If anyone has follow-on questions, feel free to email me through my website, http://www.christieridgway.com. I always enjoy talking about the craft and the business!

Hope your dh had a wonderful birthday and that Hank is doing well! You’ll have to let us know if you post puppy pictures at RWTTD.

Thanks for being here. Fewer comments today, but hopefully lots of readers!

Kelsey

My category books these days are Silhouette Special Editions. While they are the “hearth and home” line, I think you can write many kinds of stories within that bracket. Mine usually don’t involve children, but the hero or heroine may be dealing with issues of family.

I’m glad you don’t think contemporaries are dead, either! Yes, there was a flood of them at one time, but I keep writing my stories and they keep getting published, so I’m happy.

Tracey: I don’t find it difficult to switch between category and single title, but I am aware of the difference as I work. There are different word choices and level of sensuality between the two. Also, in single title I feel comfortable having my characters do “edgier” (for want of better word) things. For example, I have a secondary heroine who sleeps with an old flame and arranges for the secondary hero to catch her doing so (in order to push him away). I wouldn’t do that in a category romance. So there are plot point differences as well.

Kelsey: I don’t ever say I write romantic comedy because people’s views of humor are so subjective. It’s also why my characters generally don’t laugh at their own jokes (what if the reader doesn’t get it?). So, I say my books are straight contemporaries (and I do address some meaty conflicts at times), though they are packaged brightly and I’ve had many of the “cartoon” covers that were so popular some time back.

Adrienne: I have been agented since my very first sale. I “got” an agent just a couple of months before I sold my first book to Silhouette. Though I have a different agent now (and one in between), each represented both my category and single title romances. It’s more customary in single title to be agented. I have friends who rep themselves in category (and some in ST, too). Some houses will only take submissions from agented authors, but not all.

My question is this – do you have to plan a book differently to be a category rather than a single title? Is there a difference really from a plotting point of view, or is it just simply more pages? sorry if that’s a stupid question! Also, what lines do you target in Harlequin/Silhouette for a contemporary?

As for me, I refused to read a contemporary until a few years ago….and now I’m hooked! I agree, it may have been because of a glut of them all came out at the same time, and maybe people “overdosed” on them, but I certainly don’t think it’s dead…imho. =)

thanks for your article…very informative!

carrie

Thanks!

We’re so delighted you’re with us at RU today! Would you label your single title works stright contemporary or romantic comedy? Based on some recent feedback, I’m a little confused about the what editors define as one or the other.

Many thanks!
Kelsey