Predictably Lost

In the last week or so, I've been watching Season 4 of LOST (at Maven Darcy's urging; she couldn't believe I'd let an entire season go by when it's on the internet), reading Julia Quinn's The Lost Duke of Wyndham, and gossiping incessantly with my girlfriends over men friends who have lost their minds. I've come to a conclusion.

Unpredictability is where it's at.

So now I'm wondering how we generate unpredictableness ourselves. In the romance genre, in particular, there are certain expectations our readers have that we are [required] to meet. There has to be an HEA. There has to be a love story. There has to be something about the heroine our readers can identify with, and true beta heroes are a tough sell. But within those basic (and arguable) confines, we have choices. Maven Darcy's outstanding post yesterday got me thinking [as I was watching an incredible and shocking episode of LOST], while we're busily and creatively ruining our characters' lives, should we also be looking for the most surprising way to do it?

At the same time, the reader also needs to feel like they can predict the book, to a certain extent. I think this is a cross between keeping the story realistic and logical and helping the reader feel smart. So no space alien babies, and the villian needs to make sense, at least in hindsight. But still. When we're plotstorming, it probably wouldn't go amiss if we asked our critique partners to fill in the blank. As in, "Can you guess what happens next?" If they say, "Yeah, he falls into the same cellar where she's being held captive and they make hot, sweaty under-the-ground love," then maybe that's not the answer. Maybe we should ask, "What's the last and/or craziest thing you would expect to happen next?"

But maybe, by virtue of them thinking it, that is the expected thing.

Agh.

YOUR TURN: Surprise or reader intuition? (That's code for predictable.) If you think you keep the reader jumping, how do you do it? Would you rather have a man you can predict or one who's constantly keeping you guessing? Oh, how'd that get in there...

From Point A to Point B

I received what I think is an awesome comment from a CP yesterday. She said there was no sagging middle in Her Wicked Ways. And she said it in reference to the character arc I'm building for the heroine. This made me all warm and fuzzy inside. It also made me aware that I'd never stumbled through sagging middle "problems" when drafting HWW. I had a lot of these problems writing Glorious and I wonder why I had them with one book and not the other.

Any MaveFaves want to shout out the probable (I think) answer? Storyboarding! Once again, storyboarding has helped me in ways I didn't imagine. It's not so much that it prevented a sagging middle, it's that it helped me build a character arc. Now, I didn't get it perfect on the first draft. I'm revising/polishing right now and plan to go through chapter by chapter and make sure I'm nailing both the h/h arcs. But having turning points for the characters and the various storylines is a huge help in establishing - and sticking to - that arc.

We all know middles are the meat of the story. And I think arcs are maybe the meat of our characters. Showing their growth through action, introspection, and dialogue (yep, there's AID again) is what gets us from Point A to Point B or from "Once upon a time" to "The End." At least, it seemed to work for Her Wicked Ways. Ask me again after I draft The Tale of Gideon (yikes, that really needs a better working title).

What do you do to create and build on your character arcs? How do you keep them '"true" throughout the book? What's your secret to sagging middles (if you have one)?

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?

How’d You Think of That?

Welcome Guest Maven and Mave Fave, Angie Fox! I "met"Angie online a couple of years ago through my local chapter, Rose City Romance Writers. Though Angie lives in St. Louis, she's a long-distance member of RCRW after winning our Golden Rose Contest. I look forward to the day when I can meet Angie in person! Here's Angie...

We all want to make our books as unique as possible. It’s about grabbing the attention of that busy agent or harried editor, making it so they absolutely must stop what they’re doing and sit right down with your submission and – of course – ask for more. Through three unsold manuscripts and (yay!) the sale of my series to Dorchester, I’ve developed a few techniques that help me keep my quirky paranormals fresh. Hopefully, they’ll work for you too.

The Character Push

In the beginning of The Accidental Demon Slayer, the heroine’s long-lost grandmother shows up and – whoops – locks the heroine in her bathroom with an ancient demon. I’d pushed the situation, but the grandmother was too nice. My critique partner called me on it and, blast her, she was right. I sat down and brainstormed a few pages of alternate “grandmas” before I hit on an idea I loved – a Harley biker witch grandma who hurls recycled Smuckers jars full of home brewed magic. One character change and the book became a lot more fun to write.

The Mini-brainstorms

Sometimes, the first idea isn’t the best idea. Mini-brainstorms during the writing of a chapter always help me see if where I’m going is where I want to be. Sometimes, I go back to my first idea. Other times, after I’ve forced myself to come up with a page full of alternatives, I find I like a new idea better. It works on big plot points, but just as well on little details. Like when my heroine discovered a werewolf cemetery. It could have looked like a creepy, old cemetery. Or I could push it harder and make graves round, with the inscription “Never backed into a corner.” It’s not a huge detail, but it helps readers experience my heroine’s world.

The “Chill Out – This Doesn’t Have to Count” Brainstorm

Sometimes, when a chapter just isn’t working, I have a hard time making the (often necessary) massive changes, because I don’t know if I’m going to make things better or (gulp) worse. But one day, I borrowed a technique from my days as an advertising writer and lo and behold, it works on fiction too. I made a duplicate copy of the impossible chapter, and then went to town on changes. By letting my brain loose on a “throw away” chapter, I freed it up to stop thinking about “How am I going to get my heroine out of the love scene and ramped up for hell?,” to “Hmm…pillow talk. This is a good time for the hero to admit he wasn’t one hundred percent honest with the heroine at the start of the book. Now the heroine can get so mad that she dumps his boxers in the ice bucket, throws his pants off the balcony and almost goes to hell without him.”

Brainstorming is all about freeing up your mind and your creative energy. You get to surprise yourself, and feel the rush of excitement as you hit upon new ideas and new places to take your story. Because when you’re fully engaged in the story, pushing your characters harder, waiting to see what’s around the next bend – chances are, you’re audience will feel the same way.

Angie Fox is the author of The Accidental Demon Slayer, coming from Dorchester this summer. Right now, she’s hard at work on the sequel.

Note to Keira Soleore: You won Tanya Michaels' signed book when she guested two weeks ago, sorry we didn't post that before now! Email us to get your book!

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?

How Your Synopsis Can Help (Yes, You Read That Right)

Good Monday Mooorrrning Mavenland! Before I jump into the regularly-scheduled post, I want to make sure you're as excited as we Mavens are about our Second Choose Your Own Adventure kicking off this Friday, February 1 (and I have to shout out that Feb. 1 is also my daughter's 7th birthday!) and culminating on Valentine's Day. We have a rockin' lineup of authors so don't miss even one installment! Be sure to vote on the genre over on the left.

As always, the Manuscript Mavens would like to thank CYOA for graciously letting us borrow the "Choose Your Own Adventure" name. Choose Your Own Adventure is a trademark of Chooseco LLC, Waitsfield, VT. Check them out at cyoa.com. The trademark has been used by permission herein. Thanks, CYOA!

By now you are dying to know how your synopsis can do anything but be a giant pain in your rear. I can't believe I'm saying this, but your synopsis can be a helpful tool, and not just for selling your book. I might not have realized this if Maven Erica hadn't drawn my attention to something quite extraordinary last week.

Let me back up. I have to start with the storyboard and how incredibly easy it makes writing a synopsis. And it's not just the storyboard, it's the prework for the storyboard. Knowing your GMC, story threads, and turning points for each thread basically provides the outline for the synopsis. I'm telling you, I've never written a synopsis so quickly and easily as I did for Her Wicked Ways last week. I propped the board up, whipped open the laptop, and cranked that sucker out!

I can hear what you're saying, "Yes, Darcy, we get that storyboarding is awesome and so far you've told us how it's helpful for writing a synopsis. But how on earth is the synopsis itself helpful?" In a synopsis, you have to boil things down to the barest minimum. Include just the highlights of your story threads, and perhaps not even every story thread. It was this last thing that had me thinking.

You may remember last week I talked about how I divorced my current WIP from another book. In the process of doing that, I was able to tweak the heroine's back story so that it actually made more sense for the story I wanted to tell for her (no more forcing things to fit an existing plot!). Well, when I wrote the synopsis, another bit of her back story sort of stood out as unnecessary clutter. I didn't need it in the synopsis and then I asked myself if I even needed it in the book. I ran it by the Mavens and Maven Erica said, "This is the second time writing a synopsis has streamlined your plot. I find that really interesting. You should blog about that some time." (She didn't say streamlined, but that was the gist, I think.) I hadn't realized writing synopses had done that for me, but she was right! (And it was darned nice of her to suggest a blog topic!)

When I wrote the synopsis for Glorious, I had a similar epiphany and tweaked the story accordingly. Voila! Instant brilliance! All from the synopsis. (Okay, maybe not instant.) Who knew the synopsis could bring the truly important pieces of your plot into crystalline focus? Instead of looking at the synopsis as a dreaded summary I must write, I think I've decided it's my friend. The friend who tells me what really matters to my book. Wow, did I blow your mind? The synopsis is your friend.

Where's the strangest place you learned something about your book or your writing? What tools have been helpful for navigating your plot as you write and revise?

When to Listen...

There are at least three types of critiques in this world. There's the one that you shrug off: a typo or something completely off-the-wall. There's the one that makes you want to scream and beat the other person over the head with your point. And then there's the one that twists your stomach and makes you ill with fear.

I don't have much to say about any of them. I have the least to say about the last one. There doesn't seem to be much one can do when faced with the complete and utter destruction of her book, whether it's due to a pin-sized plot hole that leaks air so stealthily it's nearly impossible to trace, or a story that rambles and writhes and simply won't come out the way it seems in one's head. What about voice? I can think of at least four Mavens who've rewritten most or all of a manuscript because they realized too late they needed to put more dark here, more edgy here, more angst or historical tone there.

Plots: we've replotted entire books to make them make sense. Given TSTL heroes hope for a brighter tomorrow. Deleted reams and reams of subplots that weren't worth the ink it took to print them. Come up with tighter, more saleable books, better characters, and killer hooks.

It can be done. I know it can be done. But it's exhausting work. One wants to believe it never happens to other people. That everyone else writes perfect books the first time around--or, at least, marginally excellent books that require only mild editing.

It's not true, of course. In my head, I know it's not true. But when I think about dismantling a story to build it back up again, it makes me want to close my eyes and hide. What if I do it wrong again? What if it's better, but it's still not great? What about when I send it out for that all-important beta read, and she still finds enormous flaws? Do I just write something else? Is my entire genre, my entire voice then in question because one story won't hinge together without squeaking?

What do you tell yourself? What would you tell me? And if I told you I was going to steal those words of comfort and offer them to someone else, would you want to be quoted? :-)

To Link or Not to Link?

When I decided to get serious about writing historical romance novels in the summer of 2005, I picked up a book I started in 2000. I fiddled with it and then realized I didn’t want it to be the dreaded “first book” that may never see the light of day. I loved the plot and characters too much (still do!). That book was envisioned as the first of a trilogy starring three friends: a fighter, a lover, and a gambler. I still plan to write that trilogy, but for now, I’ve other fish in the frying pan.

The book I started writing then (the dreaded “first book”) was Notorious. As I wrote Notorious, there was a great secondary character who was a bit of a jerk. I loved the idea of giving him a book in which he became even jerkier (hit rock bottom) and emerged as a hero. That was Leo, the hero of Glorious. The original plot of Glorious included stuff from Notorious, such as the hero and heroine of Notorious showing up in a scene and looking all happy and in-love. More troublesome were scenes in Glorious that had to happen a certain way because of something in Notorious. The two books had to maintain continuity for readers. But, once I consigned Notorious to the magical mulch pile under my bed, I was able to free Glorious from its tether. I took out all of the Notorious references/tie-ins and you know what? Glorious was even better!

Did I learn from that lesson?

You know the answer to that if you read my comment to Maven Erica’s post on Monday.

As I wrote Glorious, I realized Leo’s sister was in desperate need of her own book. She was snarky, self-involved, courageous, and funny – in a word, an anti-heroine. Cue The Fox and the Hound Beauty and the Bandit Her Wicked Ways. As I storyboarded Her Wicked Ways I realized I had problems. Timetable problems that gave me a whopping headache. Her Wicked Ways would have to start before Glorious and conclude after because the inciting incident in Her Wicked Ways had already happened when Glorious started. And Miranda (the anti-heroine) is actually a key player during the latter portion of Glorious, which happens during the course of Her Wicked Ways but isn’t really important to the plot of HWW. That particular conundrum and how to write it was driving me a bit batty (even though I’d storyboarded it and had a plan for how to do it).

Because I keep writing secondary characters who seem to have these great backstories and come to me with their own story ideas (needy children!), I naturally had two more linked books that would follow Her Wicked Ways: Tess’s (Glorious’s heroine) sister and Leo and Miranda’s brother each needed a book and I had great ideas for both. They wouldn’t have been as intrinsically linked as the first two because they wouldn’t have taken place concurrently as Glorious and HWW do did.

Do I have a point today? Why, yes, I do. I think I’m prewired to write linked books. I like to read linked books (and by linked I mean both with overarching plot or theme threads or with characters that appear in multiple books), so perhaps that’s why. If that’s the case, why did I decide to unlink Glorious and HWW? For the reasons stated (no more convulsing to make the timetables match!) and because I haven’t yet sold them in a multi-book deal.

But, of course, if asked to link them, I can do it in heartbeat.

What do you prefer to write? Linked books? And linked in what way? Unlinked? What are your thoughts on writing linked books without a multi-book contract?

Where to begin?

First, I owe a massive huge tremendous THANK YOU to Jennifer Linforth for volunteering to set the Mavens up with a LiveJournal feed (she even had to email the peeps at LJ to get things straightened out -- how above and beyond is that?!?). So for those of you who would like to add the Mavens to your LJ friends' list, here's the link. Thanks again Jennifer - you rock!!!

A week ago I turned in what are hopefully my final substantive edits for The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Wahoo! Naturally, this has me thinking about beginnings. After all, I've been using edits as an excuse not to write something new for a good few months now. As of now, it's time for me to start writing again. Yikes!

So this has me thinking about beginnings. While my Untitled Second Book under contract is wide open (just has to be a YA), it turns out there's a chance they're going to want me to write another book set in the FHT world with a particular character. I hadn't considered writing this book, and so now I find myself pondering what happens next -- where to start this character's journey. Immediately, a thought came to mind and I followed that trail for a while, getting more and more excited about it.

But then it left me wondering -- should I just follow my first inclination? Should I be spending more time trying out different plots, different settings? Should I try the whole "list 10 things that could happen next" to make sure I'm on the right track? Where do I want to take the character in this book?

I think this is the closest I've ever really gotten to plotting, which is kind of weird. I've never felt the need to know all these things before -- I generally just start with a person in a place with a first line and see where it takes me. Why, all of the sudden, do I feel the need to know exactly where this character goes and what this character does?

I was talking to JP recently about this whole thing and really what it boils down to is my feeling that writing a novel is really just a series of closing doors. When you start, before you write the first word, you have a million possibilities ahead of you. And with every word and every line, you begin to shut those doors, diminish the possibilities. And generally, you can never go back and follow a different path (unless you think the current path is bunk and you have to back-track).

So if I send my character down Path B, I've lost the chance to tell the story about Path A. And to me that's a little sad. And I stink at making decisions in my own life, much less anyone else's. Honestly, sometimes I find this situation to be a little paralyzing -- standing here looking at all those paths and all those doors and wondering which are the rights ones (is there such a thing as the right one?).

Which made me wonder how y'all approach beginnings. Do you go with the first idea that grabs you? Do you think out a ton of possibilities and then whittle them down? Do you worry about closing all those doors or do you love the sense of so much possibility?