Good morning and welcome to week three of “What was I thinking?” In weeks one and two I shared my thoughts on scenes from Man Law and A Just Deception. This week, it’s Michael and Roxann’s turn with Risking Trust.

In this book, Michael Taylor walked out on Roxann Thorgesson twelve years ago without an explanation. Now he’s come back into her life and needs her help. His estranged wife has been murdered, he is the prime suspect and Roxann owns a newspaper large enough to help him clear his name.

During content edits for this book, my editor asked me to increase the romantic tension and awareness between Michael and Roxann. She wanted me to dig into what these two people had once meant to each other and how that would help them rekindle their relationship. They’d shared a ferocious love that was now only a memory, and I needed to convey the depth of that love. I wanted to show the stages of their relationship from twelve years ago without killing the pacing of the story. It’s one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced during the revision process. Reunion stories are tough! :) I found the best way to accomplish the task was to add a couple of flashbacks from both Michael and Roxann’s point of view.

The following scene was not in the original manuscript, but I wanted readers to experience Michael’s state of mind (twelve years earlier) the first time he met Roxann. In this scene, Michael is in his office discussing Roxann with his partner (and closest friend) and he thinks back on the first time he saw the woman who would become the love of his life.

Here’s the scene (in Michael’s point of view):

Still, the legs got him every time. The first time he’d spotted them, he’d been twenty-seven years old, sitting on a folding chair in the miniscule backyard of a friend of a friend at a fourth of July party he hadn’t wanted to go to. Four weeks fresh out of the army, he’d been dealing with undiagnosed PTSD that left him exhausted and supremely strung-out. Between the lack of sleep and the nightmares, when he did manage rest, he hadn’t had a lot firing in the mental agility category.

But he’d gone to that party because he felt like crap and needed to get laid. A piss poor motivating factor, but the physical release would clear his mind.

On that summer night, the sky was clear, the air cooler than normal and filled with a mix of music and chattering voices from the crowd packed into the tiny backyard. He sat alone nursing his beer when the long-legged blonde entered the yard. She wore khaki shorts and a sweater tank top that clung to her lean form. Her long hair, streaked with sun-drenched highlights, fell loose around her face and she tossed one side over her shoulder, exposing a softly sculpted cheek that he immediately wanted to run his fingers over.

Perfection.

Michael breathed in. She’s the one. What that meant, he wasn’t sure and didn’t necessarily care. He knew he had to have her.

A group of people huddled in front of him, blocking his view, and he shifted a little. The blonde stepped to the picnic table not ten feet from him and parked her trim ass next to five women.

Thirty minutes later he still sat there, watching and waiting, damn near mesmerized by her. She hadn’t so much as glanced his way, but she hadn’t glanced anyone else’s way either. He couldn’t call her aloof. Not with the way she laughed and yapped with her friends, but she had a quality to her he couldn’t define. Elegant maybe. He didn’t know, but it worked. Hard.

A few people stopped to say hello to him, but his attention stayed on the blonde. If she moved from that group, he’d be on her. No doubt.

The break came when the two women closest to her got up and left. She wasn’t alone, but the three remaining women were deep into their own conversation. Take the shot.

He made his way to her, squeezing through the crowd that had once again gathered in his path. He stepped up to the table and set his beer down. She glanced at the beer, then brought her gaze, a blue-green that nearly stopped his heart, to his face.

“Hi,” she said.

“How do you feel about love at first sight?”

The corner of her mouth quirked. “I’m not sure.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m suddenly a believer.”

She rolled those amazing eyes and laughed at him. For a few seconds, Michael let himself forget about being a miserable bastard and soaked up the sound of her soft laughter.

She gestured to the seat across from her. “It’s too soon to tell, but you can have a seat and maybe I’ll let you know in awhile.”

Score.

He dropped onto the bench and she propped her chin in her hand. “As opening lines go, I have to say, that one got my attention.”

He grinned. “It was a maiden voyage. And just so you know who it is that’s fallen in love with you, I’m Michael Taylor.”

“Hi, Michael Taylor, I’m Roxann.”

And damn those blue eyes glittered. So incredibly gorgeous. To Michael’s disappointment, Brian, the guy hosting the party, appeared. “Hey, Rox.”

Roxann-the-beautiful shifted to face him. “Hi, Brian. How are you?”

“Thanks for coming. Haven’t seen you since you got back from the Olympics.”

“You went to the Olympics?” Michael asked.

Brian snorted. “She was in the Olympics. Won a gold in the four-hundred relay. You grabbed a silver too, right?”

She smiled and the glow could have lit the darkened yard. “Yep. In the two-hundred.”

Beautiful, athletic and a competitor. God help him. Fried already and he hadn’t laid a hand on her.

Someone called Brian away—thank you—and he high-tailed it.

“The Olympics. That’s amazing. Do you still compete?”

She twisted her lips. “For fun. Now I have a big girl job.”

“What do you do?”

“I work at the Banner-Herald”

To Michael, who was working a laborer job while he figured out how to use the skills acquired as an Army Ranger, the newspaper gig sounded pretty cool. “Are you a reporter?”

“No.”

“What do you do?”

“Whatever my father tells me to.”

“Your dad is your boss?”

She laughed. “My dad is everyone’s boss. He owns the paper.”

Michael’s euphoric high plummeted. Gone. That fast. This girl was so far above him he might as well quit now. If that didn’t suck the mother lode he wasn’t sure what did. He laughed his derision, slapped his hands on the table and stood. “Enough said. I’m leaving. I’m glad we met though.”

He started to turn away, but she grabbed his arm. “This from the man who just proclaimed his love?”

Could he possibly have a shot with this girl? “Honey, I’m a kid from the neighborhood. You’re so far out of my league I’ve got no business being on your planet.”

“Why do you get to decide I’m out of your league? I’ll make my own decision. Why not stay and see what happens?”

It made enough sense that he sat again and spent the next two hours hearing about the Olympics, her doubling up on classes to graduate on time and taking the job at the newspaper. When the party began to fizzle, he and Roxann moved to a 24-hour coffee shop two blocks away where they talked until six in the morning.

He finally walked her to her apartment and, as much as he wanted to, didn’t try to worm his way in. After all night together, he’d hoped he’d get his shot another time. A fast lay wouldn’t suit. That he could get anywhere. He’d wait it out. The beautiful Roxann Thorgesson was not a girl to disrespect. On any level.

***

 RU Crew, thanks for stopping by!

Adrienne Giordano writes romantic suspense and women’s fiction.  She is a Jersey girl at heart, but now lives in the Midwest with her workaholic husband, sports obsessed son and Buddy the Wheaten Terrorist (Terrier). She is a co-founder of Romance University blog. For more information on Adrienne’s Private Protectors series please visit http://www.adriennegiordano.com/. Adrienne can also be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AdrienneGiordanoAuthor and Twitter at http://twitter.com/AdriennGiordano.

Buy Links:

Carina Press

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Welcome back, Damon!

Depression, disaster, and disillusionment are the secret throbbing heart of romantic fantasy. As Hitchcock once pointed out, “The stronger the evil, the stronger the film.” While it may seem obvious to apply that rule to the crime genre or action-adventure, darkness is the mainspring of all stories: fear, anger, brutality, and deceit. Think I’m bonkers? Look to the personal suffering that drives your people and the bigger shadows cloaking their world. In a real sense, the thing that makes romance compelling is not the happiness of its ending but the gloom that make that ending possible and satisfying.

Every love story has a painful core that makes its pleasure possible.

Haven’t we made the McRomance mistake at some point? One of the most common traps for young romance writers is to invent two dazzling protagonists, concoct a saucy meet-cute and then let them have exactly what they want as they march in lockstep to their predetermined life as cheerful automatons…which is about as entertaining as watching oatmeal simmer. Without highs and lows, grist and grit, nothing can happen…no one can changes… Hell, without friction even SEX doesn’t feel good.

The thing is, for a romance to feel satisfying, protagonists need to change and develop, and in fiction (as in life) real growth is never a cakewalk. Who’s gonna take your hero’s epiphany seriously if it doesn’t come with a cost and a real impetus? Certainly no reader who has ever faced adversity, that is to say, anyone who has ever drawn breath. To get your characters out of their status quo you have to hit them where they live and hit hard. Destroy their old selves so that their new selves can emerge, together. The satisfaction in romance fiction is not that the ending is happy, but that it overcomes overwhelming odds by unlikely people.

To put it another way: love stories are unleashed not by license, but limitations.

Take a look at your work-in-progress. All catastrophes are not created equal and every story deserves its own distinct shading. It’s up to you to determine the lower limit you’re willing to broach: whether it’s cutting glances from trusted friends or madwomen in attics. The dark patches don’t have to be violent or event depressing, but they need to provide chiaroscuro for your fictional folks. Evil produces context and sets up the limits of the world you’re building. The personal voids within each character draws on the powerful forces shadowing the book and vice versa. What is the worst thing that could possibly happen to your characters and how soon can you make it happen? I’m only half-joking.

In the weakest romance fiction, perfect couples amble through a few mild complications before snicking into place like a greased lock. In essence these books telegraph their endings from page one, not because they end happily but because they start happily and stay that way for long stretches. A jog through the daisies, as some folks would have it…contentment but not joy. Most books that fail for me blow it by wrapping all their characters in cotton wool and completely skipping the kind of “Dark night of the Soul” that might transform the protagonists and their world.

Love hurts.

Think back over romance novels you’ve loved or the genre-defining books that drive our industry. The most unforgettable stories and characters spring from crushing opposition. What we remember about romance novels is the darkness that drives them. Three hundred pages of folks being happy together makes for a hefty sleeping pill, but three hundred pages of a couple finding a way to be happy in the face of impossible odds makes our hearts soar. In darkness, we are all alone.

So don’t just make love, make anguish for your characters. As you structure a story, don’t satisfy your hero’s desires, thwart them. Make sure your solutions create new problems. Nurture your characters doubts and despair. Make them earn the happy ending they want, even better…make them deserve it. Delay and disappointment charge situations and validate character growth.  Misery accompanies love. It’s no accident that many of the stories we think of as timeless romances in Western Literature are fiercely tragic: Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Cupid and Psyche… the pain in them drags us back again and again, hoping that this time we’ll find a way out of the dark.

Only if you let your characters get lost will we get lost in them. And that, more than anything else, is what romance can and should do for its protagonists and its readers: lead us through the labyrinth, skirt the monstrous despair roaming its halls, and find our way into daylight.

***

RU Crew, how do you create anguish for your characters so they really deserve that HEA at the end of the story?

Join us Friday for Extreme Makeover, Writer’s Office Edition with Jeanne Adams.

***

Bio: Damon Suede grew up out-n-proud deep in the anus of right-wing America, and escaped as soon as it was legal. Though new to M/M, Damon has been writing for print, stage, and screen for two decades. He’s won some awards, but counts his blessings more often: his amazing friends, his demented family, his beautiful husband, his loyal fans, and his silly, stern, seductive Muse who keeps whispering in his ear, year after year. Get in touch with him at DamonSuede.com.

Welcome to week two of “What was I thinking?” Last week I posted an excerpt from Man Law and shared what inspired me to write that scene. This time I’ve chosen a scene from my romantic suspense A Just Deception. Isabelle, the story’s heroine, is undoubtedly my most damaged character (so far!). She’s a survivor of childhood abuse and is a lawyer who thrives on her independence. Due to her emotional issues, sex to her is simply a function. She has forced herself to resist emotional attachments that might disappoint her or break her heart. At least until Peter “Monk” Jessup, a man with his own emotional burdens shows up.

 With Peter, Isabelle finds someone who is patient and respectful of her issues and the reasons she has built her emotional barricades. He’s also determined to destroy those barricades.

When I wrote this book, I knew I was pushing some boundaries, but I’m lucky to have an editor who doesn’t mind when I want to break a few “rules”. She, in fact, encourages me to take risks. In the revision letter for the book I just submitted she suggested that if I was going to give someone baggage, I might as well make the best use of it. So, what I’ve learned through the editing process is that if I’m going to go there (wherever “there” may be), I’d better really go there. 

As I reached the mid-point of A Just Deception, I realized I needed something to happen that would emotionally rock Izzy. Up to that point, she’d been cautious about sharing her feelings with Peter but had been growing more confused by the connection she felt with him.

With this scene, given it was the midpoint of the book (and things would have to shift) I thought it might be a good time for Izzy to take a risk and share a secret with Peter. Unfortunately, she doesn’t give Peter enough information and (typical man! J) he misses the point. This agitates her even more and she tries to escape to the bathroom for some privacy.

Here is where the scene wound up:

She couldn’t stand the way Peter was now watching her. Men. They always stared at her for one reason or another.

Time alone with no one analyzing her. That’s the way her world worked best and maybe, for once, Peter would leave her be. She hurried to the bathroom, and shut and locked the door. If the bathroom had a window she’d probably climb out.

What had she just done? He probably thought her a whore and Peter had standards in that area. He wouldn’t want to even touch her after that little admission.

Maybe that’s what she wanted.

She breathed deep craving the sensation of air filling her lungs.

Taking off her clothes, she tossed them on the cracked tile floor. The bathroom, with its brown vanity and drab green sink, was an extension of the rest of the motel and she hated every bit of it. Or maybe it was simply being there she hated.

After turning the shower on full blast, she stuck her hand into the stream and waited for the hot water.

The door flew open and crashed against the wall with a bang that rocked her. She clutched the shower curtain for balance and turned as Peter stepped into the bathroom.

“What the hell, Peter? You scared me!”

He slammed what looked like a metal pick on the sink and got within an inch of her. His blue eyes locked on hers and the steel there could have broken cement. Hard, hard eyes.

“I’m naked here,” she shrieked.

But the sickening vulnerability had nothing to do with being naked.

“You don’t say something like that and walk away,” he yelled. “If you’re pissed, you need to tell me why. I’m not a mind reader.”

Isabelle shoved the curtain back and twisted the shower knob. The faucet wasn’t providing the only steam in the tiny bathroom. She turned, gave Peter a shove and reached for the towel hanging on the rack.

“And I deserve some privacy.” She wrapped herself in the stingy towel.

Peter, to his credit, kept his eyes focused on her face. He must really be mad. Most men would have at least snuck a peek by now. Or maybe he was trying not to piss her off any further. That theory made much more sense.

She angled around him, stormed out of the bathroom and shut the adjoining room door. All they needed was Billy wandering in with her wrapped in a swatch of cotton barely bigger than a hand towel.

Peter followed her. “What’s this about?”

Damn him.

They needed a distraction here. She spun to face him and the towel came loose. She should reach to tighten it, but maybe…if she just let it sink to the ground…his mind would move elsewhere.

Sex she could handle.

Even if she didn’t want their first time together to be manufactured because she was too terrified to admit she was losing herself. Was she that pathetic? Obviously so.

“Don’t even,” he said, somehow knowing exactly where her mind had gone. “You’re not going to get out of talking to me.” He huffed out a breath, and bit down hard enough that the muscle in his jaw flexed. “I know you’re intentionally doing this. I can see it in your eyes. Creepy Izzy is barking at you and I’m trying to stay cool, but dealing with you on an emotional level can be a nightmare.”

Oh, my God. Give up already. How could he still be standing here after all she’d subjected him to? Crazy. That’s what he was.

She scoffed. “That’s not it.”

He stuck his hands on his hips and puckered. The silence hung between them, daring her to say something, but she’d wait it out. Part of good lawyering meant knowing when to keep quiet.

Peter slowly shook his head. “You’re trying to frustrate me so I’ll give up on you. Classic move, Izzy, but you’re busted.”

Her breath caught, backed up into her throat and she gasped. No air. No air. Breathe. But she couldn’t. Not with her nerves chewed raw. He wouldn’t go away. Wouldn’t leave her to this agony of being stuck between two worlds.

“Shut up,” she said.

“Talk to me.”

“Shut. Up.”

The pressure behind her eyes intensified and she jammed the heels of her palms into them. The pounding wouldn’t stop, so she dropped her hands and looked him square in the eye.

Back him off.

“I hate you,” she said.

He didn’t flinch.

“No you don’t. You’re scared. Big difference.”

*** 

RU Crew, join me next week when I revisit another scene. Thanks for stopping by!

Adrienne Giordano writes romantic suspense and women’s fiction.  She is a Jersey girl at heart, but now lives in the Midwest with her workaholic husband, sports obsessed son and Buddy the Wheaten Terrorist (Terrier). She is a co-founder of Romance University blog. For more information on Adrienne’s Private Protectors series please visit http://www.adriennegiordano.com/. Adrienne can also be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AdrienneGiordanoAuthor and Twitter at http://twitter.com/AdriennGiordano.

Buy Links:

Carina Press

 Amazon

 Barnes and Noble

One of the most common comments I received on She Can Run was praise for my hero’s dog. Henry didn’t start out as a hero. The dog started out as a vehicle to show that my hero, Jack, wasn’t as irresponsible as he claimed. And to add some lightness to a plot that was very deep and dark. But partly by the magic of writing (luck) and party through by love of dogs, Henry evolved. Boy, did he evolve.

Here’s some background. Henry is a police dog reject adopted by my out-on-disability cop, Jack. Henry has been being passed around the police department and declared useless in every division. Henry is a goof. He’s lazy. He doesn’t obey a single one of Jack’s commands. In the beginning of She Can Run, his goals in life are to dig inconvenient holes, steal food, and sleep.

Here’s an excerpt of Henry in the beginning of the book when the dog first meets the heroine, Beth, and her children. The set up for this scene: Beth is on the run from an abusive and powerful husband. She is supposed to be starting a new job as caretaker on a secluded estate, but when she shows up, the old man who hired her has died. In fact, his nephew and heir, Jack, is in the middle of a private wake.

Behind Jack, nails scrambled on hardwood. He lunged for the door just as one hundred pounds of barking German Shepherd leaped over the threshold, knocking him backward. He grabbed a patio chair to recover his balance.

Shit! He’d forgotten he’d locked Henry in the den after he’d tried to jump into the casket. Henry had liked Uncle Danny. A lot.

“Henry, heel! Sit!” The enormous blur of tan and black fur streaked across the patio onto the back lawn and made a beeline for the trio walking up the path. “Get back here!”

Jack hobbled after the dog. Fifty feet ahead, Beth’s eyes widened with alarm when she saw Henry barreling toward her like a freight train. She stepped in front of the children.

“He’s friendly,” Jack yelled. “Really friendly. Brace yourself.”

Beth held her right hand in front of her body in a crossing guard stance and commanded, “Sit!” in a firm voice. Stunned, Jack watched Henry slide to a stop, haunches tucked under his body like a champion barrel racer. The huge dog’s butt bounced on the grass in barely contained excitement as she reached down and scratched him behind his enormous ears.

Son-of-a-bitch. Damned dog did know a command.

Panting, Jack hobbled over and stopped just short of them. “I’m sorry about that. Henry has no manners. I hope he didn’t frighten you.”

She stood maybe an inch over five-foot, somewhat elfish, with a slim body and long black hair that seemed unnaturally dark for her complexion. Even in her current travel-worn state, there was no denying her beauty: large eyes, smooth skin, delicate features. Still scratching the dog behind his ear, she straightened her shoulders and looked up at Jack. Her face softened with the hint of a smile, and Jack felt an unsettling pull deep in his loins. “I’m not afraid of dogs.”

No shit. Henry’s lips parted in a goofy smile as he listed to one side, his back paw twitching in circles.

“Henry’s a police dog reject. Officially, his file’s stamped retired, but he’s only four.” Jack grinned, remembering an embarrassing incident involving a high school drug raid, a locker, and a hoagie. His buddy, Mitch, in narcotics, hadn’t thought it was so funny. “I’m pretty sure he has ADD.”

It turned out that Henry, like every other character, needed motivation. Enter my heroine and her two children. Without human emotional baggage, Henry fell in love with the small family faster than Jack. Henry helped the children adjust and heal. And, just like Jack, love changed Henry.

I won’t give away the end of the book, but Henry was da bomb. He just needed the proper motivation.

I leave you with a short scene toward the end of the book in which Henry sensed something was terribly wrong and showed he’s not just a pretty, furry face. (Ben is the heroine’s son)

Hysterical barking woke Ben. He rose from his bed and padded barefoot into the hall to listen. Downstairs, Henry was going ballistic about something. He glanced in his mom’s room. Empty. After looking in Katie’s room and making sure she was still sleeping, Ben quickly trotted down the steps.

“Mom?” He ducked his head in the living room, then the study. His mother wasn’t in either room. Henry began to whine. Ben followed the noise to the kitchen where the big dog was digging frantically at the bottom of the French door.

His mom wasn’t in the kitchen either. Where was she?

The hackles on the back of the dog’s neck were raised. “What is it, Henry?”

At the sound of Ben’s voice, the dog grew more agitated, looking from Ben to the door. He began to growl and snarl at the closed door.
The note on the counter drew his attention. Mom was down at the barn. Ben was suddenly certain something bad was happening. The hair on his neck rose to mimic the dog’s.

He called his mom one more time. No answer. He picked up the phone and dialed Jack’s cell, but Henry was making such a racket, he could hardly hear the ringing on the other end of the line. Scanning the yard quickly, he looked down at the insistent dog. After turning off the alarm the way Jack had showed him, Ben opened the door. Henry raced through the opening and headed across the back lawn toward the path that led to the barn.

***

Have you ever featured an animal as a primary character in one of your stories?

On Monday, RU founders Tracey Devlyn Kelsey Browning and Adrienne Giordano tackle the delicate topic of critique partners. Don’t miss it!

***

Bio:

Melinda Leigh is a fully recovered banker. She started writing when her youngest child entered first grade as a way to preserve her sanity. She Can Run, her debut romantic suspense novel with Montlake Romance, released in November 2011 and became a Kindle bestselling romantic suspense. A second romantic suspense, Midnight Exposure, is scheduled to release in April 2012. She is also the co-author of paranormal romance novella, Amazon Heat, just out from Carina Press.

Melinda is also an avid martial artist. She holds a 2nd degree belt in Kenpo Karate, studies Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and teaches women’s self-defense. She lives in a messy house in the suburbs with her husband, two teenagers, a couple of dogs and one neurotic cat with an inexplicable fear of ceiling fans. With such a pleasant life, she has no explanation for the sometimes dark and disturbing nature of her imagination.

You can find out more about Melinda and her books at her website, melindaleighauthor.com and at Attacking the Page: A Blog on Martial Arts & Writing Action.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/melindaleighauthorpage
Twitter: https://twitter.com//MelindaLeigh1

Shannon lives in Italy – her internet connection can be spotty, but she’s going to try to join us today.

“I Get By With A Little Help From My (very unusual) Friends”

Let me start with a little confession. I really am a rather shy, almost pathologically non-confrontational person. I pick up spiders on a piece of paper and put them gently out the window while praying they won’t scuttle up onto my hand. I hate hurting anybody’s feelings. I literally lose sleep over it.

It has been pointed out to me that this is ironic, considering the nature of my books. My heroes are always ready to kick ass, whipping out big guns and notched knives and grenades and claymores and God knows what all. My heroines usually start out rather timid (with one notable exception, in Tam Steele, ULTIMATE WEAPON) but by the end of the book, they always get their chance to strike a crucial blow for the cause, sometimes more than one. And my villains are unhinged psychotic head cases, slashing and hacking on their ruthless swathe towards world domination.

Do I detect the whiff of overcompensation here? Gee . . . ya think?

Maybe, but it works for me. I strongly believe in badding up the bad guys to the utmost. The badder the bad guy, the more studly, righteous and pure-hearted the hero and heroine have to be to stand up to him. Or her, I suppose I should say, since BLOOD AND FIRE does feature a couple of pretty scary villainesses.

But the choreography of violence is a hell of a job. It’s so hard to dream ones way through a violent scene. Things are supposed to happen so damn fast and hard. I keep hitting walls, stopping dead, perplexed and thrown out of the story. Sex scenes are so much easier. Whether it’s hand to hand, gunfights, knife fights, explosives, it’s all hard. I don’t do any of that guns and ammo and kung fu stuff myself. I just, ahem, fantasize about it. I’m more the yoga type.

But you need to be concrete about the details in a romantic thriller. Fortunately for me, I have a secret weapon–my good buddy, Adam. I met him at Yale University, which I attended some gazillion years ago. Freshman year, I met this guy from Brooklyn, an ROTC scholarship student who walked around dressed in olive drab. We had absolutely nothing in common—I had grown up in the deep backwoods of the Northwest, raised by hippies, and was a foo-foo musician singer literary type, all music and Chaucer and Shakespeare. He studied poli sci, a quintessential “guy” major (my apologies to all females who studied poli sci, but I never met any of them.) He would disappear on weekends periodically to do field training exercises to fulfill his ROTC obligations. And he knew absolutely everything about guns. We became good friends, and remain so to this day.

Some years ago, as I was beginning to write these romantic thrillers, and as they got more and more violent, it occurred to me that Adam could be a valuable resource. For instance, there’s this scene in BLOOD AND FIRE where Bruno, the hero, and Sean McCloud, one of the intrepid commando McCloud brothers, are trapped up a dead-end mountain road and have to singlehandedly come up with a plan to defeat a big SUV full of almost robotically enhanced super-soldier bad guys, bristling with cutting edge weaponry. Big problem.

In my initial draft, Bruno and Sean hid under the bridge over a dry creekbed that the baddies were forced by terrain to drive over. The vehicle is stopped by a heavy chain, and my first idea was, a car door opens for one of the baddies to get out and deal with the chain, and Bruno or Sean leap up and lob a tear gas grenade into the vehicle. I can justify them having one of those just lying around because Sean is a McCloud. If you ever read a McCloud book, you’ll know what I mean.

But then I watched some televised riot on CNN, and police were throwing tear gas, and I watched it trickling out oh, so slowly, uncurling dreamily into the air . . . far too slowly to incapacitate a bunch of super-soldiers. They’d zip right out of there, ready to overwhelm my hero and his pal. I could probably write it so that my guys prevail by sheer luck and bravura, because hey, it’s fiction, right?

But it was a stupid idea from the start. No way would a McCloud or any McKenna hero sign off on a bad plan. They had to think of something smarter. But damn. My heroes can’t be any smarter than I am myself. And if an SUV of baddies was rolling up a narrow mountain road towards my cabin, I would be toast. Cowering under a bush. Pink nose twitching, bunny tail trembling.

So I skype Adam, whose day job includes designing Tomahawk missile systems, when he’s not writing and lecturing about arcane historical firearms, and I throw my problem in his lap. He promptly nixed the whole scenario, and without even hurting my feelings. Solution: move the guys way back from the road, give one of them a good sniper rifle with a powerful scope that will magnify ambient light.

For the sake of the narrative, I needed at least one of the bad guys to live to fight another day, so no bombing the road a priori. New plan: chain stops vehicle. Bad guy gets out. Sean takes driver, bam. Bruno sets of flash-bangs (stun grenades) feverishly rigged at the last minute, with a cell phone. They go off all around the vehicle. Confused and disoriented bad guys boil out onto the narrow bridge . . .

Well, I won’t say anymore, don’t want to spoil the scene. Let me share with you a snippet of our skype conversation about the flashbangs . . . slightly edited to remove some of my more clueless remarks. Gotta safeguard my mystique, after all. (snort)

Check this out:

Shannon: How do you make the stun grenades all go off at once?

Adam: Let’s talk cell phones. You know how the phones have a vibrator? It’s really a slightly off balance spinning device.

Shannon: Um . . . ok . . .

Adam: If you were to cut a hole in the phone body near the vibrator (candy bar shaped phones work best) you could see the little metal spinner. Now imaging two wires were placed inside the hole you cut.

Shannon: I’m imagining.

Adam: When the spinner spins . . . the circuit would be completed.

Shannon: So these two wires are put inside, and they don’t touch until the vibrator starts to vibrate? How could the wires not touch?

Adam: On the other end, the wires lead to batteries, and then to electric blasting caps that are used in place of the regular grenade fuse. Grenade image coming your way.

The entire top assembly (with the long lever) unscrews, allowing access to the explosive content of the grenade. I’ll draw you a diagram. Give me a minute.

Shannon: So it’s a two phone thing. One phone is physically connected to a battery that will send the electronic impulse to the blasting caps once the hero calls from another phone, causing the connected phone’s vibrator to connect the wires. Or am I off?

Adam: Exactly. Diagram almost done. Sent. . .

And so on and so forth. I wish I could put the whole (very loooonnnngggg) conversation in, because I love this kind of thing, and I think he’s brilliant, but I’m over word count already! Over word count is my middle name, after all.

For the record, Adam consults for writers. Contact him at adam.firestone@gmail.com. He’s a treasure trove.

And a big shout out to all the experts that I and all other writers consult to make our stories more real and therefore, more ultimately satisfying. Hurray and thanks to you all, for being the real deal.

***

Do you feel comfortable writing action scenes? What sort of problems have you run into?

Be sure to stop by tomorrow when author MELINDA LEIGH joins us!

***

Bio:

I started writing my first romance novel in secret. I was working a temp job in an insurance office in Manhattan at the time, and the office manager had made it clear that even if there was nothing to do, I still had to look busy– never one of my big talents. I felt bad about the wasted time, though, and I needed something to round out my other chosen career, which was singing. Yeah, that’s right. Most artists choose a more practical Plan B to back up their improbable Plan A. Me? No way. “Long Shot” is my middle name.

So I sneakily set up a Document 1 and a Document 2 with a spreadsheet on it. If my Boss du Jour walked by I could quick-like-a-bunny switch screens, and whenever the coast was clear, I went back to my story. Not that I was slacking, mind you. If there was work to be done, I did it. The sneakiness felt familiar, though, because I’ve been teased about reading romances since I was a kid. I think the day I finally grew up was the day I stopped trying to cover up what I was reading on the bus, train or subway. Let people think whatever they like.

It wasn’t until I moved to Italy that I got serious about writing, though. I found myself with many long, quiet days alone with nothing to do, so I slogged my way bravely to the end of the manuscript and sent it out. Everybody rejected it-except for Kensington. I wrote for them for a few years, and then made a bid for an erotic novella for the new Brava imprint, and oh joy, they accepted it. Then I wrote BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. And so on, and so forth.

That’s how I started. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do. I never knew it would be so scary, and so hard . . . all that solitude and silence, a blank computer screen, and no one to blame. But still. It’s worth it. It’s great.

Shannon’s books, publishing by Kensington Publishing Corp., include BLOOD AND FIRE, TASTING FEAR, FADE TO MIDNIGHT, ULTIMATE WEAPON, EXTREME DANGER, EDGE OF MIDNIGHT, HOT NIGHT, STANDING IN THE SHADOWS, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, RETURN TO ME and more.

Find out more about Shannon here: http://www.shannonmckenna.com/

Q&A with Weapons Expert ADAM FIRESTONE

Adam Firestone: *grin* “Weapons Expert” makes me sound a bit like a candidate for Executive Outcomes or the artist formerly known as Blackwater. While it’s not an inaccurate description, I think of myself more as a weapon systems engineer and instructor.

On the other hand, it *is* tempting to have some business cards made up that say something to the effect of “Adam Firestone, Mayhem Subject Matter Expert, Wile E. Coyote School of Pandemonium (WECSOP)” *grin*

Courtesy Krebs Custom, Inc.

RU: Hard to top that, Adam! How long have you been working in the field of weapons and ammunition?

AF: My dad brought home his first pistol, a Mauser Model 1914, when I was about eight. For me, it was love at first sight. I was absolutely fascinated by the intricate mating of the moving parts, the engineering, and the attention to detail. I taught myself to detail strip and reassemble the pistol in about an hour. From that point, I think I read everything I could get about weapons and munitions, even building 1:1 scale models of rifles and pistols. It’s been downhill ever since.

Professionally, I’ve been involved with weapon systems ranging from pistols and rifles to cannons and missile systems since the mid-1980s. I went to school on an Army scholarship, and my first formal introduction to firearms was a ROTC cadet at Yale. Those were limited to the standard Army fare of the time, M1911A1 .45 and M9 9x19mm pistols, M16A1 and M16A2 rifles, hand grenades, and M60 General Purpose Machine Guns.

Courtesy Krebs Custom, Inc.

When I graduated, I became a commissioned Army officer, and that opened up entirely new vistas for me. I was trained, and literally lived, ate and slept heavy weapons including M60A3 and M1A1 main battle tanks, M2 and M85 .50 caliber machine guns, and M240 7.62mm NATO machine guns. I was also became proficient with recoilless rifles, surface to surface and surface to air missile systems as well as landmines, demolition charges and other explosives and improvised weapons and countermobility systems. As you can imagine, this was pretty heady stuff for a kid in his mid-twenties.

I continued my education in the field outside the Army, gaining instructor certifications in rifle, pistol and shotgun, among others. I’ve taught many hundreds of people not only how to shoot, but how to make educated decisions about what sort of firearm to buy based on their unique needs, whether they be hunting, personal defense or sport shooting. I’ve held instructor certifications for about twenty years, and have continued my own education, being trained on foreign military firearms including those of Russian (Soviet), British, German, Japanese, Italian, French, Chinese and other origins.

Courtesy of RGUNS, Inc.

Since the mid-1990s, I’ve been designing military command and control and planning systems for warfare areas including naval mine warfare, combat engineering and amphibious maneuver warfare. For the last four years, I’ve been responsible for the complete re-engineering of the systems that plan, initiate, control and evaluate one of the nation’s most important long-range precision strike and power projection weapon systems. This work requires me to have ongoing expertise in arms export control regulations such as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and the Export Administration Regulations (EAR).

Additionally, a book I co-wrote on Allied rifle contracts with American factories during the First World War was recently published, and I expect to soon begin work on a volume exploring the impact of the US Army pistol trials of 1910 – 1911 on the Allied handgun armament during the war. I don’t advise anyone to purchase these books unless you have a sincere interest in the subject matter, or have trouble sleeping.

Probably more than you wanted to know, huh? I suppose the short answer to the question is that I’ve been working in the field for about twenty-five years.

RU: The long answer works for me! You’ve known Shannon McKenna since you were at Yale together. Back then, did the two of you plan on pursuing your current career paths?

AF: Hah! Not on a bet. Army scholarship, remember? I was going to be an Airborne-Ranger-Snake-Eating-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Shannon was going to single handedly reinvent the medieval music for the modern age. As you can see, it didn’t quite work out that way. Looking back, I don’t think either of us would complain about the way things worked out.

RU: Was Shannon the first author you advised about the accurate use of weapons and action choreography?

AF: Yes. It was completely serendipitous. Shannon had begun to write, and knew that I had a bit of knowledge about firearms, weapons and their employment. In the course of a “Hi, how’ve you been” conversation, she asked a few general questions, and the nature of those discussions evolved into our current professional relationship. Since then I’ve had the opportunity to work with other authors, providing similar insights and advice.

Courtesy Krebs Custom, Inc.

RU: What are the top five weapon-related mistakes (or misconceptions) you’ve come across?

AF: Wow. Where to begin? Let’s stipulate up front that I’m a stickler for nomenclature and technical terminology. Words mean things. If one is going to make a living communicating ideas – and that includes writers, engineers, educators and people in the media, to name a few – then there is an implied responsibility to use language effectively and appropriately.

“Well, you know what I meant” is not a proper or effective excuse for ineffective or imprecise professional communication. If you don’t know, learn. If you don’t understand, ask – but for pete’s sake, don’t make it up; that just entrenches ignorance. Ok, stepping off the soapbox. Top five mistakes, right?

1. That spring-loaded thing that holds the ammunition for a pistol, the one that fits into the grip? That’s a MAGAZINE, not a clip! Magazines contain mechanisms not only for storage, but for delivery of ammunition as well. A clip is just something to hold cartridges together (think of a paper clip vice the paper tray on a high end printer).

2. The vast majority of modern revolvers, and a large number of modern semi-automatic pistols do NOT have a manually operated safety mechanism (although there are internal mechanisms that ensure the firearm’s safety). Every time someone writes or talks about “flipping the safety off on his Glock,” I involuntarily shudder.

3. Despite frequent use (misuse?) of this term by the media, there is no such thing as a “semi-automatic assault weapon.” “Assault rifle” is a technical term that refers to a rifle that can be fired fully automatically (like a machine gun) at the operator’s choice and that uses a cartridge whose power is between a pistol cartridge and full power rifle cartridge. A rifle that looks like an assault rifle but that that cannot be fired fully automatically, is, well, just a rifle. Put another way, plopping a Porsche 911 body onto a Volkswagen Jetta chassis doesn’t create a Porsche 911. It creates something that looks and feels like a Porsche but still performs like a Volkswagen.

4. Shooting someone with a pistol, even the vaunted .44 Magnum, will NOT cause them to be flung back across the room or knocked down. It’s simple physics – action and reaction. If the cartridge can expel a projectile from the gun with enough force to knock someone down, the reaction would be strong enough to knock the shooter down.

5. One cannot fire magazine after magazine of ammunition through a light automatic weapon, like an AK-47, as fast as they can be swapped out. Why? Because putting a bullet down a barrel creates friction. Friction creates heat. Barrels get hot. After two or three thirty-round magazines fired automatically, the barrel on an AK is hot enough to give someone silly enough to touch it a second degree burn. Fire six to ten magazines, and the heat is enough to char or ignite wooden handguards and possibly to cook off rounds coming in contact with the chamber walls. It’s not an accident that most machine guns come with quick change barrels, or that early machine guns had water filled jackets around their barrels.

Courtesy RGUNS, Inc.

RU: I hear that TV and movies often feature information related to weapons, ammunition, forensics, etc. that is incorrect, but that the public perceives as true. How should authors respond to this misinformation?

AF: Sort of a chicken and egg question. If the author doesn’t know that the information is incorrect, how can she or he react to it? I’d like to believe that authors who do know better do all they can not to perpetuate the ignorance. I suppose that the best thing to do is to vet action scenes and technical data with a “reasonably knowledgeable individual” (RKI). If no RKI is available, I guess the author can settle for, well, me.

RU: Sorry about the chicken/egg thing! All kinds of fiction features action scenes, including romance. What are the key things to remember when choreographing a written action scene?

AF: Every action scene is a system that effects a transformation. There are one or more inputs, operating constraints (physical or otherwise), control mechanisms, and an output. The scene takes place in four dimensions – space times three (height, width, depth) and time. Of these, the most important for the writer is time; the reader will fill in a lot of the space with his or her imagination. As a result the sequence of events, their timelines and the linkages and/or physical interfaces between the events are the key things that the author has to get right, if the scene is to be believable.

Put another way, the rifle can’t be fired until a round has been chambered, and the round can’t be chambered unless it is in the magazine. And if it takes thirty seconds to load the magazine and chamber a round, but the bad guy on the motorcycle is visible for fourteen seconds, then the scene doesn’t work.

Courtesy RGUNS, Inc.

RU: You also deal with cyber security. What are some cyber security issues authors might consider?

AF: Oh gosh, where to begin? Phishing, denial of service attacks, hacking, social engineering – the list can go on and on. If I had to focus on one issue that makes for a useful plot tool, it might be the inherent insecurity of public WiFi access. When you’re at an airport, a coffee shop or a hotel and you connect to the net through an available access point, in many cases, the connection is unencrypted and your data is being transferred to the access point “in the clear.” While this makes it easier to connect, it also makes it easy for a nearby hacker, using a laptop and sniffer tools readily available on the Net, to monitor and archive all your data, including usernames, passwords and even message traffic, such as the contents of an email.

RU: I’m sensing we could do a whole separate interview on the topic of cyber crime! You offer your services as an editor/advisor to both fiction and non-fiction authors. What does this involve?

AF: In a nutshell, it depends. *grin*

My non-fiction clients are usually interested in language editing – grammar, syntax, diction, sentence and paragraph construction and ensuring that ideas are communicated effectively with an economy of words. It’s astounding how many brilliant subject matter experts have difficulty stringing words together. Given my literary and technical background, I’m in a unique position to help them. We usually come to a compensation arrangement covering the scope of the book or article being written.

Fiction authors are more interested in scene construction and technical advisory services. What kind of gun should my hero use? Can this type of missile fly that sort of mission? How do I ensure that the bad guys are taken out but not killed? Is there a less than lethal alternative? How would that scene play out in space and time? While I’m happy to work on a full-scope compensation arrangement, it often makes sense for these authors to work on an retainer/hourly billing basis.

I’m happy to discuss these services offline with interested parties; I can be contacted at adam.firestone@gmail.com.

Courtesy RGUNS, Inc.

Note: Adam Firestone presents a full day workshop sponsored by the Ohio Valley chapter of RWA on Saturday, April 14 at the Kings Island Conference Center in Cincinnati, OH. The conference is free to members of OVRWA, $25 for non-members (including a box lunch). The conference is open to all. Contact Becke Martin Davis to register or for further details.

***

Have you ever personally handled guns or other weapons? Do you feature weapons in your books?

Author Shannon McKenna joins us tomorrow to explain how Adam helps with her action scenes. You won’t want to miss it!

***

Bio:

Adam Firestone brings more than 25 years of experience with weapon systems including small arms, artillery, armor, area denial systems and precision guided munitions to Romance University. Additionally, Adam is an accomplished small arms instructor, editor, literary consultant and co-author of a recently published work on the production of rifles in the United States for Allied forces during the First World War.

Growing up in New York City, Adam attended Yale University on an Army ROTC scholarship, and upon graduation, became a commissioned officer in the Army’s armor branch, and was assigned to a cavalry squadron. After active duty he transferred to the National Guard and attended Brooklyn Law School. Completing his legal education, Adam was admitted to a number of state and federal bars and practiced law in New York. During this time, Adam pursued his interest in firearms and firearms education, attaining instructor certifications in rifle, pistol and shotgun, among others. Additionally, he began what was to be a seventeen year tenure as a licensed firearms dealer.

In the mid-1990s, Adam left the practice of law and began designing military command and control and planning systems for warfare areas including naval mine warfare, combat engineering and amphibious maneuver warfare. For the last four years he has been responsible for the complete re-engineering of the systems that plan, initiate, control and evaluate one of the nation’s most important long-range precision strike and power projection weapon systems. As a result of this work, Adam developed an expertise in arms export control regulations such as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and the Export Administration Regulations (EAR).

Adam has been providing general and technical editing services to authors and publishing houses specializing in firearms books since the early 2000s. Additionally, Adam provides literary consulting services to fiction authors including action scene choreography, technical vetting and technical editing. In this line of experience, Adam has had the fortune to work with well known authors including Shannon McKenna and Elizabeth Jennings.

Check out Adam’s blog here: http://adamfirestoneconsultant.blogspot.com/

Ed Gaffney, Suzanne Brockmann and Jason Gaffney

About a year and a half ago, I took a break from writing legal-thrillers and I co-wrote a screenplay called “The Perfect Wedding” with Suzanne Brockmann (my wife, who is a New York Times bestselling author) and our son, Jason. We liked the result, and we went on to produce the movie. (It’s an ensemble romantic comedy featuring Hollywood veterans James Rebhorn and Kristine Sutherland. It’s in post-production now–we’ll be submitting it to film festivals starting in February or March.)

As the film went through the long journey from idea to completed picture, I got a front row seat to the radical differences between telling a story through novel-writing and telling a story through movie-making. For those authors out there considering pointing their talents (and their keyboards) in the direction of the big screen, here are a few things I’ve learned.

Actor Eric Aragon ("Paul Fowler"), Director Scott Gabriel, Line Producer Matt Dunnam

Lesson One – When you complete the final draft of your screenplay, it is not even close to being finished.

One of the joys I experience as a novelist is reaching the end of the journey with my characters. I really like getting through the climactic moment of the story, tying up the loose ends, and bringing the book to a tight, neat closing. A closing that is very much defined by me typing the words: The End.

And I have never had a reader come to me after reading one of my books and say, “You know what? I think you should change the end of chapter three, and the dialogue in the scene at the diner between the lawyer and the investigator should be tighter.”

It’s not that I write perfect books — it’s just that everyone understands that when the book is out there for sale, it’s done. No changing the end of chapter three. No tightening the dialogue in the diner scene. A reader may or may not like any particular part of the book, but there’s no changing it. It’s published. It’s done.

So I was far from prepared when virtually everyone who read the completed script (I’m talking about everyone — the director, the actors, the investors, my mother-in-law — you name it) acted as if our completed, finished, and very very polished screenplay were just a draft.

Because for the writers, we were done. We’d gone over the screenplay many times, and we’d gotten it just the way we wanted it. We’d written the final scene — we’d written FADE TO BLACK and CREDITS at the bottom of the last page.

And yet, everyone assumed that the script wasn’t finished.

You know what? They were right.

(L to R) Actors Eric Aragon ("Paul Fowler") and Jason T. Gaffney ("Gavin Greene")

The problem is that for book writers, when you’ve gone through revisions and editing, and you finally stand up from the computer for the last time, the writing really is finished. The manuscript goes to the printer, printed books get shipped to the stores, and then (fingers crossed) books get bought by the readers. But when you’re telling a story through the movies, when you stand up from the computer after the last page of the screenplay is written, you’re just getting started. Because what ends up on the screen isn’t necessarily what you wrote on the page. And that’s thanks in large part to something else that I learned about movies….

Lesson Two — Every screenplay has a million co-writers.

There is a very real possibility that dozens of people who work on the movie that you’ve written might end up suggesting or creating something that adds to, or replaces something in your script. The script that was already finished, and that you had deemed just right. And as unnerving as that might sound to a writer, when the right people are on the team, that kind of collaboration can sometimes lead to something very special.

For example, in The Perfect Wedding, a critical moment arises when Richard (played by James Rebhorn) attempts to reassure his wife, Meryl (played by Kristine Sutherland) that despite his recent diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s, no matter what happens, he will never forget her or their children, Paul and Alana. Richard’s dialogue includes the following passage: “They haven’t invented a disease that will make me forget you, or Paul, or Alana, or how much I love all of you. Maybe my body will stop working. Maybe even my mind. But my heart — Alzheimer’s isn’t going to touch my heart.”

No matter what else Suz, Jace and I changed about the script as we went from draft to draft, we always left that section alone. We felt like we’d gotten it just right. The emotion, the language, the content, everything.

And then, our big star, Jim Rebhorn, took me aside and asked me to change it.

I had no idea how to handle the situation. Jim had appeared in over a hundred movies and televisions shows, including blockbusters (Independence Day, Meet the Parents), Oscar nominees and winners (My Cousin Vinny, Cold Mountain, The Talented Mr. Ripley), and Emmy winners (30 Rock, Seinfeld, Homeland). And on top of all of that experience, he was nice, he was smart, and he was really talented. Yet every instinct I had was telling me that the message that Richard was delivering, and the way the language flowed, was going to make this monologue and this scene one of the emotional high points of the movie. I was sure that changing it would weaken the writing, and the scene.

(L to R) Actors Kristine Sutherland ("Meryl Fowler") and James Rebhorn ("Richard Fowler")

But Jim was concerned that Richard’s message to Meryl might mislead people into believing that all Alzheimer’s patients needed to do to counteract any loss of memory was to will themselves into remembering. So he suggested adding some language to make clear that Richard was speaking in an emotional context, not in a clinical one.

And while we certainly did not intend to leave anyone with the impression that Alzheimer’s patients had some control over the loss of their memory, we really didn’t want to tinker with what we’d written.

And then, I got an idea. I suggested that Richard start to say the words that Jim wanted to add, but then get too emotionally caught up to continue. So the new line read, “…Maybe even my mind. But my heart, that’s where … Alzheimer’s isn’t going to touch my heart.”

And you know what? The addition of those two words — “that’s where” — made the scene better. You should see what Jim and Kristine did with that moment. It’s one of my favorites in the movie. And it never would have happened it without Jim’s input.

Lesson Three — You are not in control of your story. (A less delicate way to say it would be: It’s not really your story.)

Imagine this: You’ve written a book, a time travel story, set in Phoenix. The story isn’t dependent on taking place in Phoenix, but that’s what you’ve imagined, and like any good writer, you carefully weave the story into its setting. You think it would make a good movie, and so, as an exercise, you decide to write a screenplay version of the book. You show the screenplay to some people in the film industry, and they’re impressed. One (an agent) decides it’s so good that he wants to try to sell it.

(L to R) actors Apolonia Davalos ("Alana Fowler"), Kristine Sutherland ("Meryl Fowler"), Eric Aragon ("Paul Fowler") and James Rebhorn ("Richard Fowler")

Fast forward a few years. Nothing has come of the screenplay, and you are back to writing books.

Then, one day, you get approached by a producer/director (let’s call him “Mr. Hollywood”) who would like to make your Phoenix time travel book into a movie. And when you show Mr. Hollywood your screenplay, he’s thrilled. He’s even more interested in doing the movie.

And then imagine learning that Mr. Hollywood has met with an investor, and everything is a go, as long as the movie is set in Pittsburgh, and not Phoenix. Because the investor lives in Pittsburgh, and would like to fund a movie that’s set in Pittsburgh.

This really happened to Suz some years ago. And because she wanted to see her book made into a movie, she busted her rear end, researching Pittsburgh and the surrounding area to rewrite the screenplay so that it would believably take place in Western Pennsylvania.

She overhauled the script in a week, in order to have it ready for a big meeting between the investor and Mr. Hollywood.

Talks stalled, and the movie never happened.

(L to R) actors Brendan Griffin ("Kirk Corbett") and Apolonia Davalos ("Alana Fowler")

So what’s the take-away? Unless you write, produce, direct, and star in your own movie, you aren’t in control of the screenplay that you write. Your six-foot tall African-American hero? Now he’s five-foot eight, and he’s from Japan. That beautiful scene in front of the waterfall? Didn’t have the budget — now it’s going to take place in a grocery store parking lot.

And you know that scene with the young girl and the dog? Can’t do it. The actress is allergic.

It’s probably going to drive you crazy.

But if you enjoy sharing the creative process with dozens of others, and if you are lucky enough to be a part of a caring, bright and respectful team, you might find yourself in the middle of an unforgettable and a truly enriching experience.

As long as you’re okay setting the whole thing in Pittsburgh.

I’d write more, but I’ve got to go. Because despite the fact that we wrote the screenplay for The Perfect Wedding nearly two years ago, and despite the fact that we filmed it last year, and despite the fact that we’re less than two months from submitting it to film festivals, I’ve got to help write some more dialogue for the sound edit. Because the screenplay isn’t done yet.

I’m not kidding.

***

Have any of you attempted screenwriting? What difficulties did you encounter that were different from novel writing?

We have a full week – not just our usual Mon-Weds-Fri, but EVERY day! Tomorrow JO ROBERTSON of the Romance Bandits is our Visiting Professor. Hope you’ll join us!

***

Bio:

2009 Edgar Award Nominee ENEMY COMBATANT

Ed Gaffney is an attorney, an EDGAR nominee for his legal thriller Enemy Combatant, the critically acclaimed author of three other novels (Premeditated Murder, Suffering Fools and Diary of a Serial Killer), as well as the co-producer and co-writer of the off-Broadway production Looking for Billy Haines, the writer and director of the independent feature film Jolly, and one of the writer and producers of The Perfect Wedding. He lives in Florida with his wife, New York Times bestselling author, Suzanne Brockmann.

Ed’s website is here: http://edgaffney.com/

LIKE The Perfect Wedding on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ThePerfectWeddingMovie

How many times have we asked ourselves THAT question?

Last week, a reader asked me how I came up with an idea for a particular scene in one of my books. After that, I thought it would be fun to do a series of RU posts explaining how some of my scenes came about and how they’ve changed under the watchful eye of my editor.

Welcome to the first post of “What was I thinking?”

This first scene from my romantic suspense, Man Law, was not originally in the book. During the first round of edits on the manuscript my editor asked me if I could show more of the history between the hero and the heroine. Gina (heroine) is a young widow with three children (including a smart-mouthed teenager) and Vic (hero) is her brother’s closest friend. Gina and Vic have been friends over ten years and after a moment of—um—spontaneous combustion, their relationship changes. Drastically. My editor suggested I do a flashback to show the exact moment when that change occurs.

For the flashback, I came up with an idea where the hose on Gina’s washer ruptures and the water valve gets stuck. I pictured her, at thirty-five, a widow battling grief’s hold while raising her children and forgetting about her own needs. For two years, she’d been working full-time, taking care of the kids, the house, the car and then the water valve won’t budge. Enter Vic Andrews, all six-foot-five of him. That, I decided, would be the flashback scene.

Leading into the flashback would be Gina and Vic having a conversation about their tendency to spontaneously combust around each other.

Now that you know what I was thinking, here’s the flashback scene:

Enough of this already. Because, really, she didn’t have time. She was getting nowhere with him when all she wanted was to get somewhere. And then he went and did it. He tilted his head and parted his lips just so slightly and a burst of heat exploded inside her. Suddenly, the hallway seemed tight. Closing in as his stare filled the space. At any second, it would occur to him that he should attempt to mask his feelings. The idiot hadn’t yet realized his ability to hide from her dissolved two years ago in her basement. That had been the first time she’d noticed the look and it still tortured her. Damn him for bringing it all back.

Her fingers twitched at the memory. Kneeling on top of the dryer battling the water that had shot from the pipe and doused her. And Vic staring at her in a way that made her miss having a man to curl up with.

“Holy shit,” he had said.

The words cut through the sound of gushing water and penetrated her focused struggle with the valve. “The handle is stuck.”

His gaze traveled along the ceiling, darting along the pipelines. Slow. Considering.

“Idiot,” she screamed, “the valve is here.”

He stepped around the large puddle forming on the cement floor and stormed to the back corner of the basement. “No kidding, but I’m not getting wet when I can cut the main supply.”

“The main supply?” What?

And suddenly, the river slowed to a trickle. She stared at the pipe, gave it a whack with the wrench. Bastard pipe.

For two years she’d been living as a single mom, dealing with appliances that failed, shoveling snow, getting the car serviced. Never mind raising three kids whose moods shifted like swings in the wind. She had been doing it all, hadn’t she?

Without a man.

Until the flipping water valve got stuck. With Michael not around, she’d been forced to call Vic when all she wanted was to take a bat and smash that stupid valve to a million little bits. Just destroy that piece of crap. She pounded her fists on the washer because she didn’t need this evil, blasted, hateful valve making her feel like she needed a man.

Vic stood a few feet from her, hands on his hips. Did his lips quirk? She swore they did. No, sir.

She flicked the wrench at him. “Don’t you laugh. I’ll come down there and beat you to death. You will be bloody if you laugh at me.”

He remained silent. One of his better choices, because she was just mad enough to let him have it. She tossed the wrench down, pushed her saturated hair from her face. “I’m sorry I called you an idiot. That was mean.” She held her hands wide. “Look at me! I’m soaked.”

“Oh, I’m looking.”

The rumble in his tone drew her attention and she found him, head tilted, lips slightly parted, eyes focused on her…chest.

The one encased in a soaking-wet tank top.

A white one.

With a sheer lace bra underneath. Lovely. Her very own wet T-shirt contest. She gasped and spun away because…well…Vic. Never before had he done this, and heat poured into her cheeks.

Two years she’d been without a man’s hands on her. Two long years without passion. Without sex that left her loose limbed and quivering. And he had the nerve to look at her like he wanted nothing more than to put his hands on her.

Wait a second. Why not? She deserved attention. Didn’t she?

Besides, he had great hands. Big hands that let a girl know he’d take care of her.

And then she lost her mind.

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RU Crew, join me next week when I revisit a scene from A Just Deception. Thanks for stopping by!

Adrienne Giordano writes romantic suspense and women’s fiction.  She is a Jersey girl at heart, but now lives in the Midwest with her workaholic husband, sports obsessed son and Buddy the Wheaten Terrorist (Terrier). She is a co-founder of Romance University blog. For more information on Adrienne’s Private Protectors series please visit http://www.adriennegiordano.com/. Adrienne can also be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AdrienneGiordanoAuthor and Twitter at http://twitter.com/AdriennGiordano.

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From Theresa: This month we’re starting something new here with my column. Every other month, I will be evaluating sample pages sent in by readers. If you want to play along, send the first two or three pages of your novel in, and we’ll add them to the queue. This month, we have the first 250 words of an urban fantasy novel. I think you’ll all agree that this opening is already in great shape. But I think we can make it better.

Chapter 1: Bring Out Your Dead (Urban Fantasy)

They had eight hours before dawn and a lot of dirt to shift. Jane propped her Hush Puppy on the back of the shovel blade and pushed, but nothing happened. She swallowed a curse. Rennie didn’t like it when she cursed.

Rennie balanced the big lantern flashlight on her walker as she illuminated the shovel. The night sky sparkled with stars and a half moon, but it wasn’t enough to dig by. “You have to stand on the blade, honey. You don’t have the get-up-and-go you used to.”

“This ain’t my first grave, Rennie. I know what I’m doing.” She wished they’d handled this weeks ago, but they’d been hoping one of their contacts would come through at the last minute. Someone trustworthy. Someone who could keep a secret. Someone who could dig. They were both way too decrepit for this.

“Used to be me who dug the graves,” Rennie said.

“Now it’s my turn.” Jane climbed up on the shovel blade like a tightrope walker, and the tip sank into the ground several inches. A tug and a yank, and several cups’ worth of dirt popped free. Pale brown and tough as saddle leather. She piled it to the side on the tarp.

Rennie sighed. “I wish I could help.”

“You just stand guard and keep my spirits up.” Jane freed another shovel of tight-packed West Virginia dirt. “Good Lord, this ground is hard. Was he this much of an inconvenience when he was alive?”

“More,” Rennie said. “Especially there at the end.”

Okay, the first thing I want to do is rearrange the pieces in those first few paragraphs to raise the tension level. We start with a plural pronoun, they, which keeps us from knowing the point of view character right away. And then we shift into some details about the premise: it’s night, they have eight hours to dig, and they’re properly equipped. Although there’s a ticking clock, the time limit doesn’t feel pressing. Eight hours to dig a hole is probably long enough. There are some indications that the task might not be easy, so it’s not that the opening paragraphs are flat. They do contain some tension. But it’s not as much tension as it could be.

As I was reading, the first line that really sang to me was this one:

This ain’t my first grave, Rennie.

This is interesting because it’s not an everyday kind of utterance. I want to see what happens when we start with this line and shuffle the other pieces in after it. I want to make sure the pov character is immediately identified, and so for the second sentence, we’ll use that action beat that was already in place in the first paragraph. There’s a nice tension between the assertion that she knows what she’s doing and the fact that she can’t budge the shovel. Then Rennie should respond with her line of dialogue, and we’ll use the existing action beat to tag that dialogue. I think that works, and we haven’t had to change a word. All we’ve done so far is shift the bits around.

“This ain’t my first grave, Rennie. I know what I’m doing.” Jane propped her Hush Puppy on the back of the shovel blade and pushed, but nothing happened. She swallowed a curse. Rennie didn’t like it when she cursed.

“You have to stand on the blade, honey. You don’t have the get-up-and-go you used to.” Rennie balanced the big lantern flashlight on her walker as she illuminated the shovel.

So that’s 69 words, and look at all they accomplish. Using almost all dialogue and action and a brief dip into Jane’s thoughts, we’ve established that they’re digging a grave and having some trouble with it. The tension is a bit higher, and it didn’t take long to get there. I’m not crazy about the use of “as” in the final sentence because I think it’s technically incorrect. I don’t think those two actions (balancing and illuminating) are meant to be simultaneous, but are meant to indicate a causal connection. So I might change that last sentence to:

Rennie balanced the big lantern flashlight on her walker to illuminate the shovel.

Now that the opening has a bit more tension, we can build on that foundation. Now we can set the scene with a few more details to ground and orient the reader. Now the use of the plural pronoun will be less likely to confuse any readers because we know who “they” are. We’ll lead into the premise set-up (technically, exposition) with a bit of description. Notice also that referencing the night sky in the first sentence and the time until dawn in the second sentence acts almost like conceptual touchstones, almost like transitions, between the description and the exposition. This is nice and smooth, and again, all we’re doing it rearranging existing pieces.

The night sky sparkled with stars and a half moon, but it wasn’t enough to dig by. They had eight hours before dawn and a lot of dirt to shift. She wished they’d handled this weeks ago, but they’d been hoping one of their contacts would come through at the last minute. Someone trustworthy. Someone who could keep a secret. Someone who could dig. They were both way too decrepit for this.

“Used to be me who dug the graves,” Rennie said.

“Now it’s my turn.” Jane climbed up on the shovel blade like a tightrope walker, and the tip sank into the ground several inches. A tug and a yank, and several cups’ worth of dirt popped free. Pale brown and tough as saddle leather. She piled it to the side on the tarp.

So far, all we’ve done is shift things around to change the impact on the reader. But now, at this point, we need something more. We’re supposed to be in Jane’s viewpoint, and though the pov is technically correct so far, this is the point where we need to get a little deeper. I want to know what it feels like inside Jane’s body and mind right now. Does she feel a sense of victory that she broke ground? Or does she feel that the several cups of dirt is a trifling amount for the effort? We get description and action, which is great, but we want description and action that will really lock us into her perspective.

This can be accomplished in subtle ways. We don’t need to beat the reader over the head with extensive information about Jane’s experiences here. Think of it instead as signals or clues, things the readers can use to piece together the context. Look at the verbs. Do they carry emotional connotations? Climb up — that’s a good, active verb, but it carries only a very weak connotation of success or achievement. (Think about the ways climb is used — climb to the top of the heap, climb the ladder of succees, etc.) That connotation isn’t supported by the concept of tightrope walkers, so even though it’s a good image, I might be looking for something more evocative there. If we want to emphasize her uncertainty about whether she can break ground, we might use balanced instead of climbed. If we want to indicate her frailty, we might use perched. If we want to signal that the climb is performed with determination and will succeed, we might change the tightrope walker for another image. A simple change like that can add some depth and context in a way that will lead the reader to a new understanding of the text without dragging on and on about it.

I also have the urge to insert some internal reaction between the blade’s entry and the tug/yank. Maybe even a single word — Yes! to indicate a sense of victory or pride — would do it. And then I want another internal reaction after the saddle leather. Again, it doesn’t have to be length, but we do want to indicate something of her emotional state. If she’s feeling determined, she might think something like,

Didn’t matter. She’d be tougher. She had to be.

Or, if we want to signal something about how overwhelmed she was feeling, we might use something like,

It surely would be a long night.

The point is not to belabor a point, but to give the reader a character’s interpretation of the action in small, incremental ways. We might add words, but we don’t want to add a lot of words. Just enough to deepen the character perspective.

When we put it all together, we might end up with something like this:

“This ain’t my first grave, Rennie. I know what I’m doing.” Jane propped her Hush Puppy on the back of the shovel blade and pushed, but nothing happened. She swallowed a curse. Rennie didn’t like it when she cursed.

“You have to stand on the blade, honey. You don’t have the get-up-and-go you used to.” Rennie balanced the big lantern flashlight on her walker to illuminate the shovel.

The night sky sparkled with stars and a half moon, but it wasn’t enough to dig by. They had eight hours before dawn and a lot of dirt to shift. She wished they’d handled this weeks ago, but they’d been hoping one of their contacts would come through at the last minute. Someone trustworthy. Someone who could keep a secret. Someone who could dig. They were both way too decrepit for this.

“Used to be me who dug the graves,” Rennie said.

“Now it’s my turn.” Jane mounted the shovel blade as cautiously as a bullrider in the pen, and the tip sank into the ground several inches. Yes! A tug and a yank, and several cups’ worth of dirt popped free. Pale brown and tough as saddle leather. Well, it was a start. She piled it to the side on the tarp.

Rennie sighed. “I wish I could help.”

“You just stand guard and keep my spirits up.” Jane freed another shovel of tight-packed West Virginia dirt. “Good Lord, this ground is hard. Was he this much of an inconvenience when he was alive?”

“More,” Rennie said. “Especially there at the end.”

We started with 254 words and we ended with 261 words, but I think the new version feels faster and more engaging. The bits I added to the breaking-ground paragraph might not be the right bits. The author might want different emotional cues there, and that’s fine. She should use what she likes, not what I’ve suggested. The point is to provide cues that work in the context and allow the reader to bond with the pov character.

It’s a good opening, yes?

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Theresa, thank you for the great feedback on Jody’s pages! RU CREW, did you learn something from Theresa’s line edits that you can apply to your own opening scene?

Author Ed Gaffney (aka Suzanne Brockmann’s hubby) joins us on Monday to discuss screenwriting vs. novel writing. Be sure to join us!

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Bio:

Theresa Stevens is the Publisher of STAR Guides Publishing, a nonfiction publishing company with the mission to help writers write better books. After earning degrees in creative writing and law, she worked as a literary attorney agent for a boutique firm in Indianapolis where she represented a range of fiction and nonfiction authors. After a nine-year hiatus from the publishing industry to practice law, Theresa worked as chief executive editor for a highly acclaimed small romance press, and her articles on writing and editing have appeared in numerous publications for writers. Visit her blog at http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/ where she and her co-blogger share their knowledge and hardly ever argue about punctuation.

Teresa’s generously offering one commenter a copy of her latest release THE PLEASURE OF YOUR KISS. Please help me welcome my new Twitter pal, Teresa Medeiros!

“Oh Clarinda, have you seen the latest edition of The Snitch? I picked up one at the docks before we sailed and there’s an absolutely delicious article about Captain Sir Ashton Burke!”

Gotcha!

So begins my new novel THE PLEASURE OF YOUR KISS. This simple snippet of dialogue is supposed to stir the reader’s imagination by introducing several questions:

1. Who is the gushing speaker?
2. Who is Clarinda and why should she care about the doings of Captain Sir Ashton Burke?
3. Why are they on a ship and where is it headed?
4. What naughty things has this mysterious captain been doing to end up in a periodical with a title as nefarious as The Snitch?

The opening scene of your romance should be put to the following three tests:

1. Does it pose a burning question that can only be answered if the reader keeps turning the pages?
2. Does it give the reader the sense that in a single moment, your character’s fate is about to be changed forever?  That Alice is getting ready to tumble down the rabbit hole?
3.  Can you visualize your opening scene on a movie screen?  And if so, would you be willing to plop down $7.99 at the box office to find out what happens next?

If you can answer “yes” to all of these questions, you’re well on your way to success. It’s your first scene that may very well sell your first book, whether to an editor or to a reader.  If you were an actor, your opening scene would be your audition. Welcome to Short Attention Span Theater!

Just like an intrepid reporter, you should always strive to answer the Five W’s in your first chapter—Who?  When?  Where?  Why?  and What?  Answering WHO introduces the reader to your characters.  Answering WHEN and WHERE provides a vibrant sense of time and place, which is no less important in a contemporary than a historical.  Answering WHAT should involve action of some kind and answering WHY sets the stage for those twin essentials of any successful book—conflict and motivation—which breaks down to determining exactly what your characters want and just who or what is going to try to stop them from getting it.

The trick is to answer all of these questions without oversaturating the reader and bogging down the storyline. The most common mistake beginning writers make is trying to cram too much background information into the first few scenes of a novel. In the opening scenes, you don’t have to introduce the reader to every character, nor do you have to set up every subplot or every motivation.

Your opening should be a seduction, a gentle tease promising pleasures to come. Even in a romance, an aura of mystery is essential. If everything is neatly laid out on page one, the reader has no motivation to turn to page two. If your hero has been imprisoned unjustly for a number of years, as Gerard was in my novel THIEF OF HEARTS, isn’t it enough to have him light a lamp in Chapter One because he hates the dark? The reader doesn’t have to learn WHY he hates the dark until he confesses all to the heroine in Chapter 17.

As long as your opening passes the three tests we mentioned above, there’s no set formula for deciding how to start your story. You can use snippets of dialogue, adventure or action sequences, a passionate conflict between key characters, or an intriguing character tag. When I finished my book BREATH OF MAGIC, I had no idea there was going to be a sequel. But I woke up one morning mumbling, “Tabitha Lennox hated being a witch. The only thing she hated more than being a witch was being a rich witch.” And I knew then that I’d found my opening line for my next book.

You may choose action as the key element to start your story.  In the opening of THE DEVIL WEARS PLAID, Emma is standing at the altar about to wed the man of her dreams. Or at least that’s what I lead the reader to believe. When a band of dangerous Highlanders storm the chapel, we realize she’s about to marry the man of her nightmares and it’s the man of her dreams who will abduct her from his arms.

The most successful opening scenes have one thing in common—something happens! This may sound pretty basic to you, but I’ve read many contest entries where absolutely nothing happens in the first few scenes. The writer begins the book with the mundane details of life—the heroine wakes up, yawns, climbs out of bed, brushes their teeth, makes the bed, stumbles into the kitchen, fixes some cereal, feeds the cat, changes a light bulb, then ten pages later, the phone rings so their lawyer can tell them their presumed dead scoundrel of an ex-spouse has just returned from beyond the grave to rob them of the million dollar inheritance left to them by their great-Aunt Tilly. Well, guess what?  Who cares? The editor has already tossed the manuscript onto the REJECTED pile and the reader checking out the sample chapter on her Kindle has already decided not to hit the BUY button and has bought Nora Robert’s 1200th book instead. The story should start when the phone rings.

What truly makes a story a page turner and a bestseller is a strong sense that the story is happening as it’s being read. And that quality is never more important than at the beginning of that story.

There are four unspoken words at the beginning of every book: Once upon a time…  If you can make your reader hold their breath in anticipation as they await the rest of the story, then your own happy ending may be just around the corner!

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RU Crew, how did your opening scene fare with Teresa’s three tests? Readers, tell us what you love most about Teresa’s stories. Don’t forget to leave a comment for a chance to win Teresa’s newest release THE PLEASURE OF YOUR KISS. Here’s a link to an excerpt.

On Wednesday, medical romance author Wendy S. Marcus discusses what not to do with reader reviews.

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Bio:

Teresa Medeiros wrote her first novel at the age of twenty-one, introducing readers to one of the most beloved and versatile voices in romantic fiction. Since then she has published twenty-two books and appeared on every national bestseller list, including the New York Times, USA Today and Publishers Weekly lists. She is a seven-time RITA finalist, a two-time PRISM winner, and a two-time recipient of the Waldenbooks Award for bestselling fiction. Her first contemporary women’s fiction novel GOODNIGHT TWEETHEART was published in 2010 and Pocket has just released her latest historical THE PLEASURE OF YOUR KISS. You can visit her website at http://www.teresamedeiros.com and join her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/teresamedeirosfanpage.