no author would succeed. The key is learning to hold your dream close without letting it interfere with your business judgment, because (like it or not) publishing is a business too.  

By focusing on the proper factors: fact-based goals, a business plan, and honest evaluation of personal skills, resources and the needs of the works themselves, everyone can avoid these pitfalls and choose the proper publishing path.

Do you have questions for Susan about your decision-making path? Or comments on what you've heard or had to decide for yourself?

Susan Spann is a publishing attorney and author who practices in Sacramento, California. CLAWS OF THE CAT, the debut novel in her SHINOBI mystery series featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori, will be published by Thomas Dunne Books in Spring 2013. Susan blogs about writing, publishing law and seahorses at http://www.SusanSpann.com

Join us on Friday for the fifth in the Plot Fixer series by Kara Lennox.  And next Monday Shannon Donnelly gives us a lesson in subtext.