It's conference season! This is the first in our new series, where we will each focus on a different aspect of attending conferences, based on our own strengths/preferences.
I’m probably the biggest ‘conference virgin’ of the group, having attended exactly one. But it was the Grand Dame of them all – RWA National, three years ago in Washington, D.C.
I was lucky enough to attend with my amazing fellow WITS bloggers, who kept me from any major embarrassments. If you have the opportunity, room with a friend and do conferences together. You not only have someone to defrag with at the end of the day (can you say, SLEEPOVER?!) But we attacked the conference in a systematic way; each choosing different sessions to attend, and swapping notes. It allowed us to gain so much more.
Did I mention the fun we had in our jammies at night? OMG, it was legendary. We giggled like high school teenagers on a full load of Boone’s Farm (only our booze was much better.)
But I’m wandering off the subject here, which is...PITCHING!
You may not know this about me, but I tend to be a bit – um – zealous.
I had a novel to pitch at the conference in D.C. -- a completed, shiny new novel. The conference experience would be wonderful, but the pitching was my major purpose for being there.
Nervous? No, why do you ask?
Was I nervous? I was. Visibly shaking knees nervous.
Was I afraid? Fill your pants afraid.
Could anyone tell? Nope. This was a ‘fake it till you make it’ moment. I donned my monkey power suit that morning, spending more than my usual ten minutes on makeup, praying for a good hair day.
Oh yes, and don’t forget your titanium panties.
But let me back up a minute - how did I get hold of those titanium panties??
The work of that day was put in the month before. My wonderful home chapter, OCC, devotes the meeting before conference, getting the unpubbed prepared. I’d walked the gauntlet of practice pitch sessions, with published authors playing the part of an agent. I’d listened to every bit of advice anyone who’d been to a conference could give me.
I’ll share some of that with you here:
Relax. Yeah, I know, I couldn’t either. But if you do your homework and choose an editor/agent who reps your genre, they’re going to ask for a partial. It’s what they do. It helped me, knowing that as long as I didn’t throw up on them, they’d ask to see my novel.
Make yourself memorable. In a good way – not the crazy-author-stalker way. I chose a photo that I thought well represented my novel, and printed it, in color, on the back of my sheet of notes, so the agent would see it while I read. Did it help? I don’t know. But it gave them something to look at, and I’m sure it was memorable. In fact, I referred to it when I sent the partial, so they’d remember me, among all the authors they met.
Pitch, Pitch, Pitch! You’re there. You’re dressed. You have a book. Why not pitch to the widest audience you can? Yes, I know, they’ll allow you only one or two appointments. BUT. There are a lot of cowards less stalwart people than you out there. They chicken out. Almost every session had the monitors calling for people who wanted to pitch to this or that agent. So I volunteered. Five times. Did all of them rep my genre? No. But they had coworkers who did. They gave me their card to include so the person would know I was referred to them.
Did I sell that book? No. Not then (though it has sold since.) But it was an amazing experience. If nothing else, I walked away confident in the fact that I could DO this. I’ll never be that afraid to pitch again.
Put yourself out there. Will you succeed? I don’t know. But I can guarantee you'll have a better shot than if you don’t!
Do you like to pitch or hate it? What do you remember about your first conference? Any tips for this year's conference "virgins?"
Writers In The Storm welcomes Kara Lennox, a.k.a. Karen Leabo to our family of bloggers. Kara is an award-winning, bestselling author of more than sixty novels of romance and romantic suspense for Harlequin and Random House.
You can read Kara’s blogs here at WITS on the first Friday of each month. She’s starting out with a big bang with a series of Plot Fixer blogs. Don’t miss out, stop by every month and get your plot fix.
By Kara Lennox
I confess, I love plot. I relish working out the three acts, the scene-and-sequel, highs and lows, black moment, climax. When it all comes together and I know a book is going to work, I actually get a natural high.
But something I love almost as much is helping other writers figure out what’s wrong with their plots, and how to fix them.
To this end, I have a workshop that I’ve given dozens of times, both in person and online. The workshop has changed names over the years. Currently it’s “Plot Fixer.” In it, I cover the seventeen most common plotting problems I’ve encountered during critiquing and contest judging, and how to overcome them. (Why seventeen? It started as an even dozen, but it’s grown.)
How did I come up with this list of plot ailments? Mostly because I've suffered through them myself. I've sold a lot of books. But I've also had hundreds of rejections. HUNDREDS. Many of those were form rejections, but lots and lots of them detailed problems that I have since learned to spot myself. (Yeah, I still get rejections, darn it. Always more to learn.)
I have also been a regular participant of a critique group for most of the past twenty-something years. I judge contests all the time, I critique manuscripts, and certain plotting errors I see over and over again.
Now, I’m going to pass along what I’ve learned to you … one blog at a time.
You can use this information if you already have a story written, or if you have just an outline, or even if you’re in the planning stages.
I have 12 blogs, each covering one or two of the problems—how to spot them, fix them, or at least divert attention away from them.
So, without further ado, let’s get into the trenches and get dirty.
Problem #1
Your premise isn't compelling enough.
A weak premise, or one that is too simple or too complicated, will result in getting rejected at the query stage.
So what makes for a strong, compelling premise?
I'm sure you've heard of "high concept." A high-concept plot isn't just for movies. Every book--even a short category romance--needs a high concept. That means you can state the premise in one or two sentences, and whoever hears or reads these sentences can immediately "get" what your book is about. Furthermore, those sentences make that person nod and say, "ooooooooh." What is it about your book that makes people say, "ooooooooh"?
Boring: A woman needs a job and goes to work as a bounty hunter. Although she is not qualified, she learns along the way and eventually brings in a dangerous felon and solves a murder.
Better: A woman desperate for employment takes a last-resort job as a bounty hunter. Her first assignment is to bring in a cop accused of murder--her ex-boyfriend, who broke her heart.
Most of you probably recognize the above two examples as describing Janet Evanovich's first Stephanie Plum novel, ONE FOR THE MONEY. Both examples are accurate, but the second one is much more compelling, no? Especially to romance readers, for whom this book was intended.
It's all about what you choose to highlight or emphasize.
Sometimes, the "high concept" is simply a marketable element--say, a vampire--in a new context. My friend Nancy Haddock is a very talented writer, but she struggled for years to sell her first book. Finally she did it with LA VIDA VAMPIRE--about a female vampire who just wanted to have fun, work a job, go to school and watch TV like any normal woman. Of course, the forces of evil won't let her be. This was a new kind of vampire, and Nancy spun Francesca into a successful franchise series.
The ultimate high concept: Demon-hunting soccer mom. Author Julie Kenner practically sold CARPE DEMON with those four words alone.
Now, look at your story. What is unique? What is marketable? How can you highlight it, both in how you tell the story, and how you pitch it? Test it out on people. Do you get the "oooooooh?" Post it to comments if you like. See what reactions you get.
If you can't come up with a short, punchy logline, brainstorm with a group of fellow writers. That usually helps. And if that doesn’t work, my advice is to rethink your story.
Next time, we’ll talk how to fix a weak opening.
Don't miss Kara's latest book, Outside The Law and her soon to be re-released classic Bantam Loveswept novels (writing as Karen Leabo). Kara's website
While sitting at an autographing at the Romantic Times Convention several years ago, a woman hurried up to my table. I gave her my best “I’m-safe” smile.
The signing hadn’t gone well so far—could I be on the verge of something good?
“I have to tell you,” she said… Tell me what? That I’m her favorite author? “That I never read romances written by men,” she explained. “Men just don’t get romance.”
Fair enough, I guess, although it was information I couldn’t quite use in my daily life. Regardless of her desire that I get a sex change operation, I think she has a point.
Most romance readers are women, and many romances written by men are melodramatic with tragic endings (Romeo and Juliet, Love Story, Madam Bovary, Bridges of Madison County).
I do think that a good writer, of whatever sex, must be able to create convincing characters of both sexes—characters who are recognizably male or female every time they open their mouths, every time the author dips into their internal dialog. Yet, if you read some romance, you’ll come across male characters who just aren’t convincing. Certainly in romance, we aren’t looking for completely realistic male characters (most readers are women who already have an all-too-realistic male in their lives).
What we strive for is verisimilitude—characters who capture the truth of their sex without coming across as females with male equipment. If you think about authors who’ve reached the top of the romance genre, authors like Nora Roberts and Suzanne Brockmann, I think you’ll find that they write compelling and believable, yet not at all realistic, male characters.
Speaking from the vantage point of a male and a writer, what I think top writers do is to understand not just male stereotypes, but the reasoning underlying them—and why many men find these male traits to be admirable (as well as how they can be annoying). Good authors let the reader see both sides… with an emphasis on the admirable when it comes to heroes, of course.
Please note that men are individuals and don’t all fall into these stereotypes. Even when they don’t, they often see the stereotypes as desirable.
Let’s take some examples:
1. Men think they don’t talk much. In the male ideal, actions speak louder than words. So, when writing a male character, consider their dialogue.
Are they rambling?
Are they filling time?
Are they doing that activity males dread…
Discussing their feelings?
If so, that’s a caution light. Men don’t see this as being unwilling to communicate. Instead, we see talking as a delaying tactic, and as an ambush in the making. Make your male dialogue crisp, and have your male characters doing something while they talk.
2. Men see themselves as fixers.
Give a man a problem without a solution and you have an unhappy man.
Have your heroine ignore your hero’s wonderful solution and you have a frustrated man.
Men see “fixing things” as admirablebecause they think problems need to be “solved.” Women find it annoying because when they voice a problem, they just want to be heard. They don’t necessarily want the man to jump in and fix things.
So, how to use this?
Obviously you can’t always give men problems they can solve (who wants to read about weak heroines who need to be saved), but recognize and use this mindset.
Explore their frustration when they can’t solve problems. Understand that many hero archetypes are based on the problem solver (there is a reason so many billionaire tycoons show up in romance… their money lets them solve problems).
To admit to a problem of their own means to admit to being less than a fixer… it’s something that you may want to use as part of a resolution, but certainly not until after the dark moment in your romance.
Word and Language. It isn’t true that guys mostly grunt. But in many cases they use a different vocabulary than do women. (I read recently of the Piraha language in the Amazon in which men, amazingly use one more consonant than women in conversation).
Photo from funaye.blogspot.com
In western culture, at least, men use descriptions more sparingly. When talking of colors (except maybe of their favorite truck), guys tend to see the world in terms of the colors in the small Crayola box.
If you have a guy who mentions about someone’s darling teal frock, you have a character who isn’t really believable. “Darling,” “teal” and “frock” are all words that would be chosen only by females or male fashion designers).
Likewise, men are unlikely to describe an oval-shaped face with sooty eyelashes and an elegant neck. (They’ll see a pretty face with kissable lips).
If you scrub your manuscript, you’ll find you won’t need so many dialogue tags because who’s talking will be clear from the words chosen.
Make your guys use:
shorter sentences
more active verbs
fewer, shorter descriptions, and fewer questions
Guys are visual(when in their point of view, consider downplaying the other senses). Scientific evidence indicates that men are better at focus (which also means they don’t see what isn’t in their focal region). Again, let this be both a strength and weakness… but have the guys see it as a strength.
Guys tend not to be much good at multitasking. We call it focus. Women generally think it means we’re not paying attention (hint: we’re not). This relates to the whole focus issue.
So, we have some basic stereotypes. The trick is to play with them and show change without violating what lies beneath the stereotypes. Remember, for the most part, guys see these characteristics as positives. So, don’t write as if you’re going to fix them; allow your hero and heroine to discover how these attributes work and backfire in developing their relationship.
Obviously Suzanne Brockmann, with her Navy Seals and constant action, has some advantages. Her characters have to be tough, have to be focused, have to keep conversation to a minimum, have to see only the high points and not overstress nuance—it’s what keeps them alive. But if you consider standard romance hero clichés… the cowboy, the pirate, the Scottish laird, the angry Greek shipping tycoon, I think you’ll find that they start with males who follow the typically male characteristics.
When the romance is well written, the heroes don’t really change these fundamental things that make them male.Instead, they gather new insights.
They may learn that they have to:
Bend their approach
Accept that they cannot fix everything
That they have to broaden their focus, but they will do so in the context of their basic instincts
Writing convincing males isn’t especially difficult, but it does require the author to pay attention to her word choices, let awareness of sensory details vary depending on point of view, and keeping in mind that men don’t see their differences as problems to overcome but as strengths to be built on.
Happy writing. I'm looking forward to your questions and comments.
Rob Preece is an author and publisher for BooksForABuck.com. He lives in Long Beach, CA with his author-wife Kara Lennox, a cranky cockatiel, and a desperately needy cat.
Rob writes speculative fiction and paranormal romance under his own name, romantic comedy as Robyn Anders and mystery and romantic suspense as Amy Eastlake. When he's not writing or editing, Rob enjoys martial arts (he's a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do), competitive bridge, and long distance cycling. Before becoming a publisher, Rob spent a number of years in the high-tech sector writing the fiction known as product specifications. Rob's works have finaled or won a number of writing contests including a final in RWA's Golden Heart award, and have placed in best-selling and "highest rated" lists.
His most recent publication, NanoCorporate, is a near-future speculative fiction novel set in a world that extrapolates existing political and technological trends. His most recent romance is Medium in the Middle, a paranormal romance. He's currently working on a prequel to NanoCorporate.
