Not all writers emerge from the womb fully formed, and that certainly wasn’t the case for me. I had to study the writing process to hone my craft. As I learned, I realized that the process is different for everyone, and it mattered how the information was presented whether or not I really “got” it.

For instance, I struggled with “motivation” for years, hearing the word, and knowing that my characters had to have it. However, when I came across the word “agenda” in regards to character motivation, it instantly clicked with me. Coming from the business world, I understood that an agenda is the instruction sheet a person operated from. It is the basis for action in the past, present, and future. Now, whenever I’m in a character’s point of view, their agenda is always foremost in my head.

So, in the hopes that someone else will have an “agenda” moment, I wrote articles about what I've learned, and I've posted them below. The topics vary from straight crafting (writing scenes, creating conflict, etc.) to dealing with writerly doubt to making your work really stand out.

Find the crafting materials that speak to you, become the best writer you can be, and then there’s only one thing left to do. Write from your heart.

WORKSHOPS and PANELS

I present workshops at writer's conferences and have given talks at Amelia Island Book Festival, McIntosh Art Association, First Coast Romance Writers, Florida Heritage Book Festival, Southern Lights Conference, Scribbler's Retreat, Florida Writer's Association —Ponte Vedra and St. Augustine chapers, Ancient City Romance Writers, Southeastern Mystery Writers of America SkillBuilds, University of North Florida Writers. I've presented on the topics of pacing, painting with words, query letters and synopses, pitching, genre bending, writing journey, self-editing, cold reads, polishing, plotting, and working writers.

I've participated on industry panels at Bouchercon, Malice Domestic, Killer Nashville, Southern Lights Conference, Murder in Magic City, and Sleuthfest.

ARTICLES
Clicking on a title will take you directly to the article

All That Glitters Isn’t Gold: When Your Scene Doesn’t Work

Are You Invisible?

Banishing Your Wolf of Self-Doubt

Conflict Vision

Cooking Your Way Out of the Slush Pile

Fear Stimulates Our Senses

It's a Jungle Out There

Make It Sparkle! Seven Steps to Polish Your Work

One Writer’s Odyssey

This Year I WILL

Your Work Shows Great Promise

Weeds In Your Writing Garden
Writing romance in your mystery and vice versa

All That Glitters Isn’t Gold: When Your Scene Doesn’t Work

We’ve all had that moment of realization. Those words that glittered so brightly as we committed them to paper, they just don’t hold up in the bright light of day. The scene isn’t working. As writers, it’s one of our worst nightmares.

We all recognize good prose. It reaches us on many levels. Similarly, when we read something that doesn’t work, we recognize that it doesn’t reach out and make us care what happens next. So what can we do? How do we get that tarnish off our words and polish our scenes into what’s sure to become the next best seller?

Anyone who’s ever read Deborah Dixon’s GMC: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict will tell you that a scene has to advance at least one of these key elements listed in the title of her book. As you look over a nonworking scene, check for this first. If the scene doesn’t convey something additional about the point of view (POV) character’s goal, motivation, or conflict that is relevant to the storyline, this needs to be addressed first.

So, if goal, motivation, and conflict are the messages that we writers have to get across, what is the most effective way to do this? Writing books abound with instructions and rules, so many that it’s easy to become overloaded with tools of the trade. My simplistic view is to paint a compelling picture with thoughts, words, and deeds. If you have a scene that’s not working, stop and ask yourself, what’s the point of this scene? How does it add to the story? If you can’t answer these questions, work backwards, crafting the answers you want the scene to provide and then working that intent into your scene.

Another key concept mentioned in Dixon’s book is that a scene must do at least three things. In other words, we need to multi-task our scenes. The best way to illustrate this point is to review a scene from your keeper bookshelf. A scene that immediately springs to my mind is from Jayne Ann Krentz’s Soft Focus. Briefly, the heroine publicly confronts the hero over lunch about his deception. She vents her fury over his prior destruction of her friend’s business. This information is filtered through the hero’s POV, only he’s still thinking about his inadequacies from making love to her the previous evening. The scene ends with his stony reminder that their business contract binds them tighter than husband and wife.

Lots of things are going on in that opening scene because Krentz gets in goal, motivation, and conflict for both main characters. But like any truly great scene, there’s more here than meets the eye. Even though this scene contains relatively little action (two people meeting for lunch), our interest is held by the swift pacing, the sexual tension, and the emotional impact. This scene works because readers care about what comes next.

As a writer, I find scene dynamics are the hardest to get right. Pacing, tension, and emotion remind me of manually winding up a clock. If you don’t wind it enough, the clock runs down too soon. If you wind it too tight, the clock may break. In the same way, pacing, tension, and emotion control the flow of a story. It’s not enough to convey information about goal, motivation, and conflict. If it was, our stories would all resemble first draft synopses. The true challenge is to layer a scene seamlessly in a way that leaves the reader wanting more.

So, how do we put the glitter back in our scenes? One of the first things to remember is that our characters are complex individuals. We need to know who they are, what they want, and what colors their thinking. Second, we need to realize that scenes must move the story forward. The immediacy of the scene must telegraph its urgency through the POV character to the reader. Thirdly, scenes must build on each other. A good example of this is the tv drama program Law and Order. Every scene of the show is embedded with a nugget of information that propels viewers into the next scene. And finally, use the tried and true maxim of ‘show don’t tell’. Don’t inadvertently distance the reader by telling what is happening.

If the information in your scene isn’t relevant or compelling, ask yourself these hard questions. Why is it there? Is it told from the most interesting POV? What’s at stake? And finally, what would you lose by taking the scene out? Your answers to these questions will dictate how you fix your broken scene.





This article first appeared in the October 2004 Update, newsletter of the Washington Romance Writers.

Are You Invisible?

Tired of being invisible? Here’s a practical solution. Write an article for your chapter newsletter. After you finish reading this, you’ll want to get started right away. Here’s why:

Writing Sharpens Your Skills. Crafting articles about the writing profession forces you to focus on your subject material. It helps define and perfect your strategy for the art of story crafting. Every time you sit down to write, you flex creative muscle. Just as athletes practice to improve their skills, writers must write to reach and maintain peak performance levels. Empowered writing increases reader interest and improves the likelihood of publication.

Shared Experiences Bring Fellowship. Through sharing your writing journey with others, you lessen the sense of isolation within this solo profession and build camaraderie. Like a candle shining in the darkness, an article can bring inspiration and hope to those who struggle with similar issues. Fellow authors hunger for details from those overcoming hurdles, those just published, those building a name for themselves, and especially from those at the top of the heap.

Articles Cure What Ails You. It’s admirable to write about things you do well. But, if you go one step farther and write about subjects that give you fits, you might come up with solutions to formerly insurmountable obstacles. Writing about your weaknesses helps you focus on what needs to be changed in your writing and is instrumental in devising solutions. Got a problem with integrating setting into the flow of your story? Research the problem, write about it, and before you know it, you’ll be following your own advice.

Publication Reinforces the Dream. Writing is what we do. It is an affirmative response to our unrelenting urge to tell stories. Newsletter publication won’t suddenly transform you into a literary guru, but it does build confidence that you can do this. Your article can be the first step to opening many doors in the publishing business. Best of all, your published article is a valuable highlight on your writing bio.

Articles Build Name Recognition. Let’s face facts. Name recognition drives book sales. Your newsletter article will be in front of your chapter members, available to internet surfers who visit the chapter website, and available to every RWA newsletter editor through posting on an editor email link. These editors may choose to reprint your article or forward it to a chapter email loop. One article may seem like a small stone in a big pond, but the ripples that occur can be far reaching.

Editors Need Submissions. There is a high demand for chapter member articles. Chapter newsletter editors want to feature and promote their members. Each newsletter issue brings with it the demand for new material. The good news is that the incidence of rejection of newsletter articles is relatively low. Send that article in and chances are, you’ll have a publication pending. Newsletter editors need article writers.

The Sky Is The Limit. A brief bio runs with each newsletter article. Included in this bio are titles of your upcoming or recent books, contest wins, or website contact information. You might also consider becoming a regular columnist. Several columnists from different chapters have developed niche columns (on market news, research, contest opportunities, etc.) that are in such high demand that they are published simultaneously in multiple newsletters every month. Believe me, these folks are very visible.

There you have it. Seven compelling reasons to craft that article you’ve been thinking about. Writing newsletter articles builds self-confidence and raises skill level. It gives you immediate visibility. Get your name out there and see if your fiction doesn’t start attracting more attention.

This article first appeared in the March 2004 Update, newsletter of the Washington Romance Writers.

Banishing Your Wolf of Self-Doubt

My wolf of self-doubt is back. I can feel him prowling around the edges of my mind. Every now and again he darts out and gnaws on my confidence. His sharp teeth make quick work of the thin skin covering my vulnerabilities.
He howls gleefully when those SASEs in my handwriting come in the return mail. Like a silvery shadow, he ebbs in and out of my consciousness, striking when I am weak.

My wolf of self-doubt is at his most bold when I am between projects. His snickering voice tells me that there couldn’t possibly be a marketable story in this disorganized chaos I call a brain. He sniffs disdainfully at the lists I make, the things I want to write about.

He bounds across the snowy white computer screen, the one that is barren except for the mocking slash of the blinking cursor. In my midnight hour, I take a stand against my self-doubt. I reach deep inside and believe that the next story will come.

Just as characters have arcs, so do writers. It isn’t easy to change and grow; it takes a giant leap of faith to abandon the safe world of your last story and people another universe with new characters. Here’s how I face this challenge.

I cast out my wolf of self-doubt with determination. I scan headlines and watch movies and listen to conversations everywhere I go, absorbing, assimilating, what-iffing. With each new idea, creativity sparkles and story possibilities glimmer. I boost my imagination by exploring other artistic pursuits: music, arts and crafts, sewing, gardening. I recharge until I reach a critical juncture, one in which ideas saturate my thoughts.

This primordial stew is flavored with my past experiences, my unconscious themes, and my level of expertise at crafting stories. In the steamy mist of prewriting, I envision a spunky heroine, a capable but flawed alpha hero, and an emotional conflict that puts this man and this woman on a collision course. From this simmering broth comes a series of character-driven events that propel these people towards a problem they can’t overcome without character growth.

The words come in dribbles, then in torrents. Paragraphs become pages, pages become scenes, scenes connect to form chapters. Turning points, obstacles, choices, crises, commitments, black moments, and triumphant happy endings – these necessary ingredients lend form and substance to this new world.

When the story flows, I don’t sense my wolf at all. He can’t tolerate the bright campfire of a fresh plot and three dimensional characters. There is no room in my head for failure when words blaze across my computer screen.
Why can’t I banish my wolf of self-doubt forever? Because doubting is as much a part of my writing process as the flash and burn. Without extending myself past my comfort zone, I wouldn’t continue to grow as a writer.

Maybe your wolf goes by another name, but he’s there, lurking in the shadows, waiting for your personal dark moment. You want to beat your wolf of self-doubt? Stare him dead in the eye and banish him with the most powerful affirmation in your vocabulary: I am a writer. Now, get to work!

This article first appeared in the February 2005 issue of Update, the newsletter of Washington Romance Writers.

Conflict Vision

Better one or better two? Anyone who has ever had vision correction will recognize the previous sentence. During an eye exam, small lenses of differing strengths are placed in your field of vision until the image on the far wall comes into focus. Through a process of elimination, the correct lens is chosen. The perfect lens results in a crisp, clear image.

The perfect lens results in a crisp, clear image. The more I thought about that profound statement, the more I realized that it was something that could apply to my writing.

Donald Mass, Debra Dixon, Alicia Rasley, and many more fiction writing experts agree that conflict is an essential element of crafting a quality story. Maximizing conflict maintains high reader interest in your story. I had read these words of wisdom in multiple places and thought I had a handle on conflict.

In my infinite wisdom, I treated conflict as another item on my check list. Setting? Yeah, I got that. Characters? Yeah. Got them. Conflict? Yeah. That’s in there.

It wasn’t until I started dissecting stories by published authors that I realized how restricted my conflict vision was. Just having conflict in my story wasn’t enough. Conflict is too big to be relegated to a checklist. It has to be integrated into the very seams of the story. Two dogs and one bone. That’s conflict. Make it matter. That’s conflict. Make it emotional. That’s conflict.

I crafted more elaborately detailed plots, invented characters with multiple flaws, and beefed up my settings. I cut pictures of my characters from catalogs and drew up story boards with multi-colored tiered charts and created electronic filing systems for quick recall. But my rejection letters still featured the same tag line: “I wasn’t captivated by the story.”

Argh. Nothing worse than an editor thinking your story isn’t captivating.

So, back to the drawing board. How to bring conflict into the crispest focus possible? For any given scene, what is the most compelling way of presenting the conflict. For this to happen, I had to be open to new possibilities, to new ways of story elements fitting together.

The best way to illustrate this new mindset is to use an example. Let’s assume we are writing a scene about a woman needing to get her driver’s license renewed. This is a conflict inherent process involving multiple long lines and a shortage of clerks. It can easily take three hours to navigate through the bureaucratic process. Now imagine that our character doesn’t have three hours to spare because she has to pick her handicapped child up at school. The process will, of course, take three hours. That feels like conflict.

But is it enough? Is it captivating? Probably not. Let’s sharpen the focus. If the clerk who finally waits on her is someone our heroine doesn’t want to deal with, that brings in a deeper emotional element to the conflict. If we show that the handicapped child needs a med change and that it’s critical the mother gets the child to the doctor’s appointment on time, then that adds tension to the conflict. If the woman’s son’s missing gerbil has been sleeping in her purse but jumps out when she goes to pay and the clerk is experiencing a rodent infestation at home, that’s using the setting to increase the conflict.Adding additional story layers to the conflict sharpens the focus and makes the reader care. Next time you create a scene, ask yourself if the conflict is as strong as you can make it. If not, why not try the “better one, better two” process? Add power and depth to your writing and you’ll ensure that your readers are captivated. Use the perfect lens and you’ll see the difference in your writing.

This article first appeared in the December 2003 issue of Update, the newsletter of Washington Romance Writers.

Cooking Your Way Out of the Slush Pile

Do you ever feel like you’re drowning in the slush pile? Do you wish you knew the magic answer that would ensure publication? Many of us believe we’re close to achieving publication. We’ve earned our RWA Pro-pins, we’re doing well in contests, we’re volunteering at local and national romance chapters, so why are we still in the slush pile? What is holding us back?

Here’s my simplistic take on the situation: we’ve got to have a great story and we’ve got to be in the right place at the right time. I can’t help you with the timing of your submission, but maybe a few tips from my kitchen may give you that missing something that editors and readers want.

Cooking Tip # 1: Chicken Soup. I’ve been cooking for years, but it wasn’t until a friend made me some of her chicken soup that I learned a valuable lesson. My chicken soup is adequate, but hers, well my mouth is watering just thinking about it. There was a certain fullness to the taste and a body to her broth that lingered in my mouth long after the soup was gone. When asked about the secret of her soup, my friend said there was nothing secret about it. The only difference between my recipe and hers was that she started with chicken stock instead of water.

That got me to thinking. Starting with prepared stock enhanced the entire texture of chicken soup. It was thicker, richer, fuller in a way I’d never experienced in my own cooking. A parallel in writing immediately occurred to me. Start with stock characters and then add your own ingredients.

Using a stock character gives you an immediate base to build on, it gives you a set of easily identifiable reactions that jump-start your writing onto a whole new plane. Don’t make your writing clichéd, but freshen something familiar with what you do best. Haven’t you seen reviews or book blurbs that say: Cinderella with a fresh twist or Beauty and the Beast as you’ve never seen it. Fairy tale themes have a familiar resonance. What woman wouldn’t want to find true love and have her whole life come together? Make your story one that will be remembered long after it’s read. Find the magical “stock” that breathes fresh life into that shelf of rejections.

Cooking Tip # 2: Breakfast Casserole. Have you ever been to one of those brunches or church socials where several women made the same recipe for “Breakfast Casserole” and all of the cooked dishes looked similar? Then when you tried them they all tasted different? The analyst in me couldn’t get over how different and yet the same they were. The key to the differences was unique to each cook. One lady always used butter even if a recipe called for margarine, another used sharp cheese instead of mild. You get the general idea. Different but yet the same.

Writing for category romance can be likened to those breakfast casseroles. Each category has a certain set of ingredients it looks for, things that the loyal reader recognizes and wants to read. The editors are looking for something familiar and yet different. They want to see tried and true plot devices because they know their market. Our challenge is to find the combination of familiar ingredients that makes our stories uniquely marketable. I have a whole shelf of Silhouette Romances and from the big print on back covers it is easy to see what types of stories they want. Babies sell. Cowboys sell. Secrets sell. Marriage of conveniences sell. Do the research to find out what sells in your target market, and then write the best book you can. One that’s uniquely your own take on a familiar recipe.

Cooking Tip #3: Chocolate Chip Cookies. Everybody knows the difference in a store-bought cookie and one that’s just out of the oven. It’s like night and day, isn’t it? I was sure my homemade cookies were The Best because they were better than store-bought. I believed this until I tasted someone else’s homemade chocolate chip cookies. The combination of taste, texture, and aroma of her magnificent cookies was in a whole different league than my cookies. Even though I knew her cookies had to be loaded with calories and fat and everything that wasn’t good for me, I couldn’t keep myself from reaching for more. Hmm.

The master cookie chef reluctantly loaned me her secret. I was appalled by how simple it was. She baked cookies every chance she got so that she knew the exact proportion of ingredients and cooking conditions required to yield the cookie of her dreams. The lesson I learned from this is that she worked hard at her craft until it was the very best she could make it. Then she kept at it to keep her quality at a very high level.

This was starting to sound like writing again. With the wisdom of hindsight, I see that my first writing efforts, the masterpieces that were surely breakout novels, were a lot like the misshapen slightly burnt cookies of an amateur baker. In order to turn out the lightly browned, chewy but crisp delicacies that taste divine (or the manuscript that makes you a household name), you have to go beyond adequate. Just because your story is better than the worst book you ever read doesn’t mean your story is ready for the big time. If you work diligently at what you do, your craftsmanship will improve. You’re not competing with the worst that’s on the market. You’re competing with the very best romance has to offer.

So there you have it. Three simple lessons from the kitchen. Start with familiar or stock ingredients to give your story more body. Flavor your story with the seasoning that is uniquely yours. And hone your writing ability through practice to keep readers reaching for more. Piece of cake.

This article first appeared in vol.1 of The Baker Street Clarion, October 2008.

Fear Stimulates Our Senses

Growing up, I knew first hand what it was like to be paralyzed with fear. When the door blew open for no reason, I screamed my head off and not even a whisper of sound crossed my lips.

I was the kid who shied away from shadows, the kid who avoided cracks in the sidewalk, the kid who leapt over the hall floor furnace because a monster lived down there. Needless to say, the superstitions and legends in our small fishing village played havoc with my overactive imagination.

As a teen, I avoided scary movies, roller coasters, and The Twilight Zone television program. They were outright unnerving to me. Though I shied away from Big Scary Things, I turned to books for solace. My favorites were romantic suspense books. Back then, Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart were all the rage. From these authors and more, I learned more about the cycle of fear. I saw fear being elicited by a discreet stimulus, fear helping the heroine to thwart danger, and mastered fear leading to the reward of happiness.

Fast forward a few more years to when I began to write books. The wisdom within the publishing realm said to write what you know. Romantic suspense books appealed to me because the combination of danger and romance spoke to me on many levels.

We have all experienced that unsettling moment when we realized someone was watching us. That prickling sensation on the small hairs of our neck, that slide of cool air against our clammy skin. If it’s the person across the room you want to notice you, this alert system brings pleasure. But if it’s a stranger watching you from a hidden vantage point, your body responds instinctively to the threat.

Your heart rate speeds up. You breathe faster. Your muscles tense. Your body automatically prepares for flight or fight. This response is hardwired from mankind’s earliest days. The people who responded to threats by running or fighting victoriously survived and became our ancestors. Through natural selection, humans became efficient fear machines.

I’ve been married to a great guy for a long while now, but there are times when he unexpectedly appears behind me. My startled scream of terror has both of us clutching our hearts. I’ve learned to be more cognizant of my surroundings, he’s learned not to sneak up on me.

Being in touch with my own fears, I had no trouble foisting them off on fictional characters.

Hope in House of Lies battles abandonment and isolation, beating them to face the gut-wrenching terror of a deranged assassin. When a car tries to force her off the road, her fight or flight instinct saves her life. She reaches deep, conquering her fears to stand up and fight for what is hers. She earns her reward of happiness.

In No Second Chance, Hannah starts out paralyzed by fear of failure. But her love for horses empowers her to face her fear, to triumph in the face of overwhelming adversity. The villain of this story wants to take everything from Hannah. In this high stakes game of life and death, fear keeps Hannah on her toes, making her happily-ever-after all the sweeter.

Recognition of danger starts a chain reaction within our body, dumping a cocktail of thirty different hormones into our bloodstream, priming us for fight or flight. This volatile mix of chemicals creates excitement and even arousal in some people. Romantic suspense books keep readers turning the pages to find out what happens next. This genre melds a love story and a danger story into a satisfying read.

This article first appeared in the April 2008 issue of the Scarlet Letter, the newsletter of Southeast Mystery Writers of America


It’s a jungle out there!

Selecting the most cost effective avenues for marketing is tough. The array of choices is dazzling. So, how do we get the word out about our books? How do we hack through the marketing jungle to find daylight? Let’s review some marketing choices.

Print ads. The most successful book ads target your market and exploit marketing hooks. Are you selling to librarians, mystery readers, thriller convention-goers, or the beach-read crowd? Select your ad placement based on the widest possible target audience.

Promotional items. Many authors buy pens, pads, bookmarks, postcards, etc. with their name or website imprinted on them. For maximum effectiveness, these need to have value to a reader.

Multi-media campaigns. Many authors are interviewed on radio or television in conjunction with an event or book release. Consider speaking engagements and public appearances to broaden your reader base.

Press releases. Send these out to every relevant magazine and newspaper. Mine the marketing hooks in your book. A book with a boating crime scene might suit a nautical publication or a marina newsletter.

Online promotions. Yahoo and Google have reader and special interest groups. Virtual book tours involve blogging at various sites. What about a podcast or a book trailer? With these tools, your promotion material will be available on the web indefinitely. Online social networks like MySpace and Shelfari allow you to mass mail bulletins about your new release or event to “friends” in moments.

Book giveaways. This sounds counterproductive when we’re after sales, but this strategy drives readers to your website and promotes interest in your backlist. Give books away at charity events, conferences, or other relevant reader hang-outs.

Sales are the best indicators of marketing effectiveness, but unless you track sales in real time, discerning marketing effectiveness may not be possible. However, increased website traffic can monitor interest. Many web hosts track site visitors linearly through time, allowing you to link marketing strategies to website hits. The tracking indicates IP addresses of where site visitors linked to you from.

One of the first thoughts I had as a published author was that I could never get a handle on all of this. Doing a little bit at a time worked for me, and I didn’t do everything for every book. The key is doing what you enjoy within your time and money constraints.

This article first appeared in the March 2006 issue of Update, the newsletter of Washington Romance Writers.

Make It Sparkle! Seven Steps to Polish Your Work

The big day finally arrives. You type “The End” on your work-in-progress. Take the time to celebrate that success. Many people talk about writing a book, but few persevere. So, go ahead and enjoy that feeling of accomplishment.
Then roll up your sleeves because it’s time to get back to work. Writing that first draft is only the beginning of having a publishable manuscript. To polish your piece you must look at your work objectively. This may sound daunting for a 100,000 word book but breaking the analysis into smaller sections works well.

1. Story movement. Whether you review one chapter or multiple chapters at a time, the first element to check for is story movement. In romance novels, both the hero and the heroine need to have goals, motivation, and conflict, and these should be internal and external. Make sure the characters change and grow as a result of the plot events. Fine-tune the pacing and heighten the tension.

2. Story logic. After you smooth out movement inconsistencies, examine your story logic within each scene. Verify that the events you’ve written about make sense. Can your hero really catch a galloping horse when he’s on foot? Did the objects in the scene stay put or move about as you wanted them to? Is your heroine furious about being slighted or is she merely irritated?

3. Setting. A mistake many beginning writers make is in impersonally describing the setting. Instead, have your POV character react to the setting. Let the wind blow through her hair and the giant raindrops pelt against her skin. Write your setting as a sensory experience and you will hook your reader.

4. Narrative. Writers want to tell all, to let readers see how intimately we know our characters. But narrative can be overdone. Take a harsh look at your narrative passages. Is there anything that can be moved into dialogue and action? Can your narrative sections be condensed? Make it so. Study published books in your target market. If the balance of narrative-to-dialogue in your book isn’t the same, make those adjustments.

5. Dialogue. Your dialogue should reflect the essence of your characters. It should flow naturally without sounding stilted. A good way to check for this is to highlight the dialogue and only read the highlighted text out loud. To ensure you have a distinct voice for each character, you may choose to read one character’s dialogue at a time. Use dialect sparingly.

6. Showing. How many times have you heard “show don’t tell?” Incorporate sensory responses to the setting and emotional responses to events in an action-reaction pattern, and you won’t hear that criticism again.

7. Wordsmithing. Lastly, word choice matters. Get rid of filler words like felt, seemed, just, and really. Cull overused –ly words. Use the “Find” feature of your word processing software to locate the useless words and eliminate them. Incorporate action verbs for weaker verbs. Every “was” that you can change into an active verb will add to the immediacy of your story. Check for overused character tags. If you have the hero’s eyebrows waggling on pages 1,3 and 5, we’re going to think he’s Groucho Marx. Vary what you say and how you say it.

If you polish your work, it will sparkle with freshness and originality. Your voice will ring true in that elusive editorial ear. Take the time to improve that first draft. It will be time well spent.

This article first appeared in the October 2001 issue of Update, newsletter of Washington Romance Writers.

One Writer’s Odyssey

In 1995 my book-doctored historical romance was being actively marketed by my agent, the sequel was completed, and the final book of the trilogy was in the outline stage. I joined RWA and WRW to network the business side of things. I made contacts with other authors, smugly smiling to myself because my writing career was taking off. Life was good.

When I was soundly rejected in every market, my agent announced a new side business of printing books and offered to print my book if I was interested. Having been through the self-publication process with a family history several years earlier, I declined.

My analytical brain took charge. I have two college degrees and the necessary connections through my romance author’s association, so why did I need an agent? From this brilliant insight came the Year of the Editor. Valiantly I marketed my second historical. Whenever a rejection came in, I mailed out a letter to the next publishing house on the list. One year later, I had three unpublished historical manuscripts.

At the next yearly WRW meeting I chanced to hear a passing remark and almost forgot to breathe. The time period I had selected for my historical stories (1900-1920) did not count in the true historical market. I met with polite editors at the conference who hesitantly agreed to look at my work. But, the setting problem worried me.

The next year was the Year of the Rewrite. I moved all three stories to an earlier time(1860 to 1880). This was no small feat due to all the period research involved. My romance author friends supported me through e-mail, and my family assumed I was receiving nourishment from the computer because of my umbilical-like attachment to the thing.

As I was launching my writing career, my daughters were graduating high school, my house and yard work stacked up, my husband’s understanding wore thin, and of course, there was my day job as a scientist. My rational side began to war with my artistic side. I didn’t even know I had this split personality kind of thing until I began attending writer’s meetings. Was I an author? It didn’t feel like it.

Out of the blue I discovered another way to get professional feedback. The next year was the Year of the Contest. I judged contests. I entered contests. Rejection reached a whole new level of pain. My motivations weren’t strong enough. My characters were too melodramatic. But where was this place I was writing about? My peers all wanted to go there.

A future writing travel brochures was not what I had in mind. I needed help like a junkie needed a fix. Wasn’t I an author? Where would an author get help?

Along came the Year of the Critique Group. Actually the Critique Group only lasted six months but I got two strong leads out of the group. First off, our goal was to target a line and write a story that met all of that line’s requirements. It sounded so easy, so rational. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? Secondly, three other romance authors were quite certain that my writing voice was contemporary. I argued that I loved reading historicals. They countered that reading and writing were two very different things. Understanding dawned. I could change. I was an author.

After trying for two months to rewrite one of my historicals as a contemporary, I went on to craft a new category romance. The feedback for the outline and opening chapters of the book from my critique partners was positive. I slogged on through the chill of winter creating my marketing masterpiece.

Rejected again. And with a story that was unique to only one market. How could I have been so shortsighted? Would a real author have made such a mistake?

My brain chugged to a start. The problem must be that I didn’t know enough about what I was doing. Lucky for me, the national meeting of RWA was in DC that year. The Year of Education brought smiles to my credit card company. I bought every book known to man about writing, several on police work, the Merck Manual, reference books on personalities, herbs, and Maryland. I had no idea where I was going, but I wasn’t going to be stupid again.

My next contemporary manuscript was set in my oldest daughter’s college town. I did on-site research at Parent’s Weekend and through the Internet. I knew the names of all the roads, restaurants, hospitals, and hotels. This story was peddled to agents, editors, and went through a contest or two. Rejections abounded but something interesting happened with my contest scores. Instead of getting mediocre marks, I was now getting very high and very low marks. My writing friends said I was an author and not to let the low marks bother me.

Working with a therapeutic riding center gave me my next book idea. This story meant a lot to me and I felt quite strongly about the subject. This spawned the Year of the Query Letter. I set about writing the most interesting, most provocative, most compelling query letter of all time to market my completed horse story. Ten out of eleven publishing houses weren’t interested. But one house, and I reminded myself that it only takes one, said it was a very promising romance and if I’d be willing to change this, this, and this, they would like to see it again.

I was stunned. Voices whispered in my head: I am an author. I might even be published if I get this right.

I reread the personalized response twenty times and wondered if it was appropriate to frame the letter. It wasn’t an offer, but it was validation. And I would apply myself wholeheartedly toward reaching this new goal.
After all, I am an author. Life is good.

This article first appeared in the Winter 2008 Coastal Connection, the newsletter of First Coast Romance Writers.

This Year I WILL...

The start of a new year is often when many writers reflect on their progress. Whether we’re beginning writers or multi-published authors, goal-setting can help motivate us onward. Perhaps one of these six goals will be your new year’s resolution:

I WILL FINISH THE BOOK. There is no shortcut to this basic goal. You must serve time in the chair to up your word count. Granted, writing isn’t just about how many pages you can churn out, but that’s a good place to start. Write the book.

I WILL LEARN HOW TO WRITE BETTER. If completing a book seems impossible, take time to learn more about the craft of writing. Chapter meetings offer excellent nuts and bolts sessions, as do writer conferences and classes. With the touch of a computer key, you can navigate across the web and find online instruction without leaving the comfort of your home. Build your skills.

I WILL ENTER A WRITING CONTEST. Contests can be helpful in identifying rookie errors. If you want to hone your work before you submit to a publisher, a writing contest can provide valuable feedback. Alternately, a critique partner or a published author mentor can also shepherd you toward your goal. No one will laugh at you. Everyone has the same fear of failure and rejection. Learn to deal with these feelings now because they come into play for published and unpublished authors. Get feedback on your work.

I WILL GET AN AGENT OR A BOOK CONTRACT. Put aside those excuses of last year. Target your goal and make a serious run at it. Create a spreadsheet of places and people where you can send your book. Send out a steady stream of queries and track your progress. Get busy right now.

I WILL MARKET MY BOOK. Authors today have to multi-task. They have to write the next book, edit the contracted book, and promote the released book. Send out those press releases. Schedule interviews and appearances. Arrange book signings. Those books won’t sell themselves. Being an introvert is no excuse. Get up and get going.

I WILL GET A BETTER DEAL ON MY NEXT BOOK. No matter where you are on the publication ladder, you want to grow your fan base and parlay that into better contract offers. Maybe you need to switch to a more aggressive agent or a different publishing house. Don’t let friendship or fear of failure hold you back. Take a serious look at your writing career and take the necessary steps to reach your goals. Be objective about business matters.

Think about where you’d like to be by this time next year. Make a plan to get there. Implement the plan. You can do it, one step at a time.

This article first appeared in the March 2007 issue of Update, the newsletter of Washington Romance Writers.

Your Work Shows Great Promise

While judging a recent package of contest entries, it hit me. I could place a check by “published judge” on the score sheet. A small thing, really, but with the change of my judging status came a much greater sense of responsibility.

During my long road to publication, I’d been on the other side of dozens of contest score sheets. Remarks from published judges made me sit up and take a bit more notice. After all, the published judges had what it took. They had the elusive “it” factor that I so desperately craved.

Truthfully, I looked everywhere for this prize, but it wasn’t dangling from the apple tree just waiting to be plucked. With the fervor of the newly baptized, I’d assumed I had “it” with my first manuscript, a manuscript that will never again see the light of day. My first critique group saw promise in my work, my second critique group identified the flaws in my writing.

Contest entries washed back up on my expectant shores, loaded with bad tidings. Poorly motivated characters. Insufficient conflict for a story this length. No distinct voice. Thank God for formatting points or I’d have bombed my first contests. But the news wasn’t all bad. The most helpful judges offered encouragement and insight about the writing sisterhood.

In those early days I didn’t realize how connected story elements had to be. But contest by contest, year by year, my writing improved and connected. As my plotting tightened, my characters’ motivations rang truer, and I wrote with passion.

Writing better and smarter won me two publishing contracts in three months, and the unparalleled thrill of a third publishing house writing me to ask for a submission. Granted, I’m a very tiny minnow in the ocean of publishing, but I’m swimming with the big guys.

Which brings me back full circle to those contest entries on my desk. Very few of us are born with “it;” most of us find it along the way. And I certainly had received my share of assistance. How could I make a difference in someone else’s writing? Could I help newbies avoid the mistakes I’d made?

Taking a leaf from the medical profession, I applied the standard of “first do no harm” to my published judgeship. Then I showed through examples some ways in which the entry could be strengthened, being careful not to overwhelm the writer with too much information or negativity. As I wrote, I realized the lessons I’d learned were meaningful because I’d learned them firsthand in the trenches. If this writer improved, it would be because she had gone out and learned how to be better, not because of any profound insight I shared.

Encouragement was needed. “It’s clear that you have a passion for your story,” I wrote on the score sheet. “Your writing shows great promise.” Then I checked off the box for published judge. I’d done my part. The rest was up to the writer.

This article first appeared in the June 2009 issue of Update, the newsletter of Washington Romance Writers

Weeds in Your Writing Garden

Spring blew in on a pewter thunder cloud, dosing my weeds with abundant rain, warmth, and sunshine. Now I’ve got grass gone to seed in my Lantana, Virginia creeper choking out my azaleas, rogue sunflowers in my hedges, clover popping up in my border grass, and sticky bushes rioting in my Pampas grass. Trying to keep pace with them is maddening, but the process of weeding reminds me of a parallel between writing and gardening.

We toil in the writing garden. We nurture our muse. We sacrifice by writing at all hours of the day so our writing doesn’t impact other activities. Book promotion adds layer of garden to work. Before we know it, our writing gardens are overrun with weeds. Chaos follows.

By definition, a weed is an unwanted plant, usually one with increased vigor. To transpose that to the writing garden, a weed is any activity, behavior, or event that prevents us from writing. Distractions may come in the form of a writing-related activity. On the flip side, a writing weed could be something as unsuspecting as that mid-day dental appointment or the kid’s sports team advancing to the finals.

Whatever the weed, it chokes our writing progress, causing our fruit to wither, our blossoms to rot. Recognizing these activities, behaviors, and events as troublemakers is a key step to controlling growth your writing garden. Since weeds are somewhat universal, here’s a short list based on the weeds mentioned above:

• Quick-rooting Grass – craft-related perennials. Words like: that, as, -ly words, just, etc. They crop up again and again.

• Blanketing Virginia creeper – nonessential writing-related stuff. It spreads over your desk, your computer, your office. This is a weed of guilt for believing you have to be active in every loop, group, and writing organization.

• Thorny sticky bushes – pesky revisions. A thicket of revisions can lead to self-doubt. Bad reviews fall into this category too.

• Not-so-lucky clover – real life stuff with its own pretty blossoms. Juggling all the challenges of family, career, writing, and hobbies would be easier if there were more hours in the day.

• Plucky Sunflowers – towering promo machine. Though it generates revenue, this time-requiring activity prevents writers from writing.

Extreme weed prevention methods (herbicides, bulldozing) can be just as detrimental to writing as a weed-infested garden. The trick is to find your personal comfort level, your personal balance between writing weeds and enjoying the fruits of your writing garden.

Weeds are common in life and in writing. What we do about them varies from season to season, from day to day. Because when it comes to being a writer, each of us is a master gardener.

This article first appeared in the October 2010 edition of First Draft, the newsletter for the Guppy chapter of Sisters In Crime.

Writing romance in your mystery and vice versa

The realm of mysteries has clearly defined categories. There are thrillers, cozies, police procedurals with hard-boiled detectives, paranormals, and more. Authors stretch the mystery genre to make it their own by adding elements such as arts and crafts, animals, ghosts, music, vampires, and busy-bodies, to name a few.

But what happens when an author blends a hearty dose of romance into the mystery world? Does that change the classification of the book for editors and bookstore placement?

Maybe, or maybe not, depending on the amount of romance added. An established genre already exists within the romance world for books which combine elements of suspense and danger with romance – romantic suspense. What’s the difference between a romantic suspense and a mystery with romance? Is there a solid black line separating the two kinds of books?

To answer that question, we must put on our editorial hats and determine the driving force of the book, the romance or the mystery. Full length books invariably contain supportive subplots, such as a secondary mystery or a secondary character romance, which further cloud the “what is it” book genre. Let’s examine the genres of romance and mystery in more depth.

Romantic suspense

Romance readers expect interpersonal conflict in the story. They enjoy traveling along with the hero and heroine (or the main characters if it is a same sex love story) to experience the emotion of falling in love. They worry if the couple will overcome their trials, they rejoice when the couple finally gets it together. The given in romances is the happily ever after resulting from the triumph of love. That’s true no matter which genre of romance you read.

Additionally, romance readers expect certain settings. They read within their comfort level for sensuality, religion, and danger.

In a romantic suspense, the love story between two characters is the over-arching story line. Suspense elements raise the stakes for the main characters, placing obstacles in their paths, oftentimes threatening their lives. Finding love and committing to each another provide the happily ever after and conclude the story momentum for a romantic suspense. The danger element, though integral to the plot and highly entertaining for the reader, will usually conclude first.

For example, in MUDDY WATERS, my October 2010 romantic suspense release, a hometown girl and a bad boy search for a missing inheritance. A villain who’ll stop at nothing is determined to have the hidden fortune. Roxie and Sloan fight their attraction at first. When circumstances push them together, they act on their attraction. Later, their original story goals force them apart, though each realizes they’ve given up more than they’ve gained. Circumstances intervene again, pushing them together, forcing them to reexamine their choices, and they choose love and a happily ever after.

The mystery of the missing inheritance in MUDDY WATERS raises the stakes of the story for the characters. It adds conflict by planting suspicion about the main characters in each other’s minds. The danger presented by the villain adds stress and tension to an already volatile situation. But, the question of “where is the treasure” is less important than will they find true love.

To write a romantic suspense, the majority of the scenes relate to the romance, a lesser amount of the scenes will boost the suspense. A rule of thumb that is often quoted in the romance world for a romantic suspense is that the blend is about 60 percent romance and 40 percent suspense. A story with a higher percentage of suspense will cross genre boundaries into the mystery world.

Mystery with romance

Changing gears, a mystery with a strong romance subplot will devote more scenes to the mystery and less to the developing relationship. Depending on the mystery genre, sex and violence may occur off-screen, so that the author builds up to the moment and then allows the reader to use their imagination to fill in the blanks.

Within a mystery, a protagonist, the story lead, actively seeks an answer to a crime or puzzle. The antagonist, or the villain of the piece, can be a known threat with no proof of wrongdoing or he/she may be an unknown, acting in such a concealed way that the reader tries to determine who-dun-it before the protagonist solves the puzzle. Authors throw in red herrings to misdirect the protagonist and the reader and to heighten the story tension. The driving force in a mystery is finding the answers the protagonist needs.

Adding a romantic relationship to a mystery often raises the stakes for the protagonist. He/she is torn by wanting to protect the other person and fearing that the other person’s motives are suspect. The romance adds emotional depth to the lead character, forcing him/her to act out of his/her comfort zone, and increases the level of story conflict.

In series mystery with a romance subplot, even if the protagonist finds comfort or happiness in a relationship in a story, that partnership is doomed to have severe ups and downs in subsequent books. The romance will continue to serve as a means of conflict because conflict drives a story.

For example, in the first book of my Cleopatra Jones mystery series, IN FOR A PENNY, while Cleo tries to prove her best friend didn’t kill the banker, she explores the attraction of the golf pro. Solving the mystery drives the book, so that when the real killer is exposed, the story momentum ceases. The romance in this story adds conflict by forcing Cleo to juggle her teenaged daughters, ex-husband, mother, and a St. Bernard in order to go on a date. That first book establishes the attraction of Cleo and Rafe, but there is no promise of a happily ever after.

The second book of the series, ON THE NICKEL, a March 2011 release, has Cleo trying to prove her mother didn’t run over the church lady, when her mother’s car is proven to be the murder weapon. Clearing her mother’s name by finding the killer is the main plot of this book, which lands it firmly in the mystery genre. However, Cleo and Rafe continue to date, with the inherent problems of two busy people not having enough time for each other and Cleo’s ex-husband who wants her back. Again, though romance is present in the story, it occurs around the framework of the mystery, and once again, no happily ever after is promised.

Love and murder

To recap, a mystery with a strong romance subplot has the majority of the scenes devoted to figuring out who-dun-it and how they did it; the romance subplot adds tension and conflict to the story but does not promise everlasting love. A romantic suspense is driven by the love story between two individuals; the suspense subplot adds to the conflict and tension of the story by forcing the characters to make choices under pressure.

A happily ever after is implied or stated in a romance novel.

A sense of justice is served, along with a triumphant protagonist, accompanies the ending of a mystery. Both endings are satisfying to readers. To determine if your book is a mystery with romance or a romantic suspense, define the main plot and ensure that the majority of scenes are devoted to that story line.

The balance point for one author

The best thing to do is to write a great book that fits squarely in one genre. However, if you’re like me and your stories come out a blend of romance and mystery elements (or other genres blended with mystery), rest assured that it is still possible to get published, but most likely you will have to work harder to find the right publisher.

When I first began marketing my work, I received mixed criticism, until finally one day an editor asked point-blank if the story was a romance or a mystery. I popped right up with an answer, “It can be whatever you want it to be.” Imagine my surprise when the editor came right back with, “What do you want it to be?”

That was an eye-opener. Editors don’t have time to tell you what your story is. Going back to my story, I made an Excel spreadsheet and noted which scenes supported the mystery plot and which supported the romance plot. The split was about 50-50, but the blend was bad, with the romance scenes frontloaded and the mystery scenes backloaded, which led to an aha moment.

Clearly, I had work to do. I moved scenes around, changed them up, and when I was finished slicing and dicing, I had a romantic suspense which became my first published book, HOUSE OF LIES.

Yes, it’s important to make your characters three-dimensional, but it’s equally important for the author to exert firm control so that each segment builds upon both plots. I guided the story with the same mindset as disciplining a small child. A firm stance and positive reinforcement for getting it right goes a long way toward training yourself how to write marketable books.

Keeping it fresh

Though this advice is for blended genre authors, these tips should come in handy each time you sit down to compose or edit. Every sentence you write should be the very best you can make it. Don’t think to yourself that my writing is better than a crappy published book I read the other day; make sure it’s as good as a great book you recently enjoyed.

Find a way to keep yourself on task as you write or edit so that your finished product is a better fit for an already established genre category. Failure to write to an established bookselling category, unless you are the next J.K. Rowling or Diana Gabaldon (authors who broke the rules and still made it big), will result in a file folder full of rejection letters. Once you break in, you will find that published authors have slightly more leeway to bend the rules.

Conflict is the story engine in fiction. Whether you are writing a mystery series with a romance subplot or a romantic suspense series, each book must delve into a new aspect of interpersonal conflict. Tension can arise from the setting (his house or hers), from their immediate family (nothing like kids and pets to add spice to your characters’ lives), from extended family (a relative in need of food, shelter, or money), from their careers (no time for fun), or even from the couple’s disparate viewpoint on long-term commitment.

The spreadsheet idea works well for authors who are more typically known as “plotters,” because they tend to work well from an outline. Authors who are “pantsers,” as in they write without much pre-writing routine, may respond better to different methods of tracking the story scenes. Pantser friends of mine have used brightly colored sticky notes or note cards to help get them organized after they spit out the first draft.

All over but the shouting

When it comes down to it, I enjoy writing both types of stories. That dichotomy makes me a mystery author and a romance author, but most of all, it makes me a storyteller.