Writers in the Storm

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

By Rob Preece

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 admirable because 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.

By Sharla Rae

Readers choose a book in one of three ways: They like the author, it was recommended or they read the back cover blurb. After people-watching in Barnes & Noble, I’d venture to say most books are chosen by the last method. For people ordering e-books, blurbs are especially important.

That makes blurb writing pretty darn important. There are many ways to tackle the job. If you check the links below, you’ll discover how true that is. In any case, I hope my method helps those of you who are struggling with this.

If you have written a query letter, you already know how to write a back cover blurb. Sort of. A query letter blurb uses your writing style to relay facts about the two main characters, their goals, the conflict and how the problem is solved.

A back cover blurb does the same thing as a query letter with two exceptions.

• It does not reveal the end of the book.
• It ends byposing a question or a hook statement that leaves the reader wanting more. This hook or the gottcha statement as I call it, is the part you’ll have to add to your query blurb.

Blurbs vary in length. Some are one long paragraph, some have up to four paragraphs. Two to three are most common.

All blurbs contain the same basic information.  

• Name of character with her/his goals and motives and the obstacles to those motives.
• Name of conflicting character, be it a real person or mother nature; how the second character figures into the story. If it’s a real person, for instance a romance hero, than his motives and goals are presented in relation to heroine’s. Usually a conflict of interest enters the picture.
• The last section of a blurb presents a wrench thrown into the works and the gottcha lines.

As mentioned, if you’ve written a query, you’re way a head of the game. If not, I’m betting you have at least written a synopsis. Even self published authors need them for marketing and reviewers who request them.

Condensing an entire book into a short synopsis for an agent or publisher is hard enough so you might think summarizing a story in a few short paragraphs is worse yet. Wrong.

A blurb is much easier to write.

Let’s pretend you haven’t done a query and must use the synopsis to write the blurb. Generally, the hero and heroine are introduced in two separate paragraphs in a synopsis along with their conflicts and goals.

• Pluck those two paragraphs out of the synopsis and paste them into a new blurb document.
• Now pare down those two paragraphs and rework them using strong action verbs as well as words that evoke emotion. Be sure you have the basic info I listed above. Have fun! Pretend you’re writing an action-packed movie trailer.
• If you choose to use a three-paragraph format, summarize the conflict in the last paragraph with one sentence and pose your gottcha question or statement in a second sentence. [In the case of a romance, this hook may represent the obstacles in the path of the romance]
• In a two-paragraph blurb, the gottcha lines appear at the end of the second paragraph.

One Paragraph:

I’m a huge Dean Koontz fan so I pulled Brother Odd off my bookshelf to look at the blurb. It’s only one long paragraph. That makes sense. There is one main character, Odd Thomas. Yeah, there are sideline characters but Odd Thomas is the star of the show. One paragraph is enough.

Two Paragraphs:

The blurbs on the back cover of my first two books used the two-paragraph format. In Song of the Willow, the first paragraph describes the heroine and the problem that develops when she meets the hero. The second paragraph is about the hero, his undercover assignment and how it conflicts with the fact that he’s falling in love the daughter of his target. The gottcha lines? He knows he must do his duty and risk losing his woman.

From Song of the Willow

THE TOMBOY

Ladies don’t wear men’s pants or herd cattle, nor do they curse or sneak whiskey, but Willie Vaughn does. Growing up in a household of five men, Willie could play baseball, rope a cow and hold her own in a brawl. But she never thought she’d want to seduce a man, not until she met the handsome and dangerous Rider Sinclair.

THE LIEUTENANT

Going undercover to unmask Vaughn’s arms smuggling, Rider was prepared to romance the man’s only daughter. But nobody warned him about the infuriating pixie with the luscious figure and stubborn temper. And Rider certainly didn’t count on falling in love with her. There was no way out of it. He had to separate duty from desire and put her family behind bars. The betrayal meant he’d risk the one thing he cherished most – the fiery hellcat who’d stolen his heart.    

Three Paragraphs:

When the three-paragraph format is used the first two paragraphs contain the basic character info. The third paragraph contains only the hook/gottcha lines – usually not more than two sentences. This format emphasizes the gottcha lines, sort of an extra punch to the gut. With Song of the Willow, the last lines could have been reworded slightly and put into a third paragraph.

Four Paragraphs:

While it’s rare, I’ve seen as many as 4 paragraphs used a blurb. I just started reading The Belly Dancer by DeAnna Cameron. The blurb is 4 long paragraphs. That threw me until I thought about it. The blurb went into more detail about character growth and steps getting there. I realized that this book’s appeal spans several genres, Women’s Fiction, Romance, and Historical Fiction. That’s a marketing tool that can’t be ignored – the blurb needed to reflect the wide reading base.

When all is said and done, two or three paragraph blurbs really are the norm. I believe there’s a reason for that.

Everyone is in a hurry. Readers want quick bare facts [albeit interesting facts] so a fast decision can be made: Buy the book – don’t buy the book.

Blurb Writing Tips

• You probably used some word or phrases in your book that you really like to describe the characters or a situation. Don’t be afraid to recycle them in the blurb. This allows you to demonstrate your writing style as well.
• If you’re really stuck in the mud for selling words, search for ideas in books like Phrases That Sell, by Edward Wertz & Sally Germain and More Words That Sell, by Richard Bayan. Believe it or not these books cover everything from color to youth slang. I was surprised to learn this helpful little secret. Sometimes just thumbing through books like these helps you think of ways to better express your blurb.
• Have fun; get excited. Remember when you were a kid and you saw a really cool movie? You couldn’t wait to share some of the action with friends and gave them a glowing rundown. Do the same with your book. Make readers eager to slap down their cash.

Links On Blurb Writing

How to Write a blub by Marylyn Beyerly : This author separates the blurbs by genres. Very interesting.
Tips On Writing An Engaging Blurb: A three paragraph format
5 Tips For Writing A Compelling Book Blurb: at Romance University
How To Write A Blurb: at Penguin Blog

Writers are readers too. We’ve all made grocery store, Walmart and airport book purchases. For now, forget the books you bought because you love the author. Read the blurbs of the books you purchased because the blurb sounded exciting. What is it about those blurbs that convinced you to buy the book? Characters? Setting? Situation? Genre? Let’s talk about it.