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Tag Archives: New Voices 2011


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Congratulations to the New Voices Finalists

Big grinning here for the twenty one finalists in the New Voices competition, announced this afternoon.

Have to confess I hadn’t read ANY of those entries! And some wonderful chapters I loved and hoped to see included weren’.. I really want to read more of quite a few, so I hope those writers do get them published eventually!

I’ve only had time to read one of the finalists so far since the announcement, and I can see why the editors chose it. Not at all polished, grammar a bit hit-and-miss, but she has a voice. A very funny, quirky voice.  Made me laugh more than once in a short  short chapter.

I’ll need to wait and see what the second chapters are like of course but I may have already decided who to vote for!

And what next for those of us who weren’t chosen? I plan to finish Nick and Meg’s story and sub it elsewhere. I believe in these characters and their story and I want them to have their chance. Sussing out epublishers to see where the Haven Bay series might fit. Rather like the look of Entangled…


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Writing outside the box

Some excellent advice here from lovely Romance writer Nikki Logan. She’s an author who writes deeply emotional yet fresh stories, with unique characters yet still delivering on that mills and Boon promise.

It’s so easy as a wannabee Harlequin Mills & Boon writer to tie ourselves and our characters in knots trying to follow “the rules”. I’ve done it so many times, and ended up with a dead, wooden story and cardboardy characters straight out of Cliche Central Casting.

Nikki says-

My characters have struggled with agoraphobia, OCD, infertility, physical scarring. What a miserable list!

But the key is in moderation, a light hand and in giving the characters as much joy in their present as misery in their past. I’ve had a hero pee in his wetsuit; I’ve locked a heroine in a car with four farting dogs; one hero got himself arrested kicking down the heroine’s door; another woke on the beach to find hundreds of tiny crabs marching over his prone body; and a third faints at the sight of blood.

All of it organic and serving multiple purposes in the story. Nothing should be off limits if you write it intelligently, credibly and with a balanced hand.

Easier said than done of course, but the main thing I take from that is not to make characters quirky just for the sake of making them quirky. Characters will have quirks because their quirks are part of who they are, the way their past experiences have shaped them, and part of what their relationship blocks are right now with this particular hero or heroine.

It all comes back to writing characters who feel real to the reader,  who are challenged to learn and grow by each other, who struggle as much if not more with their internal issues as anything going on externally, who encounter setback after setback, until finally they earn their happy-ever-after.

Seems like not much is definitely a no-go area in terms of personal issues, as long as the story isn’t bogged down in their past unhappiness. Their attitude now is what keeps them heroic, sympathetic and interesting and worthy of that HEA. Proactive and looking for solutions, not whiny and “poor me”. Resilient, life can knock them down but they get back up again. They aren’t defeated, no matter what’s thrown at them. Understandable- even if they’ve acted in ways or made choices we don’t agree with, we can see why at the time they thought that was the  best choice they could make.

And ultimately, triumphant – a better person by the end of the story, more fully all they can be, deserving of the real love they can accept at last.

Phew! Gotta try to remember all this as I keep writing my New Voices story. Meg and Nick are both scarred by their past. Meg’s scars from the car accident are all on the surface, but the emotional hurt runs deeper. Whats he doesn’t know is that Nick has his own emotional scars hidden behind his charming, golden facade.

If you haven’t read it yet and would like to, my chapter is here.

Once I write a bit more of this story, I want to read all the stories on Nikki’s recommended list!


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“Desire drives the plot”

(Jessica Hagy)

So true!

I need to print this out and pin it to my eyeballs as I try to rewrite the first chapter of Third Time Forever to enter into New Voices.

Yet again, lovely characters, wonderful setting, intense relationship blocks, and NO FRACKING GMC!

What do Nick and Meg want? Besides each other.

I have just five days and 21 hours to figure that out, and then write it!


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Mills and Boon Writing Secrets Uncovered

Not quite top-secret stuff, but good solid advice on character, plot, and avoiding cliches, mainly from M&B editor Flo Nicholls blogs. Most of it we’ve seen before, but good to have it all collected together in a handy-dandy ebook, especially for any procrastinating writers like me who haven’t got their New Voices entry in yet!

Here’s what they say-

We are all a buzz here at Romance HQ the sun is shining and we have some fantastic news!

We have just launched a Mills & Boon eBook writing guide and the best part is it’s totally FREE!

Simply go to Kindle or iTunes and down load the FREE eBook called Mills & Boon Secrets Uncovered. Its full to bursting with hints and tips and examples of what our editors are looking for in a Mills & Boon novel, so why not download it today.


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Wow, look at those mentors!

Okay, I’m a bit New Voices obsessed at present. And yes, the chance of me making the top twenty will be about 1:50.

But the mentors!

What a fabulous line up, from all the series published in the UK (not just the series edited in the UK). Cherish (including sweet Romance and SuperRomance), RIVA, Modern/Presents, Medical, Historical, Blaze, Nocturne.

There are a number of authors there whose stories I love and who I’d adore the chance to work with.

Those top twenty are going to be getting a wonderful opportunity.

As last year’s winner Leah says, don’t assume you won’t get picked! Know your characters and where the story is headed. Write more than one chapter, just in case you need that second one to work on with your mentor.

Then think even bigger. Know what your pivotal moment might be.

I saw mine last night, coming home on the train from work, brainstorming about my characters and their internal conflicts and relationship blocks. Oh my. It wrung me out even thinking about it. Writing it will kill me.

It’s not the Black Moment, it’s part of the lead up to it. A moment where the heroine lays herself so emotional bare to the hero it terrifies her and she has to retreat, get away from him. Of course, it will lose about 95% of the emotional impact when it goes from that scene I see in my mind to words on the page. But I still hope it will be powerful.

Even if I don’t get into the top twenty, Meg and Nick’s story is getting written. It’s getting subbed. I want an editor somewhere to read this story, see this couple, fall in love with both of them like I have.


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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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