Writers in the Storm

by Fae Rowen

My first RWA National Conference was the last time it was held in Anaheim. It was a long time ago, maybe 1997.

I had just joined OCC and RWA in February of the same year. I'd finished two books--a fantasy medieval and a futuristic romance. The fantasy medieval was written with no writing classes or craft information, let alone critique partners. I'd never heard of POV. Yes, to this day, that wonderful first book lies amidst the cobwebs under my bed.

The second book was completed after reading a couple of books about writing, attending SDSU's Writing Conference and taking two writing classes. I loved the book. I was in a critique group and my critique partners helped me plug the weaknesses in my writing and the book finaled in a contest.

I was so excited about conference. I carefully picked my agent and editor appointments. I thought. More about that later.

There were so many people at conference. I attended the "For First Time" session, even though my critique partners explained a little about the conference set-up. I went to every craft session. The Goody Room astounded me. My chair backed into Nora Roberts's at the luncheon. I just knew I was meant to be there and sell my first book.

I wrote several pitches--on scraps of paper that would fit in my palm. (I hadn't heard about writing a pitch until I attended a session on it the day before my appointments!) I took a special outfit to change into for my afternoon appointments. I practiced calming breaths. I went to the ballroom for my back-to-back appointments to sell my futuristic.

Apparently my pitch wasn't all that. (I could have used Laura Drake's pitch information!) My first appointment, with an agent whose name I don't remember--honestly!--got no request for anything. If I remember correctly, and that's a stretch because I have a very selective memory with respect to negative events, I think she didn't represent futuristic. So much for research.

Shaken, I tried to memorize that scrap of paper in my shaking hand before my name was called again. I was not used to being nervous talking with anyone. Heck, I played the piano competitively. And I'd sung on stage in front of over a thousand people.

I was a wreck following the RWA volunteer to the little table.

The editor I met with was so young. I read my three line pitch and looked up. He smiled and asked, "So tell me about your book." What? I rambled on, answering his interjected questions, for the ten minute appointment. He was a nice kid. The bell rang and I got up to leave, thanking him. He stood, shook my hand, and gave me his card. "Please send me the first three chapters and synopsis."

I almost kissed him. I know bells rang. I didn't know that more people get asked to send chapters than don't. I sent my chapters. Two weeks later I got a letter asking for the whole manuscript. Three months after that I got a letter asking for three detailed revisions and eighty-five less pages.

I still have a soft spot for this editor. When I saw him at the RWA Washington D.C. conference three years ago he didn't look much older.

Here's the "My First Time At Conference" laugh: I took two copies of the complete manuscript (all 435 pages), in little cardboard boxes to the conference. I thought that if the editor and agent wanted to see my wonderful book, I would just give it to them right then. I found out at one of the sessions that you never give your manuscript to an agent or editor at conference. And I lamented the waste of paper and ink from my dot matrix printer.

I had logged well over a hundred thousand flight miles for work in the previous five years. Did I think about luggage for those poor agents and editors? Nope. Obviously I wasn't lucky enough to have read Jenny Hansen's post about conference.

Did I go to the bar to celebrate after his request? Nope, I went back to my room, changed out of my "nice" clothes and went to the last craft workshop of the day. That night was the RITA ceremony, with chocolate RITAs wrapped in gold foil. I knew nothing about them before, but I decided that night that I would win one someday.

Even though just about the only thing I did right was take advantage of much-needed craft lectures, I still smile fondly at the memories of my first conference.

Do you have conference memories that can help someone this year or make us smile? Come on. I never owned up to those printed-out manuscripts until now.

Rob's last male POV blog was so popular we nagged invited him to return to WITS. We asked for it, ladies - we got it! 

Finding the right relationship is the most important decision two people ever make. What percentage of murders result from failed relationships? Fifty? More?

The popularity of the romance genre is based largely, on our fascination with relationships, and our continual search for ways of improving our existing or prospective relationships. That the romance readership is over ninety percent female should provide a clue that this fascination isn’t exactly symmetrical.

Although relationships are central to human existence, we go about finding them in ridiculously unscientific ways. I used to hang out in bars and wondered why so many of the women I met had drinking problems. Meeting a woman at a health club has at least the advantage that they’re interested in fitness. The strangest thing, though, is that a huge number of men and women are unattached, yet unable to hook up.

Men and women perform a mating dance, circling around one another, sending messages that will, they hope, lead to happiness, yet so often finding the opposite. Part of the problem is that these messages can be misunderstood.

Nobody sits down with teenage guys and tells them that when a woman looks at you for more than a second (especially with that little up-down glance checking out the bod), she’s at least considering your eligibility, that the flick of her hair signals her femininity, that any touch she initiates is full-out flirtation.

Nobody also mentions that, uninvited, the same gestures sent by a male are either weird, offensive, or simply unwelcome. Another problem is that men and women are simply looking for different things -- and often using the same words to describe it.

Frequently, neither side of that equation will actually admit (to others and sometimes to themselves) what they really want. When I was young and single, I spent a lot of time analyzing who gets lucky at the bar (or health club.) It seemed a universal rule that the cutest women ended up with jerks. At the time, I assumed this is what women wanted—being a “nice guy” was a sure-fire route to spending the night alone.

A huge sub-genre of romance (typified by the Harlequin Presents/Desire lines) supports this theory -- rich successful (often older but invariably arrogant, with a rich sense of entitlement and low opinion of women) males get the (younger beautiful but needing support) females.

Certainly, going back to our pre-human primate ancestors, women who attracted the protection of powerful mates had better odds of successfully raising children, even if this protection came at a cost (evolution doesn’t favor the happy, it favors the reproductive.)

Recently, though, I read of a study(http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/students/easton/PAID_exploit.pdf) that put a wrench in the gears of my simple theory that women are attracted to jerks. Specifically, psychology researchers found that “jerks” (they called this “lower levels of agreeableness”) are better at picking up cues that women are exploitable. Back to our bar scene. Guys, it turns out, find women who are drunk, wear tight clothes, and who look not too bright, but particularly attractive (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/05/dumb_women_do_men_find_them_more_attractive_.html) especially when it comes to one-night-stands. These women are seen as easy to “exploit” (where exploit means sex without long-term commitment.)

Now, on to the basic question every woman seems to ask.

“What does it mean when he says he’ll call you later?”

It doesn’t mean anything, of course. Guys will always say this. After all, who wants to be attacked by some crazy woman? There are plenty of women a man would be happy to sleep with, yet be unwilling to engage in a relationship with. This is true for women as well, of course, but biologically most women are programmed to seek long term commitments while men are programmed to respond to long term commitments but to look for action on the side. This is one difference between producing an egg a month, with a nine month gestation period and a decade or so of child-rearing vs. producing 160 million sperm a day with a five minute impregnation period.

If he doesn’t call you, it means one of several things:

(1) he’s actually in a relationship with someone else and you were a fling;

(2) he’s a jerk who found you at an exploitable moment;

(3) he didn’t have that great a time; or

(4) he had a great time but can’t remember your name and is embarrassed to call and ask considering all that happened (this was frequently my problem as I’m notorious for being bad with names.)

Okay, so, let’s recap:

• Guys find exploitable women attractive. Exploitable, to a guy means he can get you into bed without having to commit to a relationship. If you want to be exploitable, wear tight clothes, drink, party, and hide your intelligence (i.e., be sexy.)
• Guys don’t look to exploitable women for long-term relationships (biologically possibly because they’re afraid they’ll be raising some other exploiter’s children.)
• But guys won’t notice women if they’re not at least somewhat sexy.
• Some guys specifically look for and pick up on signs that women are exploitable. These men are called “jerks.”
• Guys who aren’t jerks aren’t as good at picking up the signs.

I think the lesson is, if you want a guy who isn’t a jerk, you should show signs of exploitability but not too many—and you should be aware that the jerks will still be honing in on you. Of course, if what you want is a one-night-stand, slug down the extra martini and look around, meeting men’s eyes. You’ll find one (or several if you’re interested in swinging that way.)

Writers too often ignore signals and biological imperatives—partly because they don’t know better and partly because they’re writing fairy tales for women. Most women want to believe that offering sex creates a bond and a commitment in a male. This isn’t generally true, as most males view sex and commitment as distinct entities (necessary but not sufficient.)

But romance readers don’t want to hear about a male who’ll bed a heroine, shower off and go back to work completely unaffected. Partly, though, they gloss over the most important part of establishing a relationship, those difficult, funny-in-retrospect, moments when two people are signaling desperately—in different languages. The woman tries to sign availability… but not too much availability. The man tries to sign power and affluence, but wants to be loved for himself rather than just for his money (which he may not have… after all, there are more billionaires in category romance than there are in the real world.)

Don’t shortchange the reader—share those signals and confused messages with her.

So what do you think? Have you been writing the male POV realistically?  More importantly, do you want to?

Rob Preece is an author and publisher (for micropublisher BooksForABuck.com). His most recent book, NanoCorporate is a near-future SF thriller (available from Amazon in paperback and eBook). He’s also published romances under his own name and as Robyn Anders and mysteries and romantic thrillers as Amy Eastlake. He lives in Long Beach with his author-wife, a desperately needy cat and a cranky bird.

by Sharla Rae

Recently, at one of our WITS critique meetings, we found ourselves asking why one of our partner’s characters was doing something that appeared illogical. The writer explained it wasn’t illogical at all. It fit her character’s motivation. To which we replied, “what motivation? Shouldn’t you clue us in so we’ll understand her actions?" She frowned a little and said, “I really didn’t want to reveal everything up front, for fear of spoiling the story.”

I proposed that she should reveal all the character’s motivations to the reader, but leave the other characters in the story ignorant. Thus, readers know what the other characters don’t. This actually heightens the tension in the story for the reader.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We’ve all made the mistake of holding too much back. In fact it’s a very common mistake when starting a new story. That said, leaving out character motivations can turn a potentially great book into a corpse.

Characters can walk and talk, cry their eyes out and howl with laughter and still be pronounced dead on arrival. Unless readers know why characters are doing all those things, that is, what motivates them, the story lacks a heartbeat.

Motivation is not just the heart of every character; it’s the heart of the story. It breathes life into characters and pumps the action that moves the characters toward their goals.

Don’t roll your eyes yet. I know that all writers understand the importance of motivation. But I also know after judging many contests that some authors hold back on motivations for the wrong reasons.

Two Most Common Reasons for Hiding Character Motivation

• “I don’t want to give away the character’s secrets too soon; I want to surprise the reader at the end.”Readers are surprised all right! The characters run amuck, acting, reacting and saying things for no apparent reason. Without clear motivations, the book and its characters are as soulless as wooden puppets on strings.

Readers don’t empathize with puppets and won't read far enough to find the "surprises."Knowing character motivations allows readers to identify with them, root for or against them and experience the story’s adventure through them.

• “I’m afraid the suspense or the story tension will be lost.” This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, knowing character motivations heightens story tension because often the motivations and goals of one character interfere with those of another. Part of the fun of reading a story is discovering how everything knits together  in the end.

Yes, there are exceptions to the rule. We’ve all read mysteries where a secondary character turns out to have unknown motivations that upset the apple cart. The author gets away with this technique by never allowing the reader into this character’s point of view. However, through other characters, and discoveries made along the way, the author will drop clues that all is not what it appears on the surface.

Still, the above scenario is not the norm. In most cases, it’s not only okay for readers to know “all” character motivations, it’s necessary to understanding their actions. It’s necessary to keep the story's heart beating.

So how ’bout it? Has your story’s heart ever skipped a few beats? What was your mistake and how did you fix it?