Reality versus Fiction

One of the charges most often leveled at romance books is that they will confuse their poor, empty-headed readers into expecting reality to match what they read (never mind that this more accurately reflects the person's low opinion of romance readers than of romance books themselves).

So, it is with brutal honesty, and as a service to romance readers (and reviewers) everywhere, that I offer this critique of reality versus fiction with regard to my fiance's recent proposal.

Preparation for the proposal

In fiction, proposals are often spur-of-the-moment things, when the hero is completely overwhelmed by his feelings, and must make the heroine his Right Now. The alternative is in romantic comedies, when the hapless hero makes attempt after attempt to create the Perfect Moment, with little or no success.

In reality, my fiance wrote, edited, and revised a proposal. Then, deciding that still wasn't guaranteed of success, crafted a devious plan to reduce my willpower to nothingness before overwhelming me with his charm and leaving me no choice but to accept his proposal.

Lead-in to the proposal

Traditionally, the man gets down on one knee before his intended before asking if she will marry him. Often in fiction, there is first a sumptuous meal.

My fiance gave me a two-hour hot stone massage. (See above comment regarding devious plan to reduce my willpower to nothingness.) He totally wins.

The wording of the proposal

Fictional proposals are full of clever wording, double and triple meanings, and scintillating wit. After all, the author knows you're going to be reading and rereading this passage, so she's got to get it right!

While "cleaning up" after the massage, my fiance said casually, "Oh, I forgot about this rock." But it wasn't a massage stone, it was a diamond. Double-meaning, clever wording and wit, although briefer than most fictional proposals.

The ring

Fictional heroes tend to have either huge bankrolls that can buy diamonds big enough to give you carpal tunnel syndrome from the effort of lifting your finger while wearing it, or be sweet yet impoverished heroes who give promisory rings that they swear to upgrade once they've made good, which they're certain they'll do with the heroine at their side. The ring always fits perfectly.

The ring stopped just past the first knuckle of my ring finger, being MUCH too small for my finger, because it was a family heirloom. The diamond dinner ring had belonged to his mother, but the large central diamond had come from his grandfather's diamond pinkie ring, which his father had reset with a slab of jade in the center when he inherited it. My fiance now wears the jade pinkie ring, which he inherited from his father. So the stones in our rings share a history. And, we get to have the stones reset into our choice of modern rings, a decision I will make jointly with him, versus having to spend the rest of my life wearing a ring someone else selected. He totally wins.

Reaction

The fictional heroine invariably squeals, throws her arms around the neck of her man, kisses him passionately, and says, "Yes!"

I giggled, closed my eyes, and said, "You're so silly!" Then realized I didn't recognize the ring. Opened my eyes, and squealed, "You mean, that's a REAL ring?"


What does this tell us about romance fiction versus reality? That real men can be even more romantic than fictional romance heroes. And that romance writers can be far, far LESS romantic than fictional romance heroines...or at least much slower on the uptake.

Are you ready for RT?

I've been writing the dates for the Romantic Times convention in various places for nearly a year now, and it's only this past week that I've realized the timing conflicts with the final mad dash to complete my taxes. Whoops.

So, in the next week, I not only need to complete my taxes, I need to:
-- do massive amounts of laundry
-- decide what I'm wearing to things OTHER than parties
-- pack shoes, clothes, toiletries, etc.
-- find the emails containing the panel descriptions / panel feedback forms
-- find the email containing my roommate's legal name
-- create handouts for the two panels I'm on
-- pack handouts
-- print out driving directions
-- buy food (the last thing I need is a food allergy reaction!)
-- pack food
-- pack all the various boxes/bags/suitcases in the car
-- gas up and go!

How many days do I have to do this, again? I'm sure the IRS will understand that getting ready for RT is more important than completing my taxes. Won't they? :-)

How to write a synopsis

Fantasy author Joshua Palmatier got tired of fielding the same questions phrased slightly differently about how to write synopses, and decided to follow the writing maxim of Show Don't Tell. So he convinced a whole bunch of writers to post examples of synopses that sold.

The examples include fantasy, romance, and science fiction stories, and even one Hollywood screenwriting synopsis.

I posted not only the synopsis for Raven's Heart, the first novel I sold (although it was the third one I wrote), but also the original ending that didn't sell. When you compare the two, the flaws in the original are obvious. People do things for no reason, events hang upon coincidences, the hero is selfish (and shows all the emotional sensitivity of a future spouse abuser) and the heroine's fate is determined by the men around her. By the time it was rewritten and sold, however, everything happens for a reason, the hero is willing to sacrifice everything that matters for the heroine, and everyone around her waits eagerly for her to make a decision that will tell them how to proceed.

I also posted a Question and Answer interview regarding my synopsis writing style. I actually like writing synopses, because they let me make my mistakes early in the process. It's a whole lot easier to change a few paragraphs in a synopsis than it is to throw out and rewrite entire chapters in the finished book.

What you want

I received an email the other day, talking about a book called "You're Broke Because You Want To Be". (The gist of it is that if you're routinely spending more than you're earning, it's because of your day-to-day decisions, which you could change if you wanted.) That, coupled with an inspirational quotation that "You Will Be what you Will To Be" got me thinking about the importance of what we want for what we achieve.

It's something that holds true for us as writers... if you don't passionately want to be published, you're never going to put in the amount of work necessary to perfect your craft, finish a novel (or in my case, three novels before I sold one), submit the novel to agents and editors, revise the novel, and do all the other things required to get published. Only the burning desire to see our books being read and enjoyed by other people can give us the drive to get the thing done.

It also holds true for our characters. They may start the book going merrily about their way, no cares in the world, doing whatever makes them happy. But the reader only begins to care about them when they want something. When they burn with the need for some goal that is so great, they will sacrifice anything and everything else in their life to achieve it. The reader grows to love them when they discover there is something in their life more important than this need, which they will not and will never sacrifice. (Because we write romances, that something is usually the other half of the romantic pairing.)

What do you want, more than anything in the world?
-- Jennifer Dunne

Fear is a funny thing

I was talking to my "submission buddy" the other day. A submission buddy, for those who don't have one, is like a diet buddy. They're the person to whom you tell your goal, and who keeps riding you, asking how you're doing on that goal, until you achieve it.

My buddy was supposed to send in a submission by the end of 2007. We discussed the likelihood of an editor being in the office and reading slush between Christmas and New Years, and agreed that a submission the first week of 2008 would still count as having been done by the end of 2007. We even worked out which day to mail the package for optimum chance of it being read.

The day approached. I did my buddy part, asking if everything was in readiness. It was. The manuscript needed only to be printed out, the revisions I'd suggested made to the cover letter, and then the whole thing popped in an envelope. About two hours of effort, my buddy estimated.

The day came. And went. Somehow, despite discussing this for three weeks, my buddy scheduled a business trip for the day when the submission was supposed to occur, completely forgetting about the submission. It was "an accident".

Uh-huh. How many of you believe that? I didn't either.

But, I gave my buddy the benefit of the doubt. If it was mailed the first day my buddy was home, I'd still give credit for having met the 2007 submission goal.

Do I need to tell you what happened? Or rather, what didn't happen?

Clearly, something else was going on. The material was good. I'd read it, and loved it. The cover letter was as good as we could make it. We'd double-checked all the submission protocols. There were no more reasons not to send it out. So my buddy was inventing reasons.

After a lengthy discussion, during which I refused to accept any of the offered excuses (that's the advantage of a submission buddy who's also a writer -- we know which excuses sound good but aren't true, where someone unfamiliar with the industry might fall for it), we eventually got to the crux of the matter. Fear.

"What if I send it to everyone that rejected the first version four years ago, and they still hate it? I'll have wasted all that time and money!" my buddy wailed.

"You'll definitely have wasted those four years if you never send it out at all," I countered. "But if you submit it, there's a chance that you'll be rewarded for your efforts."

When we're in the grips of fear, all we can see is the downside, and what will happen if our fears come true. It's much harder to look for the upside, and take a chance that it might happen. In our heart of hearts, we believe the worst will occur, and we'd rather spend our future years talking about the book that "might have been" published, rather than face that fact that it was never going to be published.

Which would be a reasonable reaction, except for one little thing. Every published author had to sell a first book sometime. Why can't it be you? Why can't it be now?

PS - the story has a happy ending. I just received an email from my submission buddy, telling me that the manuscript is in the mail. :-)

Books for the Holidays

I had my Christmas list whittled to a fine point. My dad was getting new shoes (or rather multiple relatives are each buying a share of his shoes, which he selected and purchased...I just have to pay him back and wrap them); my brother was getting a gift card to a home improvement store (he's restoring a Victorian town house...the home improvement store is like a second home to him); my brother's girlfriend was getting foodie gifts of marinades since she loves cooking; and my mom was getting Crabtree & Evelyn hand creme that she'd tried and loved while we were on a shopping trip to Manchester.

There was just one problem with this list. None of those gifts are books.

The first to succumb was the gift to my mom. She has a cherished cookbook that has been so well-used that it needs to be kept in a plastic bag wrapped with rubber bands, to keep the bits of broken pages from falling out and getting lost. About half the index has fallen to the ravages of time. But she refuses to get a replacement, since she declares the recipes were changed for the worse when the cookbook was revised in the '50s. I managed to find a copy of the 1949 edition in almost-new condition, complete with dustcover! I never even knew it originally had a dustcover. :-) It was surprisingly affordable for an antique cookbook in such good shape. Oh, well, the hand creme was bought on sale... and I know she'll *love* this.

Then I saw a book written by my dad's favorite financial pundit. With coupons, the price came down to $10. I'll just adjust everyone else's gifts up by the same amount, to keep things fair.

Hey, with that extra $10, I can get a literary food book for my brother's girlfriend. Wow. An awful lot of people have written about their adventures in cooking and eating. Still, she was saying at Thanksgiving how this is one of the only types of books she reads. She'll love it.

And now I see that there's a new novel out in a series that my brother got hooked on from the PBS miniseries. I'll just wait for the next coupon to take effect, and that'll be down to around $10, too.

Every year, this happens. Every year, people tell me, "I don't want a book." Every year, I start out with the best of intentions, trying to find the perfect non-book gift for them. ... And every year, I end up breaking down, and buying books for everyone.

And every year, I'm thrilled to find a package beneath the tree with my name on it, that contains a new book for me to read.

Just in Time for the holidays

Normally, when my turn to blog comes up, I talk about writing, or what can be learned from what I've been reading, or other similar topics. Instead, this month, I'd like to give you a helpful hint for the Thanksgiving/December-holiday-of-choice/New Year's holiday feasting season. There will be office parties, family get-togethers, and all sorts of delicacies laid out to tempt you during the frenetic last-minute shopping. Come January, you'll be wishing you'd eaten less, and taken more time to exercise.

I recently picked up a book called Bikini Boot Camp. (I was looking for a replacement Pilates book, having realized after a few hours of searching that the reason I couldn't find mine was that I'd loaned it to someone, and picked up this instead -- I don't know the authors.) It's non-fiction, in the health and wellness section of the bookstore. The book describes the two-week intensive weight-loss and fitness program at a famous tropical health resort. Every day starts with yoga and meditation, then breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner, with time in the middle somewhere for a cardio workout, Pilates workout, and weight training. There's also questions to ask yourself (and answer) in your journal, and a different home spa treatment, so your skin and hair looks as good as the rest of you feels.

I'm a hugely picky eater, because of food allergies. So I was very excited to find a book filled with foods I could eat (no yeast, and non-dairy alternatives). Best of all, it's yummy food!

Get it now, to be healthy, toned and relaxed before the holidays, or ask for it as a holiday gift to help recover from the season. :-)

Live Readings

Come join me as I give four live readings from my works, through the magic of the Internet. I'll be reading in the virtual world of Second Life, at the Burning Embers Carnivale. (Once in Second Life, you can teleport to Endellion 172, 178, 24 to reach the Caves where the Carnivale is being held. I'll be reading in the back...)

Readings will be at 7pm SLT (Second Life Time) (10pm EST) on Wednesday and Friday. And noon SLT (3pm EST) on Saturday and Sunday.

It's always hard to judge what to read at one of these events... do I read the same things at all four sessions, or four different things? Focus on a single book each time, or read bits from multiple books? Do a bunch of short, 5-minute readings with space in between for comments and questions, or a couple of long readings?

Maybe I'll prepare all the options, and ask folks at each event what they'd like to hear. :-)

The Quest for the Perfect Critique Partner

Alpha-readers. Betas. Critique Partners. They're called many things, depending on which literary tradition you harken to, but what they describe is the same -- the person who looks over what you've written, and gives you helpful feedback on how to make it better.

The key, there, is that it's helpful feedback. You need to find someone who is familiar enough with your genre to react the way your target reader would, and familiar enough with writing to be able to describe the actual problem ("You're telling instead of showing" versus "This part was boring"), but has a style different enough from yours that they're not likely to have the same blindspots you do. Most of all, it has to be someone who is completely honest, who will not pander to your feelings, while at the same time, being supportive and nurturing.

As you might imagine, this is a tall order. Many writers go for years without finding someone able to fit the bill, or create a piecemeal solution, where they might have one person who looks at dialogue, one person who looks at characterization, and one person who looks at plot.

I was incredibly lucky that my best friend and co-worker was also my critique partner. We read a lot of the same books, we started writing at the same time, and our careers ran on similar tracks, right down to our being finalists for the Golden Heart in the same year. And then I started writing for Ellora's Cave.

And we discovered that my critique partner was unable to read a sex scene if I wrote it. Particularly the more creative scenes in the BDSM romances. The problem, you see, is that she knows my mom. Very well. The woman who turned down an offer to breed her dog because she didn't want him to "have those sorts of ideas." And so my friend kept imagining my mom's reaction to what I was writing, and... obviously, it just didn't work.

So I'd send her versions to critique that had helpful comments in brackets, like [and then they have sex]. Which worked for the BDSM stories, where the nature of the sex is what provided the character conflict and development. But in my latest book, there's a lot of character development that can't be explained without the sex scenes. I needed to find a new critique partner.

I posted to my blog, asking for volunteers. I clearly laid out the nature of the story (fantasy romance, with a F/M/F romance dynamic) and that I was looking for help making sure the character arcs worked. I picked two of the four people that volunteered, and sent them the story.

The first person had already given me feedback on the first chapter by the time I'd gotten home from my "I finished the book!" celebratory dinner. In chapter two, she was able to identify the part I'd been most concerned about, and offer a suggestion to strengthen it, thereby strengthening the character arc. I'm looking forward to getting her comments on chapter three.

I wonder if she'd like to be the beta reader for all my erotic romances?

Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail

The other morning, my critique partner tossed off 4500 words on her new manuscript, and gave it to me to look at over lunch. Yes, you read that correctly. 4500 words. In one morning. I'm lucky if I can manage 3000 words working sunup to sundown.

When I asked her how she'd managed to write so much so quickly, she pointed to her sheet of notes -- scribbled bits of plot and character development that were cryptic in the extreme. But she claimed she'd been thinking about the story since the previous night, and had it pretty much written in her head, so she just had to type it out. Unfortunately for my hopes of ever having a 4500 word morning, I don't write like that.

A few days ago, Tina blogged about the difference between being a plotter or pantser. But most pantsers -- at least among the published authors I've talked to, and it's worth noting that these are the ones that finish books and deliver them on schedules -- don't write blind. They have some sort of an idea for the book. They may not have a plot, per se, with turning points and escalations and denouments, but they have a theme, or a motif, or a character arc, or a situation they want to explore. In other words, they have a plan, loose though it may be.

I'm not a plotter. The conflicting needs and desires of my characters produce their actions, and those actions result in a plot. But it's like quantum physics ... all plots are possible, until the moment when the waveform collapses and a single plot is chosen. So my writing is a series of collapsing waveforms, looking at the range of plots, picking one, writing a few hundred or thousand words until the range of possible plots is once again overwhelming and a new one needs to be selected, then the whole process repeats until the book is finished.

To keep from wandering forever lost in my imagination, I rely on my plan, which helps me to choose the appropriate options from among the glittering host of possibilities. So, for example, in my current release from Cerridwen Press, SHADOW PRINCE, my plan included the basic setup for the story, the backstory (developed in NOT QUITE CAMELOT), and the dichotomies I wanted to explore, such as trust/suspicion. And because of genre conventions, I knew that the characters would ultimately be sucessful in their quest, and the resolution would be a happy one, although I didn't quite know what that resolution would be. When faced with a choice for where to take the story next, I went back to the plan, and that kept the whole thing flowing in a cohesive fashion, building toward the final showdown at the end.

I'm finishing a new novel, now, and really need to write quickly. With my critique partner's example, I thought I'd try making some notes for what has to happen in the various chapters remaining. They ended up being notes like "wanders around town, meets people, learns things". Wow, exciting chapter, huh? I'm sure it will be, by the time I write it. But until that moment when a single possibility is chosen, there's really no way of knowing what will happen. That's what keeps it interesting.

Wineries and book signings

My brother and his girlfriend came out to visit this past weekend, and because she's a real oenophile, we decided to take them up to the Finger Lakes and do the Cayuga Lake Wine Trail, stopping at various wineries along the west side of the lake, for wine tastings and shopping in the winery gift stores.

As we were coming home, and as the designated driver who'd been drinking grape juice, I was the only one awake in the car, I started thinking about the similarities between wine tastings and book signings. In both cases, you're offering a fun experience for someone (a wine tasting, versus meeting an author or listening to an author's talk) that will hopefully encourage them to buy something (a bottle of wine or a copy of your book).

So, what did I learn?

1 - Talk about more than just the book. The winery where we purchased the most had a friendly staff member who talked about the history of the area, the various types of grapes used, how wine was produced, etc. The second-most had a friendly staff member who offered gossipy information on how the wine names and label art were created. The winery that got the least business from us limited their discussion to the qualities of the wine, and what foods it went with best.

2 - Customize your message. All the wineries offered a standard selection of wines to taste, but gave you the list of all available wines, and would pour you anything you wanted to try. So, if you have multiple books, slant your discussion to the ones that most suit your audience.

3 - Advertising and name recognition. One of the wineries was uniformly agreed to have the worst wines, by all attendees. (Not *bad* wine, I point out...just not as good as the others.) However, they also had huge signs up and down the lakeshore road, and made a big deal out of what honors they had received. So if you knew nothing else about wine, you'd know they were a local winery offering tours, and might want to stop in, where you wouldn't stop in at some of the others unless you were doing the whole wine trail. Usually book stores are responsible for advertising, but you can bring blow-ups of your book covers, or a poster saying "Author signing today" to put out at your table. And mention your awards. Readers might not know what the specific awards are or what they mean, but they'll be impressed that your books have won awards.

4 - Offer something for the non-reader. I mentioned I was the designated driver, so didn't actually sample any of the wines. One winery had a fudge tasting in addition to the wine. One poured me "samples" of grape juice, so I could sip along with everyone else. One offered cheese tastings. I bought fudge, and their consideration in offering me juice inspired other members of my party to buy more wine than they otherwise would have. So, offering something to occupy the non-reading members of a shopping party will encourage the shopper to stay longer, and buy more of your books.

5 - Tastes vary. Finally, remember that, like wine, reading tastes vary. Some members of our party wanted dry wine, some wanted sweet, some wanted red, some wanted white. Offering a dry red wine to someone looking for a sweet white does no good, no matter how fantastic the wine is. It's not what they want. Some people want erotic romance, some want fantasy, some want paranormal, some want something you might not write. It's not a reflection on you or the quality of your books -- it's simply a matter of matching what you write with what they want to read.