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Tag Archives: Cady and Lock


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Searching for zen clam, or calm even

zen clam
Photo by Tom Swift

After yesterday’s post I decided what I needed was a bit of zen calm. Except with my typing snarly-uppy-wordiness, it always comes out clam.

So, I found zen clam instead. That clam looks very zen.

What else I found was a plan for my writing. I need deadlines, I need a story that I really truly want to write, and I need motivation. Looks like all three may have collided and hopefully a beautiful mess will result.

No new story, I need to finish what I have. I’ve gone back to one of my favourite old stories, Lock and Cady’s story from the Haven Bay series.  I mind mapped the series today, and I have some new ideas that excite me. I hope I’ve finally found my way with the story in what will be its fourth incarnation.

First, a messy first draft written for a Book in a Week course. , with waaaay too much external conflict. Second, a revised partial that’s probably one of the best things I’ve written at sentence and word choice level, but oh so wrong at the goal and motivation level, quite rightly collecting a very kind rejection from a Harlequin SuperRomance editor. Third incarnation finally had a strong goal and motivation, high stakes for both hero and heroine, but that partial needed a lot more work before it would be ready to sub. Where that version came unstuck was winning a five page critique from a SuperRomance author. It didn’t seem sensible to keep working on the story while waiting on the critique (what if I still had it all wrong?) so I started working on a new story. The critique somehow got lost on its way back to me, then I found I wouldn’t be able to enter the story for New Voices and needed to work on another story for that, and the result is it’s taken me over a year and a lot of other stories to come back to this one.

I love the setting, Haven Bay, and I love these characters. With each incarnation, I get to know them better and go deeper and deeper into their emotions. It all feels so real to me now!

I hope I can get that out when I try to write their story again. Writing a new first draft, then editing, and possibly even rewriting. Whatever it takes to make their story the best I can get it. I’ve given myself deadlines for planning, first drafting, then editing.

I’m looking forward to this!


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It’s on- New Voices 2011 goes live!

And so it begins!

Mills and Boon New Voices 2011 officially starts today. Another hopeful romance writer will go from wannabe to doing it- getting her story published with the biggest women’s fiction publisher in the world.

The writers who’ve been ready to go for days or weeks are already biting their nails about comments and rose ratings, with eighteen entries already up. This will end up being hundreds before the contest ends. I haven’t read any yet but I’m looking forward to it! As always, it will be a mix of good and not so good,  with a sprinkling of “What planet is she on?”, and a few “OMG, this is fabulous, wish I could write like that!”

I love the game of “Guess the winner”, too. Of course, we get to have a say in that too when the voting round opens.

But I don’t want to start reading entries just yet, not until I’ve entered my chapter. There will be plenty of slower off the mark writers like me, consoling ourselves with the knowledge that closing date isn’t until 10th October. Maybe there’s still time to pull that chapter together?

And if you don’t want to enter at all, just read, as well as all the fun of the first chapters, there are two free full-length ebooks available on the site. They’re by the fabulous Heidi Rice, who’s being a mentor for one of the finalists again this year. One I already have, but the other I don’t yet. Yippee!

So, back to the contest! I’d planned all year to enter a particular story, then found the contest rules prevented that. Back to the drawing board, and I’m glad. In one of those Plan-B-that’s-really-an-old-Plan-A twists, the story I hope to enter is another in the Haven Bay series.

Now, this will get hopelessly convoluted and make no sense at all, but it’s the first Haven Bay story I started, early last year. I finalled in the lovely Donna Alward’s eharlequin pitch contest with this story, and she gave me a thoughtful critique of chapter 1. But I stopped writing around chapter 6. I didn’t have any strong sense of the character conflict, wasn’t sure if everything I’d written was really backstory and the story should start in chapter 7 or 8! I moved on to the next Haven Bay story, Cady and Lock’s story. As I wrote that, I saw what the overarching series arc could be, an ongoing background story that threads through the series. Cady’s story came first, then Meg’s, then Zanna’s, then Lucy’s…

Well, Cady and Lock were rejected, for good reason. But could I enter the second story in a series into a contest like this? Stretching my imagination as far as it will go, what if I got picked? What if Meg and Nick got published first? Where did that leave Cady and Lock?

The answer is, back where they started right at the very beginning, second in the series, or maybe even third, after Zanna. I’m so excited now about going back to Nick and Meg! I figured out how that story arc can still work, it’s not a big deal anyway, just a background thing going on in the town that involves the characters.

I have new insight into their GMC, that will hopefully strengthen the story dramatically. I have (for once, hallelujah) a focus on internal conflict instead of external events.

I’m going back to the very first version, quite different to the revised version I sent to Donna. Two problems with that chapter. One, I was trying to write in a style that didn’t suit me, a sexier SuperRomance like an author I adore, Karina Bliss. My natural style, I’ve come to realise, is a sweeter one. The other problem, one I did with my rewritten Cady and Lock too, is take too much to heart the advice about starting right in the middle of the action. I had things happening to a character the reader didn’t know and couldn’t empathise with. My first version had five pages of not very much happening before the action, which is of course too far the other way, but better than the rewrite. Somewhere in between is the start that will work for my story. I need to find a way into the story that will hook the reader and pull her in, but also tell her who this person is these things are happening to!

So this is my job for the next four weeks, less if I can manage it. Rewrite chapter one of Meg and Nick’s story so it shows who these two are, what their needs are, what their goals are, what the things are that will pull them together, what the things are that will push them apart.

I’m a better writer now than I was eighteen months ago. I hope I can do it. If not, I’ll have fun trying, and you can laugh at my efforts when I enter the chapter in New Voices. As long as my chapter doesn’t fall into the “What planet is she on?” category, I’ll be happy!

 So, what about you? Are you entering, reading, or not sure yet?


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Discouragement

Well, I thought I was all ready to sub the partial of my SuperRomance Memorial Day Challenge entry.

Then I made the mistake of posting the synopsis to my critique partners.

Oops! They pointed out everything that was wrong with it. The places where my characterisation didn’t ring true. The plot devices. The over-reliance on external stuff at the expense of internal. All the usual mistakes I though I’d fixed with this story.

*sigh*

They’re right of course, quite right, damned right. They did their job as CPs well. So the partial I thought was ready to sub will have to go on hold while I rethink some of the points they brought up. Maybe it can be my So You Think You Can Write entry this year. 

I want to back to an old story I abandoned after six chapters, to rework it as my Mills and Boon New Voices entry. It started off as the first story in my Haven Bay series, but after six chapters it was clear the goal-less characters and lack of real conflict made it a very pretty story that was going nowhere. So I put it to one side and started on Cady and Lock’s story instead. That had more genuine conflict, but was rejected for goal-less characters (again!). I’ve started on a rewritten Cady and Lock, with the same backstory and core inner relationship blocks, but a totally different beginning. With real goals for both characters. Problem is, the rules won’t allow me to enter this in New Voices.

So back to Meg and Nick’s story. I have some ideas about their conflict. Not quite so much about their goals! But it will come together. Hopefully in time for New Voices! Entries start next week, but 10 October is the deadline for entries.

Leaving it late and cutting it fine, but I wanted to get Kate and Jack’s story subbed first. Which I’m not. And now I have some awful virus or something that’s giving me terrible headaches and tummy pain. I can’t think straight about anything. I’m amazed I’ve managed to string this many words together!

LOL, given the hash I’ve made of my stories when I thought I WAS thinking straight, maybe this is just the state of mind I should try writing in…

So, are you entering New Voices this year?


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Proactive heroine needed- oh sh*t!

This isn’t the post I planned to write today. I wanted to write a happy upbeat little post about staying positive and reaching goals and all that lovely sweet fluffy stuff. That post will come, but today isn’t the day!

Because I’m stuck. I’ve hit a wall. I’ve gone from being ahead on my targets to waaaay behind. Underachievment, your name is Autumn.

Started with winning the weekly five page critique on the SuperRomance Authors blog.

Now that should be a good thing, and it is.

I kinda had a feeling I might get my name pulled out of that particular hat soon. It will be brilliant to get some feedback from an author writing for the line I’m targeting. My CPs are great, but none of them are aiming for the same line, and there’s an element of being nice to the class dunce too. The criticism is tempered by ”Poor Autumn, she’s just not getting it but let’s be nice to her so she doesn’t feel bad.” In other words, it’s not criticism. Plus I can be stubborn and pig headed on certain issues, like drastically shortening but still hanging on to the Prologue that all my CPs said to ditch.

Now an anonymous Super author won’t have the same constraints. She’ll tell it like it is. It she thinks what I’ve written is total crap, that I’ve missed the mark by a mile, oh and BTW, get rid of the Prologue, she’ll tell me straight. In a kind, constructive, supportive way, of course. And that’s what I want. Someone who doesn’t know me, who doesn’t feel the need to be  nice to me, telling it how it is.

But oh my, is that scary! Somehow editing and sending off those five pages felt more of a big thing than subbing. I didn’t do any writing for a few days, madly procrastinating so I didn’t have to deal with it. I knew I was avoiding it, and that made it even worse. Self-awareness can be a curse at times!

Eventually on Tuesday I did it. Chopped around the first five pages, like you won’t believe, and emailed it off before I had a chance to think about it too much.

Chapter One looks like a jigsaw puzzle now, with a bit cut out from here and a bit cut out from there. I tried to reduce the infodump, internal monologue, and exposition, but there’s still waaaay too much of it there. And the blessed Prologue stayed too. I’m at the stage now (version 7 of the rewrite of the chapter!) where I have no idea if I’m editing the life out of it or making it stronger.

Anyway, that’s not what I want to write about today. I want to write about what happened next. LOL, no wonder I overwrite in my stories so badly, I do it here too!

What happened next was, with that out the way, I needed to get on with writing Chapter 3. And I do not have an idea what happens in chapter three. It’s a kinda critical chapter. I want to end the partial on a hook, have the editor wanting to read more. It’s also a crucial point in the story structure.

End of chapter 3 is where things change, permanently. The first act is over, the second act begins next. In Save the Cat, it’s Break Into Two. In the Hero’s Journey, it’s Crossing the Threshold. Either way, it’s that no-turning-back point, where a decision on the part of the character propels them forward into a new world. The character’s life will be different, from now on.

Technically, in a longer story like a Super, this would happen in Chapter 4, purely based on word count. But it makes sense to me to get into the core of the story quicker, and use those lovely extra words on exploring the middle more. Also, I kinda feel the editors make a partial 3 chapters for a reason- that’s where they should be seeing things really start to happen.

My problem is, the heroine isn’t the one instigating things any more. She started it, she proactively went out and found the hero and asked for what she needed from him. But now he’s come back with an ultimatum of his own, and is about to deliver an even bigger one. She feels weak, like she’s been pushed around and lost control (something that’s very important to her). It’s an uncomfortable place for her to be, and it’s uncomfortable for me to write. So I’ve stalled, wondering if this is how it should be, if I’m on the right track.

I hadn’t fully realised this till this morning when I read a post (very late!) on our group blog Seven Sassy Sisters, by the fabulous Maisey.

Maisey says-

There was a day when the doormat heroine was the norm. Not just in romance, but in a lot of different mediums. Women who simply reacted to the situations they were in. (sometimes by screaming…or breaking their ankles while running…or both)
But that day is not today. Those aren’t the women we want to read about. We don’t want to see a woman who just lets everyone in her life take advantage of her. We don’t want a heroine who doesn’t seem to have existed until the hero walks into her life. A woman with goals, ambition, drive, talents, something! We want a proactive heroine, not one that’s simply reacting.
You need a heroine who can stand on her own two feet and give as good as she gets. Of course, she still has to have softness and she has to be relatable, flawed but likable. Easy, right? Ha.
But it is possible!

So, with that summary…The Proactive Heroine: (note, it doesn’t mean she does these things all the time, but these are signs you might have a proactive heroine!)
1. Makes decisions, doesn’t just get dragged along for the ride (even if she does end up in a situation she’s not entirely happy with!)
2. Initiates. Conversation, sex, a marriage of convenience…she’s not afraid to get what she wants.
3. Speaks her mind/doesn’t take no crap. (In a recent MS the hero asks my heroine how many men she’s slept with, to which she responded: how many women have YOU slept with?)
4. She can still be vulnerable. Strength doesn’t mean being unemotional at all times, it’s at her core. It doesn’t mean she can’t cry, or feel lost, or like she’s done the wrong thing. It doesn’t mean she can’t be unsure and insecure when in a situation that she isn’t accustomed to. Just like a real live woman!

Now go forth, and write some awesome heroines!

Now, that got me thinking. I hate those old films where the monster or the bad guys are after the hero and heroine and of course she sprains her ankle so he has to carry her and it’s just, oh purleese, give us something original! How about a heroine who can solve her own problems, thank you very much.

I realised what was stopping me writing was feeling I was doing much the same to my heroine. Because she’s going through the motions and smiling and not giving us any hint how much she hates this. How out of control she feels the situation is spiralling. How this is so not how she wanted it to be. How to get her original goal, she’s going to have to give up a lot of other stuff that’s important to her.

Maybe that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.

She has to do what she doesn’t want to do, give over some control to the hero, but that doesn’t make her a wimp. That makes her a woman who’s making personal sacrifices in pursuit of her high stakes goal. 

What’s wrong with my chapter isn’t that she’s doing that, it’s that she’s not fighting it! That’s why she feels like a wimp. She’s given in too easy. And I just realised- I missed a stage in the Save the Cat beatsheet- Debate. That’s what chapter 3 is all about.

I defined it as -

The hero or heroine must decide what to do. This tells the reader a lot about them and what’s important to them, and their decision making process shows their beliefs. By here, all the key characters should be introduced, and the reader should have been shown six things about the hero, heroine, and their worlds that need to be changed.

The key word there of course, is “shown”. Not “told”.

So by the end of chapter 3, Cady has made her decision. She’s not happy with it, but she’s not fighting it any more either. It’s not what she wants, but she’s going to live with her decision and make the best of it. I skipped that whole section. I thought as I started chapter 3 with her doing what Lock asked, the decision was made. Wrong!

I was worried showing that would slow the story down even more, that things wouldn’t really start happening until too much of the word count was gone. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Things can be happening, but she’s still emotionally resisting, fighting, going along with things on the surface but beneath that she’s conflicted, she hasn’t at all committed to this course of action yet.

Sheesh, I have no idea how to write that, but at least I have some sense of direction, better than stumbling around in the dark!

I love this quote from author Robyn Carr, taken from her Harlequin bio-

I’m naturally drawn to strong, capable female characters, and when I begin a story I ask myself, ‘What is she up against?’ I try to write about issues that every woman faces at some point in her life, without ever losing sight of the basic sense of humor that helps us all through hard times.

Thinking about this, about who my heroine is, I’m also starting to feel I simplified the story too much. I took out a big part of Cady’s emotional issues, to see if the story still stood without it, and I think I went too far. I took out a key issue she’s faced bravely for years. She’s tough, a survivor, an odd mix of rebel and conformist. But without that past history, she’s a rebel without a cause.

And I’m a writer without a clue!


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Analysing what works

Okay, so I went back and started to re-read Nikki Logan’s wonderful Mills and Boon Romance, “Their Newborn Gift.”

This time as a writer, not a reader, to see how she did it, and did it so well! Not to copy Nikki, but to get more insight into what makes a good story work, so hopefully I can infuse those same elements into my own writing.

Three pages of notes later, I finished chapter one! Analysing the entire book will take some time! It’s well worth it though as I got some excellent insights.

So here are my notes on the fourteen pages of chapter one-

• Opens with Lea and Molly in car, playing I spy. Shown it’s been a long drive and hints of their characters- they’ve been playing for three hours.
• Emotional tug immediately- they are playing a game and laughing, but Molly’s illness is evident, though we are not told what is wrong with her. Her illness, Lea’s concern for her daughter, and her courage in facing her illness are sketched in a few words- “As if every kid coughed when she laughed.”
• Very little exposition as they arrive at their destination- place described through the filter of Lea’s feelings- “The homestead seemed to grow towards them like something from a nightmare. Large, expensive, and looming.”
• Key theme stated- “A house like that had to have a family in it.” The story to me is about family, and Lea and Reilly overcoming their wounds from their families of origin to be able to make their own family. A strong, universal theme.
• Insight into her state of mind, sentence above, continues “More obstacles. More people to judge her.” So here, two pages in, is one of her core emotional issues, feeling judged, an outsider, unlovable.
• Her visceral reactions- “Lea swallowed hard.”  “Her fingers started to tremble on the steering wheel”, “Lea held her breath.”
• Single sentence drips of backstory- like when she sees Reilly- “Last time she’d seen him he’d been sprawled naked across the motel bed…”
• Shift in POV to hero in middle of page three. Distinct change of voice.
• Use of imagery to fit the character– “hoof to the belly”, a memory burned into his brain like his brand into his horses’ flesh
• Two pages of internal monologue and his observation of her actions give key backstory, description of Lea, some of his history. Doesn’t feel like infodump because his thoughts are mixed in with the present action
• His key emotional issue of low self-worth given straight away in his internal monologue and memories of their previous encounter- “she’d been a painful reminder of what he was really worth.” Excellent showing not telling here!
• Visceral reaction to her- “heart hammered against his moleskin shirt”, “swallowing carefully past a dry tongue”
• Shown she is special- “he’d never in his life been so ensnared by a woman..” “She’d been worth it.”
• Then mostly dialogue for two pages. No more than three lines from each character. No more than two sentences of dialogue tags or reactions between speech. Lots of white space on the page.
• Molly appears again six pages in. “Somewhere deep in his gut a vortex opened up. He knew those eyes. His pulse began to hammer…” One page of his reaction in internal monologue, interspersed with action (going inside, getting a glass of water).
• Hints of problems- tests, “possibilities he’d though lost to him forever”
• Physical reaction- “He kept his heart rate under control by pouring two glasses of ice cold water in the kitchen, and then he shakily tossed one back himself before steeling himself to return.”
• More intense dialogue, again fast pace, lots of white space.
• His emotional response to Lea shown – “he wanted the truth from her almost as much as he wanted to smell her.”
• More physical reaction- “his chest constricted, bright light exploding behind his eyes”
• Two pages of angry conversation shows their feelings for each other, especially that Reilly felt a connection to Lea and was angry when she ran out on him, their key issues, more backstory. Again, mostly dialogue, minimal internalising, lots of white space to keep it pacy. Need to get more of that anger, the digs and flashes at each other, the hints of how they feel for each other, into Lock and Cady’s interaction in Chapter One
• Even Reilly’s observations of her use horse terms- “Her nostrils flared and she tossed her thick hair back.”
• Then Reilly brings the focus back onto Molly. His daughter. And why Lea is here.
• Reilly’s key issue again- he thinks Lea is after his money, that was the only reason she slept with him. Maybe Lock can feel Cady used him to get rid of her inconvenient virginity before she moved on to who she really wanted to be with. Need to convey that sense of being used, that no-one would love him for himself, because Lock’s core issue is similar to Reilly’s, though the reason is very different.
• Tenth page- Lea tells him the real reason she’s there. Molly is dying and she wants him to get her pregnant again. Highest possible stakes- to save the life of a child. I’ve been wondering if Cady’s stakes are not high enough. Lock’s kidney will improve Josh’s quality of life hugely now his home dialysis isn’t working so well but it isn’t as dramatic. He’s not going to die without the kidney transplant, just face a future spent half in hospital, with needles which he’s terrified of, messed up schooling, reduced growth, anaemia…  Okay, maybe the stakes are high enough, but maybe I need to spell them out more too. Also, my pace is too slow. I take two chapters to get through what Nikki does in one!
• Reilly’s hunger to be loved shown- “When had anyone looked at him like that? Ever?”
• Page 11- switch back to Lea’s POV as she observes Reilly’s physical reaction
• Emotion-  her observation of his emotion shows how she feels about him.
• A page of explaining the medical stuff, in dialogue. Doesn’t feel at all infodumpy! Lea has a clear, strongly motivated goal. 
• Conflict/upping the emotional tension- he tells her she’s trying to blackmail him
• Paragraph of Lea’s backstory in internal monologue- why she slept with Reilly before. Need to make sure I show this with Lock and Cady. The old feelings for each other, the reasons they slept together, to hints of the old feelings still there but overlaid with all the anger and resentment at what happened since. My handling of this feels quite clumsy in comparison
• More of Lea’s key emotional issues- her bad relationship with her father, her shame at using him, at acting out of character, her guilt, her feeling that maybe her actions made Molly sick, that she’s being punished in some way. I knew all along that Cady feels that guilt as well, blames herself for Josh’s illness. That was the first major similarity that struck me when I started reading Nikki’s story, besides the biggie,  secret-baby-now-sick-so-the-secret-is-revealed basic scenario
• Her plan fails- Reilly tells her he can’t help her. Her reaction shown in dialogue and her physical reactions- gripping his shirt front, clenching icy fingers. Minimal internalising, makes it even more powerful because there’s absolutely NO “telling”. Chapter ends on that sense of crushing defeat, made  worse by her memories of the man she though he was  being betrayed.
• I’m feeling this is all one scene, yet it can’t be. Maybe when Reilly retreats into the kitchen after first seeing Molly that’s a very brief sequel before he goes back out to them again. Or is it? In fact I think we might see the sequel when POV switches. For example, first words after the switch back to Lea’s POV are “Lea had never seen someone shrink like that right before her eyes.” That to my mind is Reilly’s sequel, being shown in Lea’s POV, not told in an internal monologue from Reilly. That’s how I do it, but this is so much better!
• Skilled use of POV change- POV switches twice in the chapter. Either switching in the middle of scenes, or seeing the sequel through the other characters POV, I think! I didn’t know that could be done that way, but it works! Switches are necessary so the character with most at stake has POV. Initially, it’s Lea with most at stake, overcoming her shame and need for independence to approach Reilly. Then Reilly has most at stake, as he realises Molly is his child. Then the switch back to Lea’s POV as she asks the all important question- will he father another child to save Molly? Each character has POV when the events are most significant for them as individuals. Also, if Reilly had POV when she asks the question, the tension around whether he will agree and why he says no would be gone immediately. Okay, I think maybe I have the POV wrong for Lock and Cady. Or only part right. Maybe it would be more powerful to switch to his POV sooner when she reveals they have a child, then back to hers when she asks her question. Hmm. Needs some thought. May be worth trying that scene again with the POV switched to see what works better.
• Wish I could see Nikki’s first draft!

I also wish I had a battered old paper copy (even then, something in me cringes at the idea of vandalising a book!), or even better a Word file of the chapter, so I could use the highlighter way of looking at a story that Shirley Jump recommends. I can’t find any way of marking up the epub file I’m reading the story in.

Anyway, Shirley recommends using different colours, one for dialogue, one for action, one for exposition, one for internal monologue, to see what the balance is. I’m planning on doing Margie Lawson’s Deep Edits course in May, which uses a highlighter system and goes even deeper. I think this would be especially helpful on those pages in Nikki’s that look at first glance like they could be a big slab of internal monologue, but actually aren’t, because she’s sprinkled in a significant amount of present action too, as Reilly observes Lea. This keeps it pacy, keeps it easy to read, keeps the reader turning those pages. Sadly, I’m almost certain in my story it is just a big lump of undiluted internal monologue!

The place where the highlighter method wouldn’t work on Nikki’s stories are those places that do double or even triple duty. The description that also gives an insight into how the POV character is feeling for example. I’m thinking how I can make more use of that in my story, and a couple of places come to mind immediately.

 So I gained a huge amount from taking the time to look deeper at Nikki’s story yesterday before I dive into another round of chapter one edits today. I won a critique of the first five pages from a SuperRomance author, so I want them to be gleaming shiny bright, the best I can get them, before I send them off.

I can highly recommend giving this a go! See what you get out of analysing what works in a story you love that’s similar to yours. The only element I need to include in mine, as it’s aimed at SuperRomance, is a little more of a sense of community, though not at the expense of introducing the main characters, their goals, and their conflict, which I think I have.

Does anyone else who’s read Nikki’s story have anything to add that I missed?


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Those Chapter One Infodump Blues

Well, I finished the first draft of Cady and Lock’s rewritten chapter one.  It’s not bad. It’s not good either!

The voice and pacing is off. What should be a dramatic opening scene is draggy and slooooooow.

My CPs straight away told me why.

I’ve done my usual thing- too much information. The infodump-in-internal monologue thing. Maybe not quite as bad as it could be- nowhere does it go on for more than a paragraph, and a fairly short one at that. It’s just that there’s a lot of those paragraphs. That’s what’s slowing the pace down. It’s also affecting the voice. The character isn’t there in the present moment when she’s thinking of the past half the time.

I need to go through the draft and use that handy dandy highlighter button in Word. Anything the reader doesn’t need to know right that minute can be marked for cutting.

Okay, these guys have a lot of history. But the reader probably doesn’t need to know it all at once. And some things can be taken as a given. It’s a secret baby story, so chances are good the reader can figure out for themselves Cady and Lock had sex at least once in the past!

I just read a first chapter of a new story from one of my my CPs,  Maisey Yates. It’s easy to see why she is pubbed and I’m not yet. Her chapter zings and sizzles. It gives the same amount of information, just does it differently. It’s dripped in through dialogue, in actions, in snippets of sentences of introspection, not whole paragraphs. Things are hinted at but not fully explained. The difference is obvious! (BTW, the post I link to at Maisey’s site gives a good example of changing character dramatically, with just some tiny tweaks – it’s good!)

I’m also feeling like my heroine isn’t clearly defined enough. We start in her POV, and though her goal is clear and definite I don’t think her character is coming over so well. One difficult issue is her feelings are so confused. She still loves the hero and there’s still that tug of physical attraction, though she’s also angry and resentful over how things ended between them. She’s guilty that she kept their child a secret from him for so long, but believes she did the right thing at the time, the thing that was in everyone’s best interest. She never wants to see him again. but she has to, because she wants something from him, something that will make all the difference for her son. This is what I have to get across in that first chapter, not the details of their history, that can come out later.

 By taking her out of her head and into her emotions, adding in more visceral, gut deep physical reactions, Cady will be far more present on the page. That’s a twofer- stronger characterisation, better pacing, less infodump.

Okay, I think I know how to strengthen this chapter! On to mark it up.

I probably won’t make any changes today, just mark what needs to be changed. Then I can get started on Chapter Two- Lock’s POV. Yum! My feeling is that the partial will hang together better if I wait until I’ve first drafted the three chapters, then edit them up all at once.

Yesterday also gave me a couple of new ideas for later in the story, especially about how the community can play a stronger role. One thing in particular will be a lot of fun. I can see now why Blake Snyder calls that section about a third of the way into the story, early in Act Two, ”Fun and Games”. I didn’t really get it before, but now I see which pieces go there. This is where the subplots are developed, this is where the promise of the story comes out. In this story, it’s the heroine and her son becoming part of the community, and start to become part of a family with Lock, as well as first steps in healing her damaged relationship with her mother. (See the Blake Snyder beatsheet adapted for romance for more explanation of this.)

I love it when all those disconnected puzzle pieces start falling into place!


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Letting go

Today, back to the writing! Lock and Cady’s story needs a load of work doing, and I have homework due tomorrow for the Revision workshop I’m doing.

The revision process is turning out more painful than I expected. At first I thought it wouldn’t be too bad. Seemed like just the partial would need complete rewriting.  The key advice in the rejection letter was -

Unfortunately, in this case, the plot relies to heavily on external forces and secondary characters to bring Cady and Lock together. Everything that happens comes about because of actions taken by other people, not from any decision made by the hero or heroine. For this story to be successful, we’d need to see the characters be more proactive in their lives and their relationship instead of simply reacting to the other people around them.

Okay, that seemed easy enough. Yes, this was a rejection letter, not a revision letter, but I figured I could change it enough that it would be all right for me to resub a new third version of this story to Supers. Sure, I needed a new strongly motivated reason for them to meet again, because both the reason I used in my first draft and the similar reason I used in the subbed version, based on Cady’s mother being ill, weren’t strong enough. I thought what I came up with for the subbed version was stronger, but reading it back in the light of the rejection letter, I know the editor is 100% right.  Still not strong enough. Still not related to their core conflict. If I took that thread out of the plot, it takes nothing but some word count away from the story. The goal that initiated the action linked to the subplot, not to the main romantic plot. So that wasn’t the right goal, wasn’t motivation enough.

Okay, need to come up with a new reason for them to meet again, some goal that would motivate one of them so strongly that they would seek out the other after so long apart, that tied in to their core emotional conflcit- the realtionship between them that ended ten years before. It seemed the heroine needed to be the one with the goal, because she has the most to lose. It’s got to be something important enough to force her back to the home town she hasn’t visited for those ten years, to make her face the man she separated from cruelly, and reveal her biggest secret- she had their son. What could be stronger for a mother than a health problem for her child, making her need to confront the father she never told. 

At the time, I thought this was a brilliantly original idea. Since then, I did a little more investigation and discovered at least one  recent Harlequin Sweet Romance and one recent SuperRomance with similar plot lines. *sigh* Bang goes the “original” theory! But I couldn’t come up with anything else that rang true for this couple, so even if I was going to look derivative, that was what I decided to go with. It worked for these guys. 

Best of all, their core conflict remained the same. The existing partial had to be scrapped, all that lovely writing I’d slaved over and been so proud of. None of those three chapters could be used in the new version. But that wasn’t such a big deal. With the new way into the story, much of chapters four to twelve in my original story could stay. Especially her other secret. Especially those wonderful emotional scenes where she finally reveals this. Those scenes that made me cry as I wrote them and cry when I read them back. They could stay in. They had to stay in.

Except they can’t.

This morning I was ready to carry on with the rewrite of the rewrite of the rewrite of Chapter One, and I realised one of the reasons I am struggling so much with the scene is that I’m having to explain things too much. The decision the heroine made in the past if I leave that plot element is harder to justify.  It’s starting to feel like an unnecessary complication, and that the story will be just as strong if not stronger without it. Maybe there’s enough conflict with the other history they have between them, with the situation in the present with their son. I looked at it the same was as I did the story strand of Cady’s mother’s illness. If I took it out, did the story still stand?

The answer is yes. So it’s definitely an unnecessary complication, something I’m very prone to. At least now I have a sixty second test to tell me. I’ve had a good insight that will help me make the completed story stronger. And I have to cut my best writing of the whole book.

Arrgghhh!

But it’s got to be done, swiftly and surgically. (Possibly, my own current health concerns are affecting my choice of metaphor here!) I can maybe come up with another set of characters where this is their key complication. Maybe those chapters can be tweaked for a different hero and heroine. But they don’t fit Lock and Cady any more. They are excess baggage and have to go!

I’ve heard it described as “killing your darlings”. I Googled the phrase and found an excellent blog post by Love Inspired author Brenda Coulter. Like me, she writes a discover draft first. She describes her writing process -

They say a sculptor views a block of marble, imagines a statue, and then chips away every bit of stone that isn’t the statue, thus revealing the work of art. That’s how I write. My “block of marble” is the first draft of my story, which tends to be at least thirty percent and often fifty percent longer than the 55,000 words my editor wants. But that’s fine. I take that draft and patiently chip away everything that isn’t my story. I am a ruthless scene-killer, an unremorseful conversation condenser, a wild-eyed wielder of the Delete key. I used to save some of the better quality material that I cut, just in case I wanted it later. But I never did want it, so I no longer save it. There’s plenty more good stuff where that came from. If I change my mind and want to reinsert a deleted scene, I just write it again and make it even better than last time.

Is it a waste of my time to write so much more than I know I’m going to use? No, because all writing is practice for more and better writing.

“Killing your darlings” is what many writers call deleting paragraphs, scenes, and even chapters that they’ve spent hours creating–all for nothing, they often believe. But a writer who can’t stomach killing any of her darlings is not focusing on the big picture: her story as a whole. You may hate cutting scenes that are hilarious or poignant or suspenseful, but to be a good writer, you must do exactly that. If anything that you’ve written, no matter how beautifully, doesn’t move your story along, it will bog your story down. By saving your “darlings,” you might be killing your story.

Here’s a writing tip some of you might be able to use: After finishing your first draft, find the highlighting tool in your word processor and then start reading, using the highlighter to indicate all of the sentences, paragraphs, and scenes that are absolutely essential to your story. (I use a yellow highlighter to remind myself that those parts of the story are “golden.”) When you finish, delete everything that isn’t highlighted. Save it in a Dead Darlings file if that makes you feel better, but I predict that after a while you’ll stop bothering with that.

Now you’re left with nothing but story. Your manuscript is still in very rough form, but there’s not a boring bit in there because you’ve taken all of the irrelevant stuff out. Now you’re ready to revise and polish. I go through many drafts on a book, so I do a highlighting pass after finishing my first draft, then do it again when I’m nearly finished with the manuscript. After some more tweaking and polishing, I use the highlighting tool a third and final time. When the manuscript is all golden, I’m finished. (Two notes: First, the highlighter is invaluable to me because except during that first pass, I’m not starting at Page One and progressing to the end of the manuscript. I jump around, working on whatever scenes and chapters I’m in the mood to work on. The highlighting tells me what I’ve finished and what still needs to be looked at. And second, on the last highlighting run I’m just deleting words and sentences, not whole paragraphs and scenes. It’s all pretty painless by that time.)

I love every part of the writing process, but bringing a story home–making that final pass with my yellow highlighter and assuring myself that every sentence, paragraph, scene, and chapter is “golden” satisfies my writer’s heart on the deepest level.

I’m not sure I could be quite that brave (maybe I’ll save a copy of the original draft, just in case!), but it sounds like something that could work for me.

Anyway, wish me luck as I go off to “kill my darlings”. First task  – taking any allusions to the issue out of chapter one and seeing how I can strengthen and deepen what I’m left with.

Back an hour later to add- another aha moment! I edited my synopsis, and realised I am wrong about the theme of the story- it’s not about secrets blocking love at all. It’s about coming home, and about following our oldest truest dreams.

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