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!