Making it click

MaveFave Keira Soleore and I were at Panera Bread last Sunday doing a little plotting for VHM, the novel. (Yes, even a book based on my super-sweet life needs a little plotting oomph occasionally. Sorry if that destroys any conceptions you had about me :-).

One of the discussions revolved around techniques an author of contemporary novels can use to show her characters falling into True Love. To explain: we feel like in historical novels, the men can be more macho (and sweeter) and the women can be more stubborn (and home-makery) without throwing your reader out of the story. In other words, the dichotomy potentially allows the author to show more growth in her characters. In addition (and sort of related), in a lot of contemporary novels, we feel authors often skip over opportunities for their characters to engage in deeper conversation. Dialogue is often glib and flirty without being meaningful, which can make it harder for the reader to know the characters are headed for a true HEA. Sure, it's fun now, but what will happen six years from now? Will the characters grow together? Do they want the same things out of life? How do we show this without hitting the reader over the head with the answers?

What do you think? Who should I read to get a better feel for the how? And what do you think makes a good contemporary 'let's fall in love' conversation?

What do you mean, there has to be a conflict?

When I wrote my first manuscript the first time (and the second, third, and even fouth times), one of the comments I persistently got from my critique partners and from contest judges was that there "wasn't enough conflict to sustain a full 100K-word novel." But since I'd actually written more than 100K to get to The End (the first completed first draft was a whopping 136K and that was after I chopped some stuff), I have admit, I kinda scratched my head over that.

I mean, I'd sustained a 100K novel with the conflict I had. What in the world were they talking about? Obviously, they didn't know what they were talking about and should be shanked with Erica's machete.

It took me two long, excruciating years to "get it." Oh, I talked a good game. I could say I knew what conflict was and admit that my story needed more of it, but the truth is, I wasn't sure what they meant. I mean, the hero's an Irish race horse trainer and the heroine is the daughter of duke with a very stuck-up brother and a complicated trust. That's conflict aplenty--right?

Except, it wasn't. Oh, it was plenty of conflict for a plot! But it wasn't enough conflict for a romance.

One day, it just kinda hit me: plot conflict <> romantic conflict. Um, duh?

See, I wanted my hero and heroine to get along and work together and be happy in one another's presence, because...well...that's how I thought I'd show they were falling in love with each other. And in real life, that's the way it usually happens.

Problem is, real life doesn't make a very good romance. The reader has no emotional investment in the characters achieving their HEA so long as it's obvious they will...as soon as they defeat the bad guys or stupid societal prejudice or whatever external factor is keeping them apart. But if the characters have to change something within themselves to achieve that HEA and that internal change is big and difficult and painful to make...whammo! Now, you have romance!

I know I'm not saying anything we all haven't heard a thousand times before. I know I have. I even pretended to understand and believe it. But until I actually wrote a few stories with next to no external plot problem, I didn't fully understand how to do it.

Now, I have a new dilemma. I've started a story that has quite a bit of external plot (in a short format--about 22,500 words). There's plenty of internal conflict, too, but I'm struggling to keep focused on it. Because, while the external plot is essential to getting the hero and heroine together, it's not the most important element of the story. It's the romance and how they overcome the internal barriers that are keeping them from their HEA that really matter.

YOUR TURN: Do you ever struggle to balance romantic/internal conflict with plot/external conflict? How do you know when you've got "enough" of each?

Loop-d-Loops on the Emotional Roller Coaster

Please join us in welcoming three-time RITA finalist and award-winning author Tanya Michaels! A professional split personality, she writes warm-hearted, community-oriented romances for Harlequin that have been translated into nearly a dozen languages and, under her real name, Tanya Michna, poignant women's fiction novels for NAL Accent. She's also the mother of two small children, a frequent speaker at writing conferences and book festivals, and a TV-on-DVD addict of series such as Supernatural, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars, Robin Hood and LOST. Welcome Tanya!

My morning started around 6 a.m. with a shot of terror because I had accidentally—one might say idiotically—saved five hours of work to a temporary folder my computer claimed no longer existed. There may also have been some anger on my part, accompanied by Naval Academy worthy swear words. When my husband helped me excavate the Lost Files, I was overcome with relief and love for my real life hero. Then there was exasperation with my four year old (who fights falling asleep every night and then, go figure, fusses in the morning that she’s “too tired” to get up for PreK.) I was touched and proud of my kindergarten son for picking out his own clothes because he saw I had my hands full with his sister…and somewhat mortified that anyone who saw his resulting ensemble might think I deliberately dressed him like that. I experienced a fleeting homicidal impulse when a jerk ran a red light, cutting me off with my kids en route to school, followed by gratitude that no one was hurt and finally guilt in car pool when I realized we were supposed to have brought something that started with S for my daughter’s class Letter Muncher and that I’d failed as a mom.

Not even eight-forty five in the morning, and I’d run a gamut of approximately ten emotions. I needed a drink. (Luckily, the lady at the McDonald’s drive thru closest to the kids’ school knows my minivan by sight and always has the Diet Coke ready and sticking out the window.)

In a perfect world, I could deal with a few less emotions—at least, not such intense ones before noon. But in the WRITING world, emotions are our bread and butter. Not only do all the best romance novels, no matter what subgenre, have a strong, believable emotional arc for the hero and heroine, the books that achieve KEEPER status are the ones that have made a strong emotional connection with the reader. Because my first published novels were short romantic comedies with Harlequin, I didn’t think of myself as a deeply “emotional” writer. But the more I looked at the authors on my own keeper shelf, the more that changed.

You want an emotional reaction from your reader! If you write beautiful but angst-filled books (Anna DeStefano, Catherine Anderson, Karen White), you may literally send your readers sniffling for the tissue box. If you write atmospheric romantic suspense with twisting plots and chilling villains (Gayle Wilson, Lisa Gardner, Rita Herron), the reaction you elicit may be that the reader can’t sleep for a week without leaving her hall light on—and I’m STILL having nightmares, thank you very much. If you write witty dialogue, fast-paced clever narrative and memorably quirky characters (Jane Graves, Jennifer Cruise), your readers will probably remember you for making them laugh. Even if you write romantica/erotic romance, where the physical relationship is obviously a strong draw, the emotion is still crucial! (Two authors that I personally think handle this well are Angela Knight and Sasha White.) And, in my opinion the very best authors, including those already mentioned, are those who combine emotions for a roller coaster of a book and a sigh-worthy ending – Eloisa James, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Teresa Medeiros, Julie Garwood, Elizabeth Hoyt.

I write for Harlequin under the name Tanya Michaels (shameless plug—An Unlikely Mommy is out this month!), but in September, 2007 my first trade single title for NAL Accent came out under my less-easy-to-spell-and-pronounce real name Tanya Michna. I was fortunate that Necessary Arrangements got some very nice reviews, but most of them warned that readers might not finish with dry eyes. Some of my writing acquaintances were stunned, wanting to know if I’d “gone over to the Dark Side” and if I’d had to change my craft to write this one.

No—to the second question, anyway. Jury’s still out on the first.

No matter what kind of emotion you’re trying to evoke, there are some tools we can all use to heighten the impact of our books. First of all, and this can’t be stressed enough: CHARACTER! Readers have to find your characters compelling enough to care. Two hundred years after Jane Austen wrote the story, many of us are still reading Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have passed the test of time with flying colors. JD Robb’s In Death books are on my auto-buy list and I’ll be perfectly honest, it has little to do with the homicide investigation plots. It’s more that I worry about Eve, lust after Roarke, and consider Peabody a friend—I miss her if I don’t check in from time to time. Don’t make the newbie writer (or uptight contest judge) mistake of thinking that sympathetic characters have to be perfect, though. Flaws make characters more three-dimensional and stories more compelling. Watch for historical romance novel Private Arrangements (April 2008) by debut novelist Sherry Thomas to see what I mean! Great story about an estranged married couple who have made some very definite and even cruel (although motivated) mistakes. Consider some of the popular television shows in recent years—Grey’s Anatomy, with an entire hospital full of neurotic characters, or cable’s Dexter in which the hero is actually a serial killer. On the lighter side, check out Jane Graves’ Hot Wheels & High Heels. Her heroine may not be all sweetness and light, but it’s tough not to root for her!

Keep in mind that surprises in the plot or even just smaller unexpected moments within scenes jolt the truest emotions from audiences. So try not to be too predictable. Or try to give your scene that added extra touch that makes it YOUR scene. Also remember that emotion DOES NOT EQUAL MELODRAMA. You want your reader to experience the emotion; you don’t want to bludgeon her over the head with it. Not every kiss in the book can be the hottest kiss in the book; you want to avoid obvious set ups like “It was quiet…too quiet.” And you do not want a hero and heroine that whine. Or, if they do, it better be in such an incredibly entertaining fashion that readers can’t put the book down anyway. Emotions work better in contrast than they do endless stretches—even if you like to use punchlines, you don’t want the book to be one big yuk-fest. Similarly, even in a tear jerker book like my Necessary Arrangements, I used liberal moments of humor. I mean, “poignant” is good, but let’s not confuse it with “so bleak I temporarily lost my will to live.”

Finally, even though most of us are writing genre fiction, don’t overlook some literary devices that can really help your stories resonate with readers: theme/motifs, symbols, and symmetry/juxtaposition. Again, you don’t have to beat the reader over the head—she might not even consciously pick up on the fact that the tree in Waverley family garden is symbolic of the Tree of Knowledge, but symbols can be very effective even as a subconscious device. Also, try not to use a symbol in the expected way. Check out the vintage car being restored in Anna DeStefano’s The Prodigal’s Return; it was supposed to be a project that brought together a father and son. Ultimately, it kind of does, but in the opposite way of what the reader would have predicted. Themes can be both powerful and playful and if you pick a Jennifer Crusie novel to re-read a few times, you’ll have a better understanding of motifs. Elizabeth Hoyt did a beautiful job in her “Prince” trilogy (Raven Prince, Leopard Prince, and Serpent Prince) framing her stories with folk tales that were then thematically important throughout the story. I got especially teary-eyed with how she handled the leopard figurine in the second book.

And symmetry is a great way to frame the entire story, ending in the same place you started…but not exactly. Think about the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith, when they’ve just met and dance to a catchy tropical-sounding tune in Colombia as compared to the end of the movie, when after five or six years of marriage, they’ve finally gotten to KNOW each other and are moving together beautifully as they take out assassins…to the same original tune. In my romantic comedy Not Quite As Advertised, the first line of the book is: Jocelyn McBride was in hell. Who knew it looked so much like an airport? And 180 pages later, the last line of the story is: Joss was in heaven. Who knew it looked so much like an airport? Teresa Medeiros and Julie Garwood both use this on chapter levels, coming full circle in a chapter for comedic (or tender) affect or juxtaposing the last line of a chapter with a dramatically opposed first line of the following chapter.

Really, there are all kinds of ways to build on the emotion in your book! Just remember, you can always layer in the little details later, as you get to know your characters better (that’s the beautiful thing about manuscripts as opposed to real life—you never have to think of the perfect response right that minute) and writing shorter work is no excuse for not going for the emotional jugular. Some of my favorite authors can crack me up in a one paragraph blog post, and I’m STILL traumatized from a few pages of a Stephen King short story that I cannot discuss further on advice of my therapist.

Happy writing and just remember, next time you find yourself hovering on the verge of some kind of emotional breakdown or another, it’s valid character research!

Tanya will be around today to answer your questions about craft, publishing, LOST, or whatever you think to ask! And one lucky commenter will receive a signed copy of Tanya's Trouble in Tennessee!

Play Nice

Looks like the unofficial theme this week is bringing personal experience into our writing. I figure that means it's time to dust off the half-written post that's been up in my drafts folder since late last year and actually, uh, post it.

A defining moment in every woman's life is the day she realizes she looks and/or sounds like her mother. For me, that point of no return occurred when I got my Washington Driver's License. I took a good look at the tiny picture printed there beside my name, swallowed, double-checked the image (just in case), and put it into my wallet.

I vowed never to show it to anyone ever again.

A few years went by and I started to think maybe I had been wrong about the picture. Besides, the more years that passed by, the more I wanted someone to ask me for my license. (Another defining moment in a woman's life?) Then I got the brilliant idea to take my personal photographs to work and put them up as flare in my office. One day a picture of my mother at about 17 or 18 years old went up on my shelf at work. Next to it, and without first realizing the implication, I placed a picture of me at 19 or 20 sitting next to my mother at the kitchen table.

I uttered some very non-PC things, realizing there actually existed inarguable, side-by-side proof I am the spitting image of my mother...and that I probably have been a lot longer than I've wanted to accept it (or even noticed it). Not surprisingly, the people at work picked up on it really fast. At least three times a week I'm asked whether it's me or my mom in the black and white high school photo. I've come to accept it's not a bad thing to look like one's mother when one's coworkers stand and gaze at her photo appreciatively (usually citing that it takes them back to their own high school days...but I say, Go, Mom!). But I grew up hearing I looked like my father and my grandmother on my father's side, so when did I become my mother?

None of that is particularly related to writing, in case you were waiting for the aha moment. But something closely related to the looking like one's mother is the sounding like one's mother, and that IS a subject I can relate to writing.

I hear my mother speak far more often than I'm comfortable with! I feel it in certain non-verbal language I convey with facial expressions and recognize it in my patterns of speech. (Not always a bad thing -- my mother is a very funny person.) But if I could have just one of my mother's characteristics, it would be to carry on her rock-solid determination to treat all people the same no matter what other people think or say about them. In other words, there is nothing cool about being mean to people just because you can be.

In the last year or so, I've come to realize how often people look to each other to decipher the behavior expected of them in certain situations. When you meet at least one new person a day, it becomes second nature to watch for the verbal and non-verbal cues people give off about each other. It's a quick way to avoid most social gaffes...or at least, most perceived social gaffes. See a man walk into a room and everyone sits a little taller? Without asking, you get the idea he's a person of some authority. Or take my initial introduction to my dentist:

A new dental hygienist worked on my teeth for half an hour, (un)intentionally building trust with me. When the dentist came in, she treated him like an imbecile. She clearly had no respect for him or his ability to practice dentistry. She called him "Doctor" like it was a dirty word. As in, "Doctor, you forgot to get your pick behind you." "Doctor, you just knocked the hose to the floor." I decided then and there my dentist was retarded, instead of assuming my hygienist was a bitch.

...Which I finally figured out the day my regular dentist wasn't there and she had to work with someone else. Apparently, she's the smartest hygienist in the world and all the doctors at her office are morons.

Maven Erica is the one who made me realize how important it is to show the reader how other characters react to your character/situations so the reader knows how to feel about said situations.

Example: My hero is a snarky bastard, but he's not supposed to be unlovable. I routinely would write situations where he would tease his friends but not show the reactions of the people being snarked on. This was an important oversight. I needed to show reader that no one ever took him seriously enough to be offended. The result: People would read through a scene and come away wondering why he had any friends at all. With a few simple subcharacter reactions (or lead-ins), I can point the reader in the direction they need to look.

Another example: How many times have you ever read about the extremely youthful, virginal heroine with child-like beauty and been totally squicked out when the hero can't wait to bed her? But I read The Spymaster's Lady and never once shivered at the description. (Ok, I did once, but it's a perfect example of this subject in action: I had to reread when a man came to the door and said Galba's niece was a pretty child. I actually stopped reading to flip around and make sure no one else had stepped onto the scene, because I was that unused to thinking of Annique as a very youthful-looking girl-child.)

What are your characters saying about each other? What vibes are you giving to your peers or children when you see that annoying coworker or relative? Have you ever noticed how often people look to you to decide how they should treat other people (or react in various unpleasant situations)?

Recently, someone asked me to explain my job. I said, "More important than any one thing we put on paper (and don't get me wrong; we put a LOT of stuff on paper), my team is employed to bring order to the madness."

I surprised myself with that answer, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. When something goes wrong, management is notified. Management then calls us in, briefs us, and sits back while we coordinate the various orgs to put together a plan that everyone can work with. Now, the various orgs are all schooled up in their Excel and PowerPoint. They could easily create their own solutions without bothering my people. The information we use to create those solutions almost always comes directly out of their heads, after all, so we're not there to tell anyone what they need to do to get their job done. We are there to force everyone to stop panicking and breathe. Because we are one step removed from the problem, we often have less at stake. The ability to project calm and order over an excited room is worth a lot of money these days, at least where I work.

What I'm saying is, it's human nature to look to others to determine how one should react...or maybe it's pack instinct and we're all barely better-mannered than wolves.

Either way, be nice to each other out there. People are watching :-)

Last week's example flurry worked really well, I thought. What are some examples of skewing perception in your life or in your manuscript?

Ode to My Kitty

MavenLand is a funny place. See, I had a deeply affecting weekend also, but not at all in the same way as Maven Carrie. But like Maven Carrie, I'm going to try my best to tie my life experience into writing. Actually, it won't be too hard. I'm nearing the end of Her Wicked Ways and can hardly stand to be not writing right now and pretty much every aspect of my non-writing life and writing life are blurring together. (Hmmm, how is being Girl Scout Cookie Mom feeding into my WIP? Must ponder...)

Friday evening we got some bad news about our beloved cat, Belle Kitty. Belle was a beautiful Maine Coon we adopted from the Humane Society (I picked her because she was cute, hey I knew nothing about cats!) as a kitten. Isn't she pretty? (She knew it too.) At 14 1/2 and after having diabetes for several years, Belle's kidneys were failing. She was fairly miserable and had stopped eating and drinking. Nevertheless, she still had plenty of love and bouts of purring to share, which made our decision to euthanize her on Saturday incredibly painful. Belle was my first cat and, truly, my first "baby." Mr. Burke and I can hardly remember a time when we didn't have Belle and of course she's always been in the Burkettes' lives. Our daughter, Quinn, is 7 and is doing pretty well with the loss. She's a smart, brave, and empathetic little girl. Every now and again she mentions Belle (today in the car she told me that Belle lived in our hearts, awwwww) and shows me just how resilient our spirits can be.

So what does this sad story have to do with writing? Especially since I'm not writing a sad story? Hopefully I am writing an emotional story and if nothing else, this weekend was an emotional roller coaster. And feeling emotional is a great way to write an emotional scene, right? Definitely! I was an actor in high school and college. Method actors (which I wasn't) live what they're playing. They completely plunge themselves into the character, the emotion, the circumstances. As a writer, I like to draw on personal experiences to really color my characters. As I write a scene, I (try to) put myself completely in the POV of that character, much as an actor inhabits the role they are playing. Since I am entering the last act of Her Wicked Ways, there are lots of juicy scenes with big emotion and huge stakes (I hope!).

I'm not saying anything new here, I realize. I've read plenty of blogs where people talk about things that get them into the mood of a character: a song, a scent, a picture. At the onset of a scene I try to think of myself as that character. What do they see, smell, hear, and most importantly feel? As I write my turning points and then storyboard, I think about the emotional arc of the character. Sometimes I even write the character's driving emotions on the scene notes.

Something else Belle's passing reminds me of is that like the books we write, we need dark days along with the ones when our heads are in the clouds (I've had a few of those lately, but more on that maybe next week!). Even terribly sad moments can be turned upside down as you celebrate a shared memory or find humor in something that can't possibly be funny to anyone not in your position (hopefully that makes some amount of sense). And every day is an adventure filled with high highs and low lows, all of it excellent fodder for the words we churn out every day.

Your turn: What helps you get in character? Are you a method writer? (Did I coin a new phrase? Doubtful.) Are there moods in which you write better/worse or more/less or just plain different?

Important Maven Note: Next Wednesday, be sure to stop by when Tanya Michaels/Tanya Michna will be here guest-blogging. I met Tanya at the Moonlight & Magnolias Conference in Atlanta last fall and we had a great time at our table! She's a multi-published author in several genres and reminds me that she was once a second place Maggie finalist, just like me!

Finally, sleep the good sleep our belle Belle Kitty.

Read The Spymaster's Lady - An attempt at Reciprocal Pimping by Lacey Kaye

Oh, yeah. That's what my avatar looks like!

Feel like I haven't posted here in ages. Or time flies. At any rate, I'm back, and this time, I have an Epiphany to share with you. Buckle up your seat belts, ladies and gents -- this is going to be bigger, badder, and better than ever.

Note: my office chair at work actually has a seat belt. After the Ergo department evaluated my office space and decided to remove the armrests on my chair, one of the "moonshine" guys came by and decided my seat now posed a safety hazard, so he brought in a seat belt and affixed it to my seat. When Lisa's armrests were removed, she got one, too. See? All the cool kids are doing it. And you thought I was kidding.

Buckled in? OK. Here we go.

This is one of those things you probably read on other people's blogs and go duh. I'm certainly not the first person to realize this, so I'm not claiming to be hiking mountains here. (For the record, I have hiked exactly one mountain in my life. It is an experience sure never to be repeated.) For some reason, even though I'd heard this a million, billion times and it is one of those things that everyone knows, I never truly understood the big deal. Of course your story needs to be the biggest, most awesomest story you can make. Duh, it's a book. We read it to escape things like my slog through 20 consecutive work days. (Seriously? Seriously.) But ask yourself this: Is it?

I have a vision for my Romance with Color label. It's overarching and dark and humorous and sexy and my characters are complicated, tortured souls. But I think my work falls short of that right now. They're not terribly active people, my people. They are afraid of obstacles and you know what? I am, too.

I'm pretty lazy. Dialogue and internal narrative are what I do well. Action...not so much. So I skip it. I write what I write really well, don't get me wrong. But my manuscripts are by no means as big and kickass as I want to believe they are. When I say big, I mean story-scope-wise. The fate of the world isn't on my characters. If my characters decide to crawl into a hole and die, maybe like five people would care. (Besides you readers, of course!) But they're not taking away anything anyone else really needs. The world isn't a better place because they're in it.

I finally had the nerve to plot the story I wanted to write in the first place, and daily I wish I were working on it now. (That would be my third manuscript, If You Asked an Angel to Love.) But I am a finisher, and I need to finish the book I'm writing now. I just don't need to finish If You Asked a Rake to Reform the way I was writing it.

Yesterday, Mavens Erica and Darcy and I talked about ways to make my story bigger. I was excited, and I know they were, too. I feel like this is the right time for me to realize this. (Okay, two years ago might have been better, but I know why I didn't -- that stupid market concept we're all told to be aware of, be wary of, and ignore.)

That's right. I scared myself out of writing what I wanted to write, which was totally stupid. I regret it now with the fire of a thousand Maven Darcy suns. I get a lot of feedback that the concept is good but the story doesn't grab from the partial. Well, of course it doesn't. It gets better as you keep reading because I got more comfortable with exploring outside the box I was writing in. I realized this on Saturday, when I had dinner with MaveFave and fellow Eastsider Keira Soleore. She was telling me about her Regency box and I was telling her that was totally stupid. Except I was doing it, too.

I worried that because I wanted to write multicultural stories I needed to keep everything else equal so I wouldn't blow myself out of a market. *Bashes head against nearest copy of The Spymaster's Lady* Stupid, stupid. There's nothing keeping multicultural from being published. I get requests all the time for it. The only thing keeping my multicultural story from being published is my nice, safe plot.

How safe is your plot?

A few weeks ago, I got a rejection that made me curse the publishing gods and duck the return lightning bolts. I told my friends that the Powers That Be are saying they want "different" but then I get rejected for the molds I do break (and certainly, I did break some molds with my manuscript -- don't let this post fool you. I'm getting to that part of it in like nine words.).

More stupid, stupid. They're not rejecting me because my story is too different or because readers won't read a super-alpha kickass female falling for a reserved wallflower hero. They're rejecting me because I didn't take that concept far enough and say to hell with it, I'm ignoring the boundaries and writing a HUGE story, one that couldn't be contained anywhere but in the pages of my imagination.

THAT'S the problem. I was afraid to write big. Afraid no one would want it. But as I said in an email earlier this week, I didn't write big *enough* to push my story over the wall of same-but-different and get into the land of stories like Outlander and The Spymaster's Lady.

We just replotted two threads in my current wip. I'm indescribably excited to start writing it. I want passion; there will be passion. I want danger; there will be danger. I want steamy -- characters as star-crossed as my characters are about to be are always hot.

I've already challenged Mavens Darcy and Erica (I challenged them, they challenged me, we challenged each other) to find a thread in our wips and make it bigger. It went something like this:

Me: Hey, guys, I think I need to write a bigger story.

Mavens: I'm so excited about this! So, whatcha gonna do?

Me: Uh. I dunno. You?

Mavens: (blankly stare at half-finished wips) Crap.

It's a conclusion we've all reached pretty recently in our writing journeys, which I think is cool.

So tell me now: how are you going to make YOUR story bigger?

From the Trenches: Maven Tips #10-12

As you must be aware by now, thanks to B.E. Sanderson and the Roar for Powerful Words Award, we're blogging about writing tips this week. Now, so far, the other girls have done a great job of sharing tips they've found useful over the course of their writing career. If you know me, though, you probably won't be surprised to read that I'm planning to give you some tips that I made up. Hey, it's more fun for me that way, and besides, I'm too lazy to try and think up where I've either heard or used someone else's. (Although, to be totally fair, *of course* I heard these somewhere else. It's just that I wasn't looking for them at the time; they sort of rolled up together over the last few years. Or maybe if I read them, they didn't really make sense at first. Only with experience and crushing rejection can come knowledge and growth!)

Tip #1: Subplots and subcharacters can be used to add setting to your h/h romance / primary story

Of course, lots of stories have subplots or subcharacters that don't contact the h/h at all. Like a villain subplot or character, for example, that may not share scenes with the h/h until the end of the book. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about using your subplots (Mavens prefer "story threads") to give your main characters something to do besides sit there (or stand there, if you prefer) and nod, wink, arch their brows, shrug, and generally stare at each other. Especially if one or both of them have beguiling eyes.

If your hero has a hobby, for example, he can be doing it. A heart-to-heart between an h/h in his conservatory while he's elbows-deep in roses is always way more fun to read (and strikes more emotionally) than a scene where he's having dinner. Unless your character's hobby is eating, in which case, the dinner isn't the setting (fork to mouth, fork to plate) as much as the character's reaction to it (savoring, laughing, piling more on his plate).

My point is, give your characters outside interests (subplots, hobbies, friends, etc) who can give them stuff to do that hopefully ALSO reveals something personal about them. And then don't forget to write the payoff scene. I read one recently where the hero destroyed his rose garden after the heroine left him. Powerful stuff.

Tip #2: Never forget the reaction

In relationship to Tip #1, this could be the big payoff scene. If you mention roses 10 times and never have a rose payoff scene, what was the point? Well, maybe it was the 10 reactions the characters had to the roses. At first, the hero might take private pride in his garden. Then the heroine discovers it and he's embarrassed. He's mean to her (because he's embarrassed) and she snaps back at him (because she's embarrassed she embarrassed him). Then he feels guilty, so he secretly starts making a new kind of rose for her (when she gets it: payoff. But don't forget to have her react!).

Similarly, adding detail for detail's sake is a waste of print (generally speaking). If she notices his cuffs are blue, what difference does it make unless blue is her favorite color, the hero's eyes are that same blue, the blue totally doesn't match the hideous nectarine waistcoat, blue was the color of her father's face when he died, etc. It's not that we don't care for detail at all, but just that we care MORE when we know WHY we should care.

Tip #3: Characters as actors

Yeah, yeah, I wrote a whole blog on this subject. With pictures. But I can't get enough. My characters are actors, plain and simple. I want their body language, what they choose to wear, how they wear it, the patterns in their speech, their favorite poses, to all remind the reader over and over that this is who the character is. If the character is nice to old people, there must be old people in the story. Otherwise, it's backstory -- I have to tell you he has patience with old people. I had to learn this the hard way with If You Asked the Devil to Dance, and I'm still not entirely sure I nailed the hero in that book. I even know why that is: the hero was dealing with a reputation brought on by a perception of him that he didn't have of himself. Because he was already a loner by the time I started the story, he had very few people to show this perception to until the heroine got to know him and she could debunk the myth. Tricky story. I should've gone for something easier (which I totally did in the 2nd book; hence, there's at least 20 people in it to witness the hero's idiocy).

Ok, well I could talk about that subject forever, but I'm already woefully off-schedule. Thanks, B.E., for the opportunity to blather on! We (heart) you, too, MaveFave. (That's going to get my vote, unless someone can do better...)

Oh, and one thing I almost forgot: Though all the Mavens provide complete support and are utter devotedly to each other (and, more importantly: me), and I would consider them all to have provided the same level of encouragment for my writing career, more than anyone else, Maven Erica has come across more writing tips and created more of her own processes that have affected me in hundreds of little ways than any one other person on the planet. So while I love them all equally, Maven Erica gets my vote for Most Bestest Tip Giver Award. *cheers*

Stolen from Darcy, stolen from Carrie, stolen from Erica
YOUR TURN: 10 days into the new year, people! How much have you written so far? A scene? 20 pages? A book? And did you vote for us over at the Preditors & Editors' Readers Choice poll? (Oops, how did that shameless self-promo get in there?!)

An Enchanting Take on POV

NOTE: EDITED TO REMOVE ANY POSSIBILITY OF SPOILERS!

I apologize for being a little late this morning. I normally write my posts a few days ahead of time, but my latest WIP has been chirping like crazy in my head, and I'm afraid I got so wrapped up in it, this post slipped my mind.

Lacey's post yesterday about Hugh Laurie and how he communicates the character of House on screen even though you never get inside his thoughts was a great setup for this topic, because I want to talk about a movie I saw last week. Specifically, the new Disney film, Enchanted.

First, I have to give this film a little plug (which it may not need, as it's apparently doing well at the box office). I loved this movie. It was sweet without being saccarine, pokes a little fun at the whole Disney milieu without becoming mean, and is very, very romantic. Before all the men who read us Mavens run away tearing out their hair, let me add that my husband, who is usually quite curmudgeonly when it comes to "chick flicks," also loved this movie. My kids all loved it, too, although my youngest (five years old) wrote in his school journal that he liked it even though "there was kissing."

So what, you may be wondering, does a movie have to do with point of view? Aren't movies more "third person omniscient" than "third person limited?" I suppose in some global sense, that's true. Since you're never really able to get inside a character's head and find out what he or she is thinking, and since when the characters are interacting, you're privy to both their facial expressions and gestures and all the other techniques actors use to communicate emotion and state of mind, movies are closer to third person omniscient in POV.

And yet, in Enchanted, I nearly always felt as I was watching that I was in one character's POV more than the other and, more, that the filmmakers had done that deliberately. Obviously, when only the hero or the heroine is in a scene, it's easier as a viewer to decide whose point of view to "identify" with in that scene. But when the hero and heroine are interacting with each other, how do you choose?

In the case of Enchanted, I found myself instinctively identifying the POV as belonging to whichever character was being more strongly affected by what was going on in the scene. I always found myself sharing the point of view of the character for whom whatever was happening would seem most inexplicable or emotionally wrenching.

So, what does all of that say to point of view in writing? After all, we can put the reader directly into the characters' thoughts and feelings and make it absolutely clear who the reader should sympathize with, so how can this observation about a movie help?

Well, here's what it did for me. It drove home to me again the importance of writing each scene from the perspective of the character for whom what's happening is most pivotal, meaningful, or life-changing. That's easier said than done, of course, because most scenes (especially between the hero and heroine in a romance) have an effect on everyone involved in them.

Of course, if you're writing in first person (and not doing shared first person like Audrey Niffenegger in The Time Traveler's Wife or third person/first person mix like Diana Gabaldon and Elizabeth Peters), this isn't an issue. You've only got one point of view to deal with. But even then, you have to choose which parts of a story are relevant and meaningful to that point of view character and only tell those.

YOUR TURN: What are some tricks you use for deciding which character's POV to use in a scene? If you write first person exclusively, do you find that freeing or limiting in terms of showing the "whole" story? And have you seen any good movies lately?

10 Reasons to Love Hugh Laurie (Ok, maybe just 3)

In the comments on Tuesday's post I promised to tell you about the super-awesome POV invidualizer tool I use to give each of my characters their own particular voice. Some of you expressed disappointment you would be made to wait until later in the week to find out exactly what my process is. Well, since it's Thursday and I'm the Thursday Maven, wait no more! My super-awesome semi-secret POV individualizer tool is...

My tv.

Wait! Wait! Come back! It IS a good tool!

On tv and in film, actors make characters, right? We know characters come from screenwriters. But screenwriters can't make characters without actors. Ergo, screenwriters need actors. (And vice versa)

As writers of books, though, we don't get actors to make our characters come alive. I propose that our characters be actors. Problem solved!

But wait--how do we do that? In my career as an industrial engineer, I've learned working backward is usually the easiest way to figure a process out. As someone who is both lazy and a huge proponent of standard work, I have come up with a theory for turning characters into actors--starting with looking at actors who create great characters.

Many of us use photos of actors or models to help our muse along and to keep details of facial features and height, etc, consistent. I think it's not a big leap to use actors to help us hear characters. When an actor is in character, he's not who he is in real life. But there are elements of his own style (or hers) that creep in to make us love that character's actor. (Consider this your author voice.)

You're following, right?

So what makes the difference between the actor and the character? Think about this: some actors can't play characters. They can only play themselves. We know which ones they are: actors who consistently behave the same way in every movie, regardless of their role. Ok, now that you know who they are, forget about them. You don't want to use one of them to help your muse. What you want is to think of someone who really, really makes the character for each role he or she plays. Come up with someone really talented and then -- write this down -- steal them.

WWTD?

What Would They Do?

See the difference between copying a character and copying an actor? We writers are all actors, in a way. We take plain words and make them into riveting, emotional stories. How do we do that? A lot of the time, it's through making really captivating characters and then hurting them really, really badly. But a character with no reaction isn't a fun character to watch hurt. Likewise, someone who makes you smile *must have something about them that makes you smile* while they're making you smile. It's all in the delivery, baby.

When I sit down to write a scene, I get into character first. I usually go back and read a few pages of their last scene (even if it's 30 pages earlier) before I start writing. This reminds me of their voice. Then, while I'm writing in their voice, I'm constantly acting out the scene as I picture that actor in my head behaving. Not looking, but behaving. That's because I am the character looking out. Knowing what the character looks like isn't helpful to me. Knowing how that character behaves and using it to communicate the world around him is the key to finding that specific character's voice.

In short, I am a really big fan of my characters interacting with their setting, and anyone who's ever had a crit from me can probably tell that. If you're locked in your character's head and they're not acting then you're either getting internal narrative or dialogue. Think about Hugh Laurie's character Greg House. Do we ever get internal narrative from him? No. But do we need it to feel like we truly know and connect with him? No. Why?



Cues & Things Hugh Laurie uses to communicate Greg House to me:

• A glass whiteboard


• A ball


• A cane


• His sneakers


• His motorcycle


• His printed tshirts


• His PSP


• Vicodin


• Coffee


• The individual relationships he has with each of his coworkers -- no two are the same; he never behaves the same way with any two people (because he has individual opinions of each of those people, even though he very rarely ever says so (positive or negative))


• The way he stands
  
  
  
  It's impossible for me to imagine anyone but Hugh Laurie playing House because Hugh Laurie has taken what began as words on a page and made them into a real person. Have you ever gone to Fox.com and listened to him interview? Hugh Laurie is NOTHING like House. Similarly, you'd almost never recognize Hugh Laurie's characters in Black Adder unless you knew to look. Many fans may not know he had any role in Sense and Sensibility--because you weren't watching Hugh Laurie; you were watching Mr. Palmer. He is a fabulous actor and yes, he is my muse.
  
  Sigh.
  
  How do you do it?

I Get So Emotional

I beg your forgiveness for inserting that insipid Whitney Houston song into your mind (and for somewhat copying Maven Erica's Monday Post Title). Unfortunately, it's the first thing that popped into my head when I thought about what I might say about emotion this week. See, I'm a sentimental fool. I choke up when I check my children late at night. Stupid songs (Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star???) trigger my sob reflex. I cry at parent meetings or watching a school play that doesn't even include my own children or any that I'm related to. It's horrifying. And I'm completely incapable of stopping it.

How does this translate into my writing? I'm not writing tearjerkers, that's for sure. What I hope I'm writing are emotionally rich characters and deeply moving themes. My favorite reads are those that make me feel what the characters are feeling. I hate when I read a book and it gets to the end where things tie up nicely and you only get one POV. You get how either the hero or heroine feels but not the other. Makes me want to throw the book. I don't have that problem so much anymore, but it seemed like this happened a lot in the books I read when I was younger. Does that mean books have changed? Maybe. It may simply mean that writers are getting better at tapping into that emotion and inviting the reader to do the same.

I think POV is an important ingredient. Probably a lot of the older books I read contain a certain amount of head-hopping, which is not always conducive to conveying emotion. It's hard to share a character's triumphs and woes if you aren't with them long enough. Deep POV is a really great way to have a direct line to emotion. And of course, as Maven Jacq pointed out yesterday, showing emotion rather than telling it is a huge part of drawing the reader in. Even in movies, I relate better to a character by their actions instead of their dialogue or facial expressions. They can look sad, but I need to feel their sadness (or whatever emotion). Think of Chewbacca. No understandable dialogue and a lesser range of facial expression than humans. Despite this, we feel his sadness when Han is tortured and then frozen in carbonite. More than that, I feel his anger, his frustration and everything in between.

And that's a tough thing: varying emotions. Deeper emotions are sometimes easier to convey because they are more black and white: despair, joy, anger, fright. But what about amusement, boredom, contentment, annoyance? These can be more difficult because they are grayer shades of those deeper emotions. Too many deep emotions and you might have a caricature. Too few and you may have a character who doesn't resonate.

I mentioned in Monday's comment thread that Elizabeth Hoyt did a great workshop in Atlanta at Moonlight and Magnolias about polishing your ms. She said to make sure that the POV character's emotions are clear in each scene. I'm doing a polish pass on Glorious using the tips from her workshop (the tidbits were too good to not go back and use) and emotion is something I'm going to be looking at very closely. I'm also making notes of emotion as I storyboard my current book. In fact, I used emotion words when crafting the arcs for my hero and heroine. You can do so much with emotion! Or maybe that's just me (see post title).

How do you use emotion in your writing/plotting/polishing? What draws you into a book emotionally? How much do you hate me for the title of this post? (Answer must be in the form of an emotional response.)

Oh, and I wanted to share this because it's pertinent: I got a great Maven crit yesterday asking how my heroine felt about something a secondary character said. Since this is the very beginning of the book (yes, new book - without a title yet!) and we're just meeting these characters, it's important information to have about both the heroine and the secondary character. What will be fun is what the secondary character's emotion really is versus what the heroine thinks it is, or better yet, the emotion it strikes within the heroine! See, emotion can be fun! Or, again, maybe that's just me.

But I Said She Was Happy!

Maybe this is something other writers don't struggle with, but I know it's my Waterloo. I have no problem with emotions. To the contrary, I can name them all day long: happy, sad, angry, bewitched, bothered, bewildered.

Unfortunately for me (and those of you like me whose writing never suffers from a dearth of adjectives or adverbs), when they tell you to add emotion (or "pink") to your manuscript, they're not talking about dropping in the occasional emotion-laded adjective to tell the reader what your characters are feeling. That's telling. What they mean is that you need to show your characters' emotions, to put the reader inside your characters' bodies and minds so that they actually experience the characters' feelings.

The question isn't "Does your heroine feel happy?" but "How does happy feel to your heroine?"

Example:

Telling: Mary was elated to see John across the crowded ballroom. She walked toward him, her hand outstretched in greeting.

Showing: Mary scarcely felt the ground beneath her feet when she spied John across the crowded ballroom. She floated toward him, her hand outstretched in greeting.

(Before you make fun, I remind you that I never said I was good at this.)

But it does get at the essential point. Don't tell me what your characters are feeling; put me inside their bodies so I feel what they're feeling.

To take this one step farther, you can use physical descriptions of your characters' surroundings to give the reader a glimpse of their emotions.

Example:

Little/no emotional information:
Mary walked into John's small corner office.

Emotion #1:
Mary skipped into John's cozy corner office.

Emotion #2:
Mary dragged her feet as she entered John's cramped corner office.

Again, while I can hardly claim these examples are terrific, witty prose, I think they illustrate how much information you can convey about a character's state of mind by choosing descriptive verbs and adjectives that carry emotional weight.

YOUR TURN: Okay, now it's workshop time! Try to find one example of emotional telling or weak use of verbs and adjective and "pink" it up. Show your work. And have fun.