Writers in the Storm

Have you ever tried to take up a new sport?  Master a new skill?  Do you remember how frustrated you became?  

I’ll use my learning to cast a fly rod, just as an example.  I took lessons and at first, I just focused on trying to keep the line in the air.  The rod moves from ten to two position (think of a clock) and timing is critical to keeping more and more line feeding out and in the air (hopefully without hitting yourself in the back of the head with a fly!).  All that seemed hard enough, but then I had to actually aim at something in the water and be able to hit it, without slapping the water and scaring the fish!  Or snarling the whole mess in an overhanging tree branch (where did that thing come from?)  Seemed impossible in the beginning.

 Being a neophyte in writing feels a bit like that; how do I remember all the things I need to do, all at the same time?  Everything feels awkward, and just…. not comfortable.  I’ll learn a new skill - say plotting.  I end up focusing so much on that that my characters become flat and uninteresting.  What makes it harder is that, at first, I don’t realize what’s happened.  I just know that suddenly, I’ve lost interest in the story, and can’t make myself sit down and write.  I spent a month flogging myself, accusing myself of being lazy, and questioning my ability to become a professional writer.  A month wasted.

 Well, maybe not wasted completely, because I now understand what was wrong, and maybe next time I’ll recognize it more quickly.  This road to being a good writer is a long and convoluted one.   Much more so than I realized when I began.

 It’s like giving birth – if you truly knew what you were getting yourself into, would you do it?  I think it depends on when you’re asked…when they put the baby in your arms for the first time?  Of course!  In the middle of labor?  When the hormones hit at eleven?  Maybe not so much . . .

When romance writers create a Happily-Ever-After tale, there has to be more to the relationship than simply LUST between the hero and heroine. As many a woman has discovered in real life, lust doesn’t last forever. (Shh, don’t tell my husband!)

Whether you are writing an Erotic Romance, an Inspirational Romance or anything in between, you need to deepen that relationship to make the ‘forever’ believable. Here are some of the elements you can show to convince your readers.

 The hero is great with kids; we'd all want him to be the father of our children.

 If there are simply no children around, you can fake the same message by having the hero be kind to dogs, cats or assorted other animals, particularly if they’re injured.

 The hero protects/defends heroine from her enemies.

 The hero's actions are mentally heroic; he is a truth teller and/or has integrity in spite of possible negative repercussions to his own life.

 The hero has the ability to have fun, or enhances the heroine's sense of fun.

 The heroine empathizes with the hero's past, his problems, or his possible future; she senses his emotional needs and wants to fill them.

 The hero and heroine share either common interests or values, or both, often in spite of apparent or superficial differences.

 The hero intuitively understands and meets the heroine's needs, both emotionally and in a sexual way (at the sensual level appropriate for your book). (Remember, we’re talking fantasy here.)

The hero talks to the heroine, revealing more of himself than he ever has before. That makes him vulnerable. 

The hero admires/respects what the heroine does/is, and lets her know it, either directly or through his actions.

The heroine learns from others that the hero is a worthy person.

 In terms of personality or emotional strength (not in a materialistic way), the hero/heroine provides what is lacking in the other. 

The hero puts the heroine first and is willing to sacrifice something important for her - and she will sacrifice for him.

 While all of these elements lend themselves to one or more scenes, they don't have to all be in every story. Nor can you simply throw one or two in just for the fun of it.

     Every element in your story must be integrated and evolve from the characters and plot.

     But keep in mind your readers want to believe this relationship you've created will last forever. Give them good reasons to keep the faith--and your book. 

Visit my blog:

 www.CharlotteCarter.com

     Books that leave you smiling from Love Inspired:

       Montana Hearts, 12/2010

       Big Sky Reunion, 5/2011

by Jenny Hansen

It took me years to discover that I am an A.D.D. writer. Though I don’t have a startling amount of Attention Deficit in my everyday life, the facts don’t lie and my A.D.D. shows up in my writing like a big ugly neon elephant, along with my fear of commitment.

For more than a decade I’ve gone from manuscript to manuscript, even jumping from one to another then back again. I wasn’t having a writing problem, I was having a finishing problem.

I’d crank out 100-150 pages and have a stellar story started but I wasn’t completing any novels. For a while, I’d simply write a short story whenever I was stuck on a book (and I have at least one chapbook of those piled up). Then I’d alternate between feeling great that at least I finished something and berating myself that I was batting zero at finishing my novels.

There are at least five unfinished books that came out of this ten year long learning process, which equals a lot of pages that spent years going nowhere.

I tried everything, going to workshop after workshop to learn what other people knew about finishing books that I didn’t. I’ve created outlines, which worked out fine for knowing what happened in the book but definitely stifled my creativity. I’ve tried seat of the pants writing, rushing through the first three chapters to find out what the book it about. Character studies, synopsis writing, praying to the creativity gods…really anything and everything I could do to get a book off the ground and enjoy the process.

The enjoyment was the biggest rub, along with the commitment. Typically, I’d get stuck on one of three things:

1. It was boring to do it this way, and my creative side isn’t very patient or structured.

2. Once I knew what happened, I didn’t want to write the book any more.

3. Transitions are pure hell for me and I’d get stuck on them.

The first two are just my own lovely personality flaws (back to the A.D.D.). The last one is something I hope I get better at over time. I can write emotional scenes or funny scenes all day long with complete focus and pretty good results. However, if you ask me to get the heroine out of her office and over to a restaurant for the next scene, I go blank and dither around, either writing too much or getting complete writer’s block.

Finally, in desperation, I asked my critique group if I could just ‘get a pass on transitions’ and they were sweet enough to say yes. We have a system worked out: I highlight a note like “Get heroine from point A to point B please” and they help me fill it in later, after the first draft is finished and in the bag. In return, I help them amp up their humor or their emotional scenes. Sharla Rae writes the steamiest sex scenes you’ve ever read so she weighs in on those (thank God!). I believe this is the magic of a great critique group – everyone has their talents and when you combine them all, everyone gets a fantastic book out of it.

What I really am is a scene writer. I can manage to stay sustained and interested in a single scene. Most of the time, I can even manage to write it from start to finish since I am lucky to write fairly quickly. I work really hard to focus on nothing else besides that scene because the end of the book always feels like a big black scary hole to me. If I think about it, I get stuck. So I don’t even consider THE END OF THE BOOK until I’ve finished the first draft containing all the scenes I think need to be in the novel. I know I can put them together later, sort of like shooting a film out of order then sending it to the editing department.

My process has evolved into something pretty close to the following:

1. Like most writers, each book usually starts with an idea or a scene that comes into my head fully formed. I write that scene when it comes to me so that I have it out of my head and onto the page. This process seems to keep the gates open for more scenes to come crowding in.

2. I try to write at least five days a week as it keeps my brain open to receiving new scenes. When I let more than a weekend go by without keeping my work in progress on my mind, I start to lose focus.

3. I take some time out from the writing to bat some ‘what if’s’ around with the people I plot with, decide on the overriding theme or message for the book as well as the internal and external conflicts for the protagonist and antagonist.

4. If I’m really lucky, the turning points get decided in advance too. I’m not always lucky and sometimes I have to have a second plotting session over this one. At the very least, I take time with my critique group to discuss what I think the turning points are to see if I’m remotely on target and if it all sounds believable. (For a great summary of turning points, read the following breakdown of Jenny Crusie’s talk at the 2009 RWA conference: http://www.amypadgett.com/2009/07/romance-writers-of-america-conference.html)

The good news is, now that I understand my process and the simple fact that I’m a scene writer, I can stop berating myself for what I’m not and just focus on the joy of being what I am. I finally understand why I’ve been able to finish short stories: they come to me as one long scene and I can hold my focus long enough for that.

Two writers I deeply respect – Diana Gabaldon (Outlander series) and Janet Fitch (White Oleander) – are both scene writers. For Outlander, Ms. Gabaldon wrote the scenes that came to her and stitched them together later, like a quilt. Janet Fitch published White Oleander originally as a series of short stories which she later realized were chapters in a larger story that she combined into a novel. Everything worked out well for them, right? I remind myself of that whenever I feel myself losing focus and force myself to slow down, breathe, and take things one scene at a time.