Welcome to RU, Sherry!!

Some people say the devil is in the details. I say the divine is in the details, especially when it comes to a story. It’s funny because in real life I don’t notice a whole lot of details, but in books details jump out at me. And I carry them with me years later. So here are a few things I want to say about details:

1) Details are wonderful for world-building. I’ve forgotten most of the plot of the first Harry Potter book, but I will always remember that the great hall at Hogwarts was lit by thousands of candles floating in the air. And no matter how you feel about it, the sparkling vampire is memorable. It distinguishes Stephenie Meyers’ vampires from all those who’ve come before.

If you write historicals, like me, you are also required to world-build, to recreate a vanished time. There is nothing like a good detail to take your readers back a century or few.

In Meredith Duran’s 1880s-set historical romance Written on Your Skin, the hero is poisoned. The heroine helps him by giving him an antidote.

“It’s only vin Mariani,” she said. “They call it the French tonic, sometimes.”
He knew the wine. He’d told Collins he wanted to create a brand of it for American distribution. Its main ingredient was not alcohol, but syrup of—“Coca.” The word was his, the voice unrecognizable. Hoarse, as though he’d been screaming.
“Yes. And the powder you inhaled—also from coca.” Her lips quirked into a strange smile that made her appear much older. “Mr. Monroe, you will be so full of coca by the time you leave, you won’t even feel a bullet.”

Holy smoke. She is giving him a diluted form of cocaine. And he talks about selling it! (It would have been good business too. The word coca in Coca-Cola was truth in advertising: Until it became frowned upon to consume cocaine, cocaine was present in minute amounts in Coca-Cola.)

We are taught from kindergarten to say no to drugs, but many of today’s forbidden substances were legitimate medicine 130 years ago. By using this detail, right away Meredith takes us to a different era.

2) Details are also wonderful for character-building. Going back again to the Harry Potter books. Let’s take one of its most beloved characters, Hagrid. We can spend gigabytes talking about Hagrid, but you know what I always remember from the books?

Hagrid’s domestic activities. He knits, he darns socks, and he cooks really terrible food—rock cakes that will chip your teeth and a beef stew in which Hermione finds a talon.

Kids devouring HP books might just cackle at these little descriptions. But what J. K. Rowling has vividly portrayed is the life of a middle-aged bachelor of limited means. He does these things because he has no one else to do them for him—no wife, no house elf. Hagrid never complains, but his is at times a lonely lot.

3) Details are wonderful for character description.

From Laura Kinsale’s For My Lady’s Heart:

She felt herself strangely daunted by him, overpowered by his greater size, the black line of his legs, the heavy square links of the belt that hung at his hips. He wore it as if it had no weight at all, though each joint, ornate and thick, studded with the silvery sable of marcasite crystals, would have balanced a cobblestone on the measuring scale.

This passage comes late in the book. The hero has been established as a thoroughly wonderful knight. But until this point, I haven’t really thought of him as sexy. The belt, however, clinches it for me. Can you imagine the magnificent physique it takes to wear such a tremendous belt? I can and someone please pour a bucket of cold water on me.

4) Details are wonderful for regular description.

From The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood, here is the heroine imagining leaving her asshole of a husband to live by herself and wait for her lover to come back from the war:

She’ll sew curtains for the windows, yellow curtains, the color of canaries or the yolks of eggs. Cheerful curtains, like sunshine. Never mind that she doesn’t know how to sew. She’ll starch the curtains and hang them up. She’ll get down on her knees with a whisk and clean out the mouse droppings and dead flies under the kitchen sink. She’ll repaint a set of canisters she’ll find in a junk store, and stencil on them: Tea, Coffee, Sugar, Flour. She will hum to herself while doing this. She’ll buy a new towel, a whole set of new towels. Also sheets, these are important, and pillowcases. She’ll brush her hair a lot.

Everything here is detail after detail after detail. You can feel how much and with what intensity the heroine has imagined this scenario.

5) The iteration of details become important motifs in your book.

In my recent RITA-winning historical romance, His at Night, the heroine lives under her malevolent uncle’s thumb. Her only escape is a book of travelogue. Whenever she is anxious, frightened, or wakes up from a nightmare, she reads about Capri and dreams of freedom.

Later on in the book, when the hero suffers from his own nightmares, she tells him about her beautiful Capri. And when the hero screws things up, to woo her back again, he finds a copy of the travelogue, memorizes the section on Capri, and recites it to her.

Reviewers often single out this last scene for praise.

It doesn’t need to be Capri—I chose Capri since I’d happened upon a 19th century travel guide to Southern Italy when I was researching another book. She could have been reading about the Wild West or even horticulture. The important thing is the layering, the repetition. Setup and payoff, in film parlance.

6) The questions:

a) How many details constitute the correct quantity of details?

The answer does not lie in the numbers, but in the results. What you want is to banish generic-ness and hone specificity in your writing. That’s what the details are for. When you have achieved specificity, you have the right quantity of details.

b) How do I know my details aren’t just more words?

Tough question. You’ll have to be the judge. But this simple rule of thumb can help you. Ask yourself, are your details doing double—or even better, triple—duty? In the example above from Meredith Duran’s book, the quick three paragraphs involving coca not only give you a flavor just how different the 1880s are from the 2010s, they also move the plot along and demonstrate the heroine’s cool-under-pressure character.

Giveaway information

Sherry will be happy to give away a copy of her latest release, BEGUILING THE BEAUTY.

When the Duke of Lexington meets the mysterious Baroness von Seidlitz-Hardenberg aboard a transatlantic ocean liner, he is fascinated. She is exactly what he has been searching for—a beautiful woman who interests and entices him. He falls hard and fast—and soon proposes marriage.

And then she disappears without a trace…

For in reality, the “baroness” is Venetia Easterbrook—a proper young widow who had her own vengeful reasons for instigating an affair with the duke. But the plan has backfired. Venetia has fallen in love with the man she despised—and there’s no telling what might happen when she is finally unmasked…

Excerpt from BEGUILING THE BEAUTY

Venetia froze. Striding down the street toward her, tall, haughty, and impeccably turned out, was none other than the Duke of Lexington. He cast a cursory glance at the automobile and headed inside the hotel.

Her hotel. What was he doing here?

Her first instinct was to run. But a perverse pride refused to let her. If anyone ought to run in the opposite direction, it was he, not she. She had not slandered anyone. She had not spread malicious rumors. She had not spoken without regard to consequences.

Not until she was crossing the onyx-and-marble rotunda of the hotel did she realize she was still fully veiled. The hotel clerk blinked once at her appearance. “Good afternoon, ma’am. May I help you?”

Before she could reply, another clerk several feet down the counter offered a greeting of his own.

“Good afternoon, Your Grace.”

She froze again.

“Any news on my passage?” came Lexington’s cool voice.

“Indeed, sir. We have secured you a Victoria suite on the Rhodesia. There are only two such suites on the liner, and you will be assured of the greatest comfort, privacy, and luxury for your crossing.”

“Departure time?”

“Tomorrow morning at ten, sir.”

“Very good,” said Lexington.

“Ma’am, may I help you?” Venetia’s clerk asked again.

Unless she abruptly abandoned the counter, she must speak and, at some point, give her name. She cleared her throat—and out came a string of German. “Ich hätte gerne Ihre besten Zimmer.”

She was running away after all. She balled her fingers, the chaos inside her igniting into anger.

“Beg your pardon, ma’am?”

Through gritted teeth, she repeated herself.

The clerk looked flustered. Without turning, without ever having appeared to pay attention, Lexington said, “The lady would like your best rooms.”

“Ah yes, of course. Your name, please, ma’am.”

She swallowed and reached randomly. “Baronesse von Seidlitz-Hardenberg.”

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Sherry, thanks again for joining us today! Such a terrific workshop. Don’t forget to leave a comment for a chance to win Sherry’s newest release, Beguiling the Beauty!

RU Readers, what about you? Do you key in on the details of a story? What types of things jump out at you as a reader?

Please stop back on Monday for a great lecture by award-winning historical romance author Monica Burns. Monica reveals details about  Rock*It Reads and gives us her take on self-publishing.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sherry Thomas burst onto the scene with PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS, a Publisher Weekly Best Book of 2008. Her sophomore book, DELICIOUS, is a Library Journal Best Romance of 2008. Her next two books, NOT QUITE A HUSBAND and HIS AT NIGHT, are back-to-back winners of Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award for Best Historical Romance in 2010 and 2011. Lisa Kleypas calls her “the most powerfully original historical romance author working today.”

Her story is all the more interesting given that English is Sherry’s second language—she has come a long way from the days when she made her laborious way through Rosemary Roger’s SWEET SAVAGE LOVE with an English-Chinese dictionary. She enjoys digging down to the emotional core of stories. And when she is not writing, she thinks about the zen and zaniness of her profession, plays computer games with her sons, and reads as many fabulous books as she can find.

For more details, please visit Sherry’s website at http://sherrythomas.com

Welcome, Damon. The class is yours!

This post follows up on a topic raised in the comments to my last visit to these hallowed halls.

When we ask people who don’t read romance novels for a definition of the genre, they tend to focus from the outside in on adjectival flamboyance: flowing tresses, creamy skin, rampant manhood, and ample everything. Else they offer nouns like “temptress” and “stud” that don’t specify much because (after all) how is this temptress different from every other? Why am I interested in this stud if the other thousand fictional studs bored me to whiskey? Trouble is, nouns and modifiers seem more tangible at first glance, but of course when we tell a story it’s the journey we remember…Not the activities, but the actions.

Not nouns, not modifiers, but verbs.

Characters are not people or things, but arcs of transformation. They do, get, make, and change things to earn that Happily Ever After. Their plots arise from those actions. As the characters grow and change believably, we come to love them and access them. By the same token, characters who remain inert and generic leave us cold. As a storyteller, modifiers encumber, nouns can become obstacles, but by definition VERBS have the power to do anything.

If I tell you a hero is “strong” or “handsome,” I’m hoping you’ll take the descriptor at face value (literally) and dig no deeper. If I assign that hero a noun like “Pirate” or “Firefighter” or “Assassin,” I’m relying on your imagination and history to do the heavy lifting by appealing to generic fantasies about those occupations. But once my hero acts like a hero on those pages, the rest is salt in the gravy. So I always want to pick the most potent, unexpected, specific verb I possibly can…an active verb that forces me to salivate and sweat and shiver.

For me, every project starts with dynamic verbs. Before I commit a word to paper, I will sit down and figure out the verbs…the line of action for my lovers and how those actions produce interesting friction: protect/destroy, purify/debase, reveal/conceal, heal/harm, disrupt/control. Those primal struggles compel our attention because of the verbs that drive them. Try and find a classic romance that doesn’t pivot on that kind of binary opposition, I double dog dare you! We can’t help but rubberneck because the dramatic question goes beyond right or wrong to the commitments and compromises the drive all great relationships. Verbs demand the story get told.

Take your central love story. For us to connect with the character, to become involved in their growth and emotions, their actions must transform them and their actions must evolve over the course of the book. Choose those verbs carefully! Focusing on the verbs also guards against the bland, “running through daisies” problem. If your main characters have verbs that overlap, how will they have any impact on each other?

Again, Austen’s Pride & Prejudice provides a perfect example: Lizzie Bennett’s obsession with protecting her family’s honor and her own preconceptions makes Austen surround her with people who tempt, shame, provoke her worst impulses: a detached father, a silly mother, a slutty sister, an amoral cad, a haughty hero. Those characters provide verbs perfect for making her progress through the story as arduous as possible; their horrible actions force her to earn her happy ending by transforming herself.

Where do these verbs come from? How do you make sure your book is filled with actions and not activities? How can you select the strongest, sexiest verb available that can sustain several hundred life-changing pages?

For my part, I believe the core verb of every character arises from their void…the wound or need within them that drives all of their actions. All characters (and arguably all people) struggle with an empty space or a dark need they cannot resist. The greater that void, the higher the stakes. That motivating lack always creates the necessary verb. If your heroine operates from a fear of exposure and scandal, then her verb might be “to disguise” or “to deceive.” If your comic sidekick’s greatest fear is silence, then his verbs could be “to entertain” or “to provoke.” Whatever your character needs will force them to behave in certain ways.

In turn that leads to your other characters/verbs. If your main character needs “to dominate” every situation then populate your book with a cast of folks who disorder, disarm, ignore that character’s actions. If you have a heroine who lives “to untangle” problems or mysteries, then give her a whole cast of meddling, fumbling, webspinners. As the author, you can solve most of your structural difficulties from the outset by unearthing verbs for all the characters that will produce the most dramatic friction.

Always amplify where possible, and that doesn’t just mean making lurid word choices. Go verb-shopping and give yourself options. This stage of character build for me always ends up as a thesaurus salad. I slosh all the options around in a bowl until I find the one that rings true, clear, bright. If you start out saying that your villain’s verb is “to punish,” you might decide “mutilate” or “torture” feel flashier, but maybe the subtler “mend” or “dissect” creates scarier, less clichéd possibilities.

But a character can’t simple “be” one word. What about variety? Your characters’ actions need to develop over the course of a story. No one wants to read about a protagonist who “flees” everything like a frantic robot. This is where we get into the issue of tactics. With my main characters, I start with a main verb for each and then add a list of potential tactics that I can use over the arc of the novel. If your ingénue’s main verb is “to polish,” that verb can take many forms in the course of the story. Polishing can be as literal scrubbing silver with a brush, as small as rubbing buttons obsessively, or as figurative as demanding plastic surgery. The accretion of those connected actions connects deeply with readers and makes characters feel real.

As another example, let’s take A Streetcar Named Desire; let’s say that Stanley’s verb is “to penetrate.” Over the course of those two-plus hours, that one verb mutates into him shredding lampshades, stripping off clothes, tearing into packaging and people, interrogating and ridiculing his family, and raping a fragile woman. All of those actions “penetrate” his surroundings. In the world of that play Stanley IS penetration, and every character around him has a verb that conflicts directly with his.

By using verbs to construct characters rather than nouns or adjectives, you build actions directly into the bedrock of your project. That motivated flow keeps your characters’ arcs believable because they are consistent without being robotic. By shifting the verb tactically, you get to explore the possibilities of each character’s goals and conflicts.

The next time you’re outlining a story or you find yourself in the weeds with a truculent plot bunny, go verb hunting. Literally list your cast of characters and provide a single verb they will inhabit for the length of the narrative. Identify the void that drives them and the verb that they hope/believe will bring them happiness. Amplify the verb you choose by looking at all the options and picking the one that resonates, escalates and refracts with other verbs in play. And then try coming up with a list of five to ten tactical variations on their essential theme.

Allow verbs to keep your characters coherent and constantly unfolding as their actions change their world and vice versa. Let your characters do, so that they can be.

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When you begin a new story, how do you get to know your characters? Have you ever used Damon’s technique? If not, will you try it?

Be sure to swing by Friday when romantic suspense author Christy Reece talks with us about crafting a new series after launching a very successful debut series. She will give away books to two lucky commenter!

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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.

Author Lynne Marshall is here with some tips on how we can deepen our characters.

Take it away, Lynne!

Strangers in the Night

Are you having trouble getting to know your characters?  Are they reaching out to you but somehow not making contact?  Beginning a book is always a time of discovery, and sometimes our characters resist our delving.  So how do we writers break down the barrier?

A couple of summers ago, I had the good fortune of extra time and enrolled in a UCLA extension writing workshop: Deepening the Characters You Create.  The instructor used personalized questions to help each participant create realistic characters with distinct histories, points of view, and value systems. The goal of the class was that we would use this gathered information to weave into our current or future story. 

I had a vague idea about three siblings, two sisters and a brother, the Grady family.  I planned to write a book for each one, and the workshop proved to be the perfect way to get to know them.

Each week we received our particular questions, which were based on the information we gave our instructor via a brief synopsis of our stories. We were instructed to answer the question in first person, as if we were the protagonist. The instructor told us to allow at least thirty minutes for the character to free flow through the answer.

I planned to write the first book about Anne, the eldest sister, as her parents’ sudden trauma and subsequent special needs forces her back home, a place she’d run away from twelve years ago. My goal in the series was for each sibling to deal with their place in the family and their own private brokenness. That meant I needed to explore that brokenness.

Professor Doctor’s questions proved to be the perfect path to reach my elusive heroine, Anne, and in the process, I also grew to know Lucas, the middle sibling, and Lark, the youngest Grady.

A sample of questions that might be helpful with your characters.

• What is your earliest memory of injustice?  Go dark.
• Can you let go of grudges and resentments? Find the shame of what the character felt.
• How did your siblings show their love growing up?
• What was the glue that held your family together?
• Did either sibling have something you desperately wanted?
• How do you cope when the pain is overbearing? (tell the story)
• Re: romantic relationships – are you competing instead of nurturing?
• How do you sabotage relationships?
• What wounds have you kept hidden, and what wounds are yet to heal?
• What gifts do you have to offer another?
• What common miracles do you forget to notice?
• What does it mean to be free?
• Where do you find comfort to avoid feeling pain?
• What makes you feel alive?
• What does contentment look like?
• When did your heart move from cold to fire?
• How has compassion and empathy for others affected your life?
• When did a crack of light creep into the darkness?
• What have you chased with urgency, passion and veracity?
• What do you miss that can’t be returned?
• What is worth fighting for?
• What do you want right now that you’re not willing to wait for?
• What questions must you have answers to?

What I Learned

By answering questions like these in first person, I was able to bring my characters from distant billowing silhouettes into full focus. Since my trilogy revolves around three siblings, their shared childhood played a huge part in each of their characters, and by examining their past, the future became clearer. I learned that Anne was the rock of the siblings, solid, practical, dependable, and blunt to a fault. Eventually she’d discover that good things come to those who wait. Always mistaken as a slacker, Lucas was cautious, inward, and loyal, but in his story as he battled post traumatic stress disorder he’d learn that out of friendship blooms the truest love. Ethereal, fragile Lark would prove herself to be capable and strong after her teenage struggle with anorexia, and as she learned and embraced her destiny, contrary to her hopes and dreams, all roads would lead back home.  In the end, that is where she and her baby were meant to be.

This one particular insight by the professor blew my mind:  “There is always one moment in childhood where the door opens and lets in the future.”

RU Crew, can you define that moment for your characters? Leave a comment for a chance to win either a medical romance backlist book from Lynne or an ebook of One for the Road.

Join us tomorrow when Alicia Rasley shares her top ten pacing tips.

Bio: Lynne Marshall writes contemporary and Medical Romance for Harlequin and The Wild Rose Press.  The first book in the Grady family trilogy, Courting His Favorite Nurse, is a March 2012 Harlequin Special Edition.  Also coming in March in e-book only is, An Indiscretion, a contemporary romance with strong medical elements, from The Wild Rose Press.

You can connect with Lynne Marshall on the Web:

Website                Facebook             RomanceWiki         Author Page

COURTING HIS FAVORITE NURSE Harlequin Special Edition, March 2012 #2178, US

Anne Grady knew better than anyone that love was complicated. When she’d left her hometown, she thought she was leaving her past heartbreak behind for good, as well. But practically the moment she returned to care for her injured parents, she stumbled headlong into their confidant—her first love, Jack Lightfoot.

Jack had been unable to deny his feelings for Annie when he was a teenager dating her best friend, and he certainly couldn’t muffle the spark twisting between them now—even if memories of the past kept threatening to push them apart. This time Jack wasn’t going to let history repeat itself—he was going to show Annie that the two of them were meant to be much more than best friends!

Buy Links:

Harlequin     Amazon                 Amazon UK               B&N              Book Depository

Have you ever noticed how some characters can grab you by the heart in the first couple of pages in a book? Those are the stories that publishers fight for and that ultimately end up on reader’s keeper shelves. These are the stories that we want to write. We know our heroes must be heroic and our heroines sympathetic, but how do we show this in the first couple of pages in a sufficient manner to catch the reader’s interest? 

There’s a screenwriter’s trick to work on the viewer’s subconscious and make them emotionally attach to the film’s characters. I learned about “rooting interests” (as in rah-rah-go-team rooting) a few years before I sold my first manuscript. At the time I dismissed the list as common sense and thus missed the power of employing rooting interests. I’ll explain how I came to realize my mistake later, but first I should tell you what a rooting interest is.

1. We care about characters we feel sorry for. (empathy)

2. We like characters with humanistic traits.

3. We like to admire the character.

Most importantly, we like someone with a mix from all three of these categories.

EMPATHY

undeserved mistreatment – undeserved misfortune (bad luck) – physical or mental handicap – frustration or humilation (embarrassment) – a moment of weakness – abandoned – betrayal – telling the truth but not being believed – exclusion and rejection (not one of the group) – loneliness and neglect – feeling guilty when one’s mistake causes pain – repressed pain – life endangerment

HUMANISTIC TRAITS

lets down his defenses in a private moment (bonus points if someone invades his privacy and humiliates him) – helps less fortunate – relates to children – children like character – patting the dog and dog likes character – change of heart – comes to the aid of a friend – risk life for another – sacrifices themself – cares for a just cause (dies for a just cause) – ethical or moral and responsible – dependable and loyal – loves other people – generous, caring act, compassion, altruistic

ADMIRATION TRAITS

power and charisma – self-confident - courage (mental and physical) – passionate – attractive – skilled (competent) – thoughtful and wise – witty and clever – sense of humor – playful – physical and athletic – wounded and continues on – unique way of living – underdog who tries hard – active rather than passive – surrounded by admirers

A listing of rooting interests is also available on Donna’s website. 

You’ll note that the list is broken into three categories:  Humanistic, Empathetic, and Admiration. It’s easy to remember these as the “other HEA.” The idea is to select several of rooting interests and work them into the pages when your character is introduced. Let me give you an example.

I doubt that we’ve all read the same books, but there’s a good chance that we’ve seen some of the same old movies. I’m going to use the movie, THE FIRM, as it was this movie that initially generated my light bulb moment. Do you remember the very first scene in THE FIRM? I’m talking the scenes that ran behind the credits. Most people don’t. They remember the interview with the Mafia’s law firm which launched the plot but that was the fifth scene in the movie. 

The movie begins with some shots to establish setting, Boston in the spring – specifically Harvard University during law firm interviews. Then it cuts to a basketball court and shows Tom Cruise in a muscle shirt with his arms extended like a guard (admiration traits – athletic & attractive). He misses a block and says “Son of a b#@@!” (humanistic) then apologizes “Sorry, your honor, that was a great shot.” Don’t we love a hero who is polite and who is playing with the “the big boys”? A little more humanistic and admiration. 

Then the scene cuts to a high stress interview. Tom is interviewing with a panel of three recruiters.  He’s wearing a cheap suit (empathetic), the recruiter says “Now Mr. so &so, I see that you are graduating in the top five percent of your class. Very impressive.” Tom interrupts and says “Excuse me, I’m one of the top five graduates, not top five percent.” Now we know that he’s competent, and has pride. He keeps looking at his watch. The interviewer says “I’m offering you a position with a starting salary of $68,000 (remember this is an old movie) …do you have somewhere you’d rather be.” Tom explains that he’s on his lunch break and he needs to get back to work. A work ethic! Don’t we love that? 

And what job does he have to go to that is pulling him from this interview – a cushy job as a law clerk? A white collar position at a desk? No. He’s a waiter in a popular restaurant. We see him carrying platters of food with a towel over his shoulder out to wealthy patrons. We love this guy and are rooting for his success. This film sequence took all of three minutes. Note – nothing of this – the basketball, the experience as a waiter, has anything to do with the actual plot of the movie. These scenes are there specifically to grab your interest and make you like this character and want to see him succeed.

Every movie is front-loaded with rooting interests. Now that you have the list, look for them. Do it with an old movie so you can be a little detached – that way you know where the plot is going and so can concentrate on the subtle things inserted to make you love the character.

Now what does this have to do with writing? One year my son gave me a copy of Nora Robert’s MONTANA SKY for my birthday.  We were driving back to the east coast for a wedding and I brought along MONTANA SKY so he could see me reading it. (I try to be a good mom). So I’m reading this story that has three half-sisters that come together for their father’s funeral. The three women have never met before and each is unique with different strengths and vulnerabilities. I’m reading and seeing rooting interest, after rooting interest, after rooting interest. I was so excited, I counted up the number of rooting interests for each sister in the first chapter. (Okay, I suppose I’m a bit OC). 

Then I looked at the first chapters of other author’s books. I kept track of the number and type of rooting interests. I also still had the Golden Heart entries that I had judged a week or two earlier. I’d already turned in my scores so my exercise didn’t affect my immediate reactions to the entries. Here’s what I found:

Bestseller authors used more rooting interests for both heroes and heroines than midlist authors.  Debut authors tended to really pile on the rooting interests for the heroine, less so for the hero. I noted I’d given higher marks to the contest entries with  higher number of rooting interests – I think because subconsciously I liked and identified with those characters more.

As to type of rooting interest, I noted that, while touching on rooting interests from  all three classifications, published authors really pile on the empathetic traits for their heroines and the admiration – especially competency – traits for the heroes.

Now here’s what I suggest you do. Take one of your favorite “keeper shelf” books. Look at the first chapter because that’s where the emotional attachment occurs. Using the list, highlight every time you see a rooting interest. Note how these are worked into the story. Note what type of rooting interests you find. Does the volume surprise you? Tell me what you find.

I review this list every time I write a book, working to slip in these qualities to emotionally grab the reader. Now that you have the list, you can too!

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Donna’s latest book, THE CASANOVA CODE, debuts June 2012.   

“A refined gentleman, age 25, of wealth and education, seeks the acquaintance, with a view to matrimony, of a high-minded, kind-hearted lady who prefers an evening of quiet conversation to the lively demands of society.” 

Edwina Hargrove knows that this “gentleman” was, in fact, Ashton Trewelyn, a rake notorious for seducing the young and naive. In fact, five decent women have already been tricked and bundled off to the continent for scandalous purposes. There was a way to thwart his scheme though—by shadowing this devilishly handsome Casanova and warning his prey. If only it were that simple.  

The closer Edwina gets to Ashton, the more she is pulled into a web of intrigues, secret societies and coded messages. Uncovering Ashton’s secrets arouses temptations only Ashton can satisfy. But at what cost? Can she gamble her reputation and secure future on an enigmatic code and a lust for adventure?

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Do the characters you’ve created possess some of the traits from Donna’s HEA categories? What character traits are important in your favorite fictional characters? 

Join us tomorrow when RU hosts our first annual Tainted Love Contest! Get your entries in by 11:59 pm PST on February 14th. Click here to enter. On Wednesday, February 15th Author Anne R. Allen presents: Introducing A Protagonist.

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Bio: Award winning author Donna MacMeans made a wrong turn many years ago when she majored in Accounting in college.  What was she thinking? Balancing books just can’t compete with crafting plots and inventing memorable characters. She finally broke free of her life as a CPA to write witty and seductive Victorian historicals for Berkley Sensation in what can only be described as her dream job.  

Her books have won numerous awards including the prestigious Golden Heart from Romance Writers of America, and the 2008 Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award for Historical Love & Laughter. Her latest release, REDEEMING THE ROGUE received a 4.5 TOP PICK review from Romantic Times Book reviews and is nominated for a 2011 RT Reviewer’s Choice Award for Innovative Historical Romance. Her next release, THE CASANOVA CODE, is scheduled for June 2012.  

When not at her keyboard, Donna enjoys painting, traveling, and creating luscious desserts. An avid reader, she also uses the analytical skills learned as an accountant to analyze novels in an effort to constantly improve her own craft – and then teaches those skills in workshops around the country. She lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband of thirty-eight years. Please contact her at www.DonnaMacMeans.com

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Art Institute in Chicago, which for me must include a swing through the Impressionist gallery. Some of those paintings are like old childhood friends. There is one gallery in particular with several Monet paintings which has been one of my favorite places on earth since I was a kid.

The display hasn’t changed much even with all the recent renovations to the museum. Along one wall are six of the haystack paintings. Another wall shows three large water lily paintings. Across from the water lilies is a wall with several paintings from the London series. Monet tended to paint the same subjects over and over again, even from the same angles — twenty-five haystack paintings, thirty of the Rouen cathedral, perhaps two hundred and fifty paintings of water lilies in his garden — and yet no two paintings are alike.

This is where the lesson lies for us today. Nobody ever said to Monet, “Geez, talk about formulaic. All these haystacks are like art for farm wives.” Yet we hear all the time that romance is formulaic and even “porn for housewives” because it examines a single subject in different varieties. That criticism is foolish, and Monet proves it.

Art, whether paintings or novels, consists of both form and content. For us, the novel is the form. It is built of language, but not just any kind of language; the novel is written in narrative prose. There is a recognized basic structure for this form (beginning, middle, end — or, if you prefer, initiation, rising action, crisis, denouement). From this basic structure, particular structural forms emerge, such as mythic quest structure and fairy tale structure, with archetypal characters beginning to take shape. From there, we can split our examination of novel form into two loose clusters of elements, story elements (plot, character, theme, setting — the things that survive a book’s translation to film) and narrative elements (action, description, dialogue, interior monologue, and exposition — the way we categorize the actual written words on the page). Even though there has been some literary experimentation with form and content, the novel’s form has held fairly steady since its inception. It’s a form that seems to work.

Content, we might say, is specific to a particular work. It’s what we put inside our form to make our specific work meaningful, or it’s what our work is about. It’s what we use to make an intimate connection to our audience. Form is “heroine,” but content is “Minerva Dobbs.” Form is “romantic conflict,” but content is, “Minerva knows Cal bet ten grand that he could get her into bed within a month, but she needs a date to her sister’s wedding so she strings him along for a few weeks.” There are other ways to define form and content, but for our purposes, form stays true from work to work, but content changes.

Photos courtesty of Wikipedia

What Monet did (and what we as romance novelists do in some ways) is extend the definition of form into areas that might otherwise be deemed content. A painter might ordinarily define his painting as “a painting of a haystack” to distinguish it from a painting of a puppy or a battlefield or a melting clock. The content in that case is what makes it unique. But with a series of paintings of haystacks, the haystack itself is as ubiquitous as the canvas, frame, or paint. It becomes part of the form. The content, then, is not puppy vs. haystack, but autumn haystack vs. winter haystack, or sunset winter haystack vs. sunrise winter haystack vs. noon winter haystack.

And so it is with romance novels. Saying that these books are formulaic because they concern themselves with romance is much like saying Monet’s paintings were formulaic because he repeated his subjects. Yes, our books are about people overcoming obstacles and falling in love. That is the form of the romance. Consistency of form doesn’t make all the works the same. What it does, instead, is free the creative mind to focus on particular aspects of the work. For Monet, it was light, season, and weather, and how those would change the appearance of a familiar object such as a haystack. For us romance writers, it’s character and conflict, what keeps people apart, what binds them as a unit.

The story begins with a heroine. She meets a hero. There’s an attraction, but there’s also something keeping them apart. How will the positive impulse overcome the negative barrier? What must the hero and heroine change in order to make that intimate connection? How do the hero and heroine know when it’s love? How do any of us know when love is real? These questions are resolved by the end of the story, which always ends happily with a committed couple.

This isn’t a formula. This is an established structure, a recognized form, and what matters is how the artist innovates within that established parameter. Innovation comes not in the big picture, but in the small details. We see shades of light within love the same way Monet saw it on the haystacks and ponds and bridges. He recorded the way weather changed the appearance of an object. We record the way the resolution of a trust issue can change the course of a life. This is an important matter, worthy of close scrutiny. That we also have a lot of fun with it says not that it’s frivolous, but that it’s satisfying and rewarding.

So the next time you hear someone scoff at romance for being formulaic, smile brightly and say, “If it was good enough for old Claude Monet, it’s good enough for me.”

Theresa

PS. Monet was also ridiculously proficient, something else he has in common with us romance writers. And people love his paintings, much the way readers snap up our books. There are benefits to innovating within a strong form. =)

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Writers, do you write out the basic structure to your novel? Do you seek out the small changes of light like Monet?

Have A Wonderful Christmas Everyone!!! Happy Holidays!

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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.

I’m a busy woman. At the moment, I work a day job, have writing deadlines to meet, do my best to keep up with my toddler, and ride herd on three boys intent on destroying a chunk of middle Tennessee with the cunning use of bottle rockets, toothpaste, and lack of personal hygiene. I don’t have a lot of spare time.

Which means I don’t get to read nearly as many books as I used to. (Please note that my lack of reading time has IN NO WAY diminished how many books I purchase. My TBR pile is ridiculous because I cannot resist the Ooh, Shiny! feeling I get when I see a cover or read a blurb that attracts my attention. Please also note that you should not feel obligated to share that fact with my husband.)

When I do get a chance to read a book, I want it to be HolyCowAwesome. I want to be totally captivated by the characters, immersed in the world, and unable to put it down because I simply have to know what happens next. If I start reading a book, and it doesn’t deliver what it promised with its Ooh, Shiny! cover and premise, I simply stop reading. I don’t have the time to soldier forward in hopes that it will somehow get better.

I know a lot of other readers who do the same. So, how do you, the writer, make sure your reader gets infected with One More Chapteritus? I’m going to take cover this topic in segments since it’s multi-layered, and since nailing THIS means grabbing a reader/agent/editor and holding them until the very last word.

In the next couple of months, I’ll dive into specific things you can do to make your story HolyCowAwesome. This month, I’ll cover a few of the things that make most readers set your book aside and move on to the next Ooh, Shiny! story in their TBR (or slush!) pile. Ready to take a hard look at your story? Here are the top ten reasons why I would set your book aside.

1. You barely skimmed the surface of your main characters. I love to sink beneath the skin of your characters and live in their heads for the duration of the book. If your heroine has the emotional capacity of block of wood, don’t expect me to care if she gets put in mortal peril in chapter twenty. At that point, chances are good I’m rooting for her to bite the big one and put us all out of our misery.

2. Every character in your book is stunningly beautiful and perfect. I have a confession to make. Stunningly beautiful/perfect characters bore me to death. If you have an entire cast of them, I’ll wonder if some cruel trick of fate has landed me in the middle of an episode of America’s Top Model. I was about to say the only thing worse than reading an episode of ATM would be doing a workout with Richard Simmons, but at least he makes me laugh.

And he’s not afraid of sequins.

3. Events happen that go against what a character would authentically do/choose simply so you can have the plot twist where you want it to twist. This a) is lazy writing and b) assumes I’m too stupid to realize you’ve hijacked your characters for the sake of sticking with your outline.

4. Your main character is never in any real danger. I don’t necessarily mean physical danger, though most of what I choose to read includes that component. Emotional danger works too. At some point, I need to worry the hero/heroine won’t get what he/she needs. I need to be afraid he/she won’t live, won’t succeed, or will be broken beyond repair. If you can’t deliver stakes like those, what’s the point of reading the story?

5. You repeat things I already know. It’s one thing to revisit an important fact/idea occasionally throughout the book. It’s another thing to SHOW me a character laughing and then fill up the next two paragraphs TELLING me the character found something funny. Give me the action and trust me to understand its implications. If more explanation is needed, do it in a way that doesn’t assume I’m too stupid to have figured it out on my own.

6. You rhapsodize endlessly about a certain feature on your hero or heroine. I love a sexy hero as much as the next girl. I don’t love endlessly reading gooey descriptions of the hero’s lips. Eyes. Jaw. Pecs. Whatever. Now, this one is certainly a matter of personal taste. I’m sure there are readers out there who enjoy having the hero’s adorable cleft chin referenced on every other page. I’m not one of them. I’m much more interested in what’s going on within the hero’s heart and mind. And I like to think the heroine is the kind of woman who’s intelligent enough to get past her initial OOOH! Cleft chin! reaction and start looking for signs of heroism beneath the external.

7. Your villain doesn’t scare me. Voldemort scared me. The killer from PSYCHOPATH (Keith Ablow) scared me. A villain who has the opportunity to cause pain and uses it instead to endlessly explain his every little move (All the better to give the hero a chance to arrive, my dear!) does not. I think it’s fantastic when a villain offers some sort of insight into the way his mind works. I just need it to be done in a way that increases how threatened I feel by him. If I’m not afraid of the villain, I don’t care about the story.

8. If I can see a convenient way out of the danger/situation, if all the hero/heroine has to do is do x instead of y and x doesn’t cost him/her anything, I’m done reading. I love to be on the edge of my seat, unable to see how the hero/heroine could either a) get out of the situation unscathed or b) pay the cost of the decision they’ll have to make. You do that, and I’m hooked for life.

9. Your ending is heavy on the exposition, light on the action. This is an easy mistake to make. You’ve got loose ends to tie up. Questions to answer. A foundation for the next book to lay. I get that. But I’ve been reading feverishly for the last two hundred odd pages to get to this point and I don’t want to sit back and read the equivalent of Driving Miss Daisy. I want action. Danger. Life-threatening/emotionally-scarring stuff. I want to be unable to put the book down because I’m so afraid the characters I know and love won’t come through.

10. Your stakes suck. For a story to really pull me in, the stakes have to matter. Really matter. I have to care deeply about the characters and the outcome of their struggle. I have to want them to make it. I have to see that the cost of them not making it is painfully high. It doesn’t actually matter if the stakes involve physical danger, saving the world, or finally making a romantic commitment to their soul mate–the stakes have to really matter to me. For the stakes to matter, you have to push the characters to their limit. You have to make me frantically turn page after page because I have this terrible fear that somehow the characters won’t pull it off.

Tune in next month to learn how to raise the stakes and make the conflict matter to the reader. Until then, I’ll be busy wrangling my four kids, writing my own HolyCowAwesome story, and searching the bookstores for the next Ooh, Shiny! to add to my TBR pile.

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So tell us readers, what makes you turn the next page, what keeps you reading when you SHOULD be in bed?

Join us on Wednesday for James Scott Bell and his special lecutre on writing The End of the Story

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Bio: C.J. Redwine writes YA fantasy and is repped by the fabulous Holly Root. Her debut novel, THE COURIER’S DAUGHTER, will be published in Fall 2012 by Balzer & Bray. To learn more about C.J., visit her blog at http://cjredwine.blogspot.com.

Also, I’ll be back tomorrow (Wednesday) to critique anything else new that’s gone up, plus any rewrites. Also, if there are any questions anyone has in general, I’m happy to answer.

page 44 THE SAINTS OF THE LOST AND FOUND

page 88-89 THE SAINTS OF THE LOST AND FOUND

POV_CHECKLIST

Feel free to ask questions!

It’s a sad fact: you—a writer—have very little time to grab a reader and do it so well, they’re compelled to keep reading. You might have as much as five pages for that first reader (the agent, or the editor), but it’s even more brutal in a bookstore. Most readers who browse, who get enticed enough to pick up the book (as a result of the title / name / or cover which pulls them in) and read the back copy (often not written by the writer) don’t even bother to open the book—their mind is often made up based on things outside the author’s control. Few authors can mandate what their covers look like, and few have title approval. A higher percentage contributes to the back cover copy, but that’s still edited to fit the space and often tweaked by people in marketing who’ve never even read the book. The one thing a writer does control is the writing, and if a browser bothers to pick up the book in the bookstore or click on an excerpt on the web, then you, as the author, have precious little time to grab their attention.

One of the first tools we have at our disposal is POV: point of view. Now, that might seem obvious, and it might seem like a surface choice. Do you write in first person? Or third? Close third or more distant third? Omniscient? Or maybe even second person? (Please don’t.) (Just my personal bugaboo.)

Those are weighty decisions that affect almost everything else you will do in the book. There are pros and cons to each, when you’re considering your story. (We’ll talk about those in a moment.) But there’s another entire facet to POV that a lot of people fail to utilize to the potential they have at hand, and that is that POV also stands for persistence of vision. In pure physiological terms, persistence of vision is defined as:

“The phenomenon where the retina retains an image for a brief split-second after the image was actually seen, and lends itself to animation by fostering the illusion of motion when we view images in closely-timed sequence to one another. We don’t notice the fractional skips between images because that persistence fills in the momentary gap to make the motion seem seamless.”

Now, technically, that specific theory is a little outdated (they have proven there are other physiological mechanisms at work to help our eye understand film as it progresses frame-by-frame), but we don’t need all of that for our purposes here. Just keep in mind the fact that there is a tendency of the eye—or our inner perceptual ability—to hang onto images in sequence which then builds a larger image, an impression of movement, an impression of reality.

This is how we build characters: image by image until we have created a series of images associated with that character. The images we choose to utilize when showing that character need, therefore, to be consistent with that character’s point of view, and that’s going to be affected by that character’s background, job, economic situation, personal histories, health, etc. – the soul of the character needs to bleed through every word choice you make while in their point of view.

Here’s what I mean by that: whether you’ve chosen first, second, third or omniscient point of view, you have to show us the character, without always telling us about the character. One of the things I see many writers—even long established writers—do that is robbing their work of impact is that they tell me a great deal about the characters as the characters show up in the scene. What that does is inform me intellectually—but it doesn’t bring the person alive, doesn’t make them feel real. If they had utilized point of view carefully, however, they could have shown me things about the character that only that character in that book would have seen in that particular way, which makes that character real. It’s a combination of point of view (whether it’s 1st, 3rd, etc.) and “persistence of vision” – how that character sees what they see and how they interpret what they’re seeing. No two characters in any book should see the world in the same exact way. None of us do in real life.

I’ll give you a couple of examples. Let’s say that there’s a small bistro in the neighborhood: worn black and white square tiles, old mahogany bar, small tables with red checkered table cloths crowded as close together as possible, vases on the tables of real flowers, probably droopy white daisies, something affordable. Every table has the typical salt/pepper shakers, ketchup, Parmesan cheese, packets of sweetener for the tea that most people order there. There are a few patrons scattered about, a bartender whose seen better days, and overhead lighting that doesn’t seem to be making much of an effort.

Okay, let’s stop there for a moment. You probably were able to see the place, because I gave you enough visual cues to lead your eye. What I also did was give you cues in the same approximate order that you would normally take in on your own, if you should walk through that door. That’s important, that order. You’ll do yourself a major favor if you think about specific powerful details as you enter the room. Ask yourself, what’s the impact point? What’s the first thing the eye grabs? It’s usually color (black and white worn checkered floor, mahogany bar, white daisies, ketchup bottles, etc.). Next, it’s lighting and space—does the space seem crowded, spacious, etc., and what is the quality of the lighting.

And even so, we’ve only done maybe half the job that we could do for that space. Because right now, you have no idea who’s seeing that space. It’s a generic description. It’s visual, sure, but when you don’t have much space to grab your reader, you’ve got to give them much more than just visual. You’ve got to give them character and attitude, too.

Here’s where I tell you the warning of how many manuscripts and scripts—when I was a screenwriter—that I read where I got several pages into a story that had lush description, and several pages in, I still did not know more about that character who was in those scenes than I did when I started the manuscript. If I can get several pages into your story and not know your character? You have failed. That’s harsh, but it’s the truth. Do not waste my time, as a reader. Do not fritter away your opportunity describing crap for the sake of “setting the scene.” Setting the scene is a waste of time if you don’t clue me in to who you’re setting the scene for / with. Whose point of view it is. Give me attitude, give me character in what they’re choosing to share with me, and you’ll pique my interest.

So let’s go back to that bistro and think about that setting. Let’s say that your main character is a cop, walking into that scene. A cop is going to see that bistro much differently than a down-and-out-of-work twenty-year-old who’s been on the grift, looking for a little cash-under-the-table job. A cop’s point of view—whether you utilize the mechanics of first person or third or omniscient—his point of view, his “vision” is going to have a specific kind of attitude, a wariness, an assessment, that is different from any other character walking into that same bistro.

We’ll use first person here. (First person is generally used when you want the reader to very closely identify with the character and not have any ability to know more than what the character knows in that moment. It’s typical of first person stories to be told through the point of view of the main character for the length of the work, but there are exceptions—a narrator, for example, or multiple first-person characters, where the POVs switch between characters, usually with each subsequent chapter.) Here the example:

I hated that damned bell on the door; every eye in the place turned toward me when I entered, and it felt like a target painted dead center mass for the few seconds it took me to move through the door, through the thick greasy smell of fried bacon and stale beer, across the scuffed checkerboard tile, to a table in the back where I could look out over the place. The lighting was crap—like it had given up trying last century and nobody bothered to notice. It made everything I had to do here tonight that much harder. Didn’t help that I couldn’t wear my vest here, and here is where I’d most likely get shot. Fucked, that’s what that was.
Murray was hunched behind the bar as usual, working a rag on some invisible spot on the bar, hardly listening to some grifter kid try his spiel about how much he needed work while he was surreptitiously trying to lift the wallet of the old man sitting next to him, just below Murray’s line of sight. I gave Murray a nod and eyeballed the kid—let him stop the idiot. I sure as hell wasn’t blowing my cover for petty theft.
The chair wobbled—this was the worst of the rickety tables. There were two college girls at my favorite spot, the one closest to the easiest exit; they were wailing about boyfriends who done them wrong, each looking to try to top the other one. I could tell ’em each that they were going to keep gettin’ crap from guys if they hung out at shitholes like this. We were three-and-a-half blocks into hell-and-gone cheap-ass territory, barely on the outskirts of ghetto. I could’ve told ’em to go over to Charlie’s, over on sixth. They had better food, better beer, slightly better idiots willing to fork over dough for the pleasure of listening to them whine. Didn’t bother though. Girls like that never learn.
As soon as I’d walked in, I’d counted seven people in the room besides me: Murray, the kid, the old man, the two girls made five. I hated the way the tables crowded together, stained tablecloths barely cleaned from previous patrons. It made moving fast, getting to my gun, just that much more of a hassle. I hated hassle. I hated a lot of things, but I really fucking hated hassle. I’d discounted the five I already mentioned as soon as I saw ’em. That meant that one of the two people left was the asshole I was looking for, the perp trying to hire a hit-man to solve a problem. I was the hit-man. Or at least, that was my role tonight. I looked it. Smelled like it—smelled like six days of booze and cigarettes crammed into one. Well, that’s how I usually looked and smelled. Probably why the sarge wanted me for the job.
Of the two people left in the room, the lady near the front window was a contender, but not likely—she just looked too worn out to give a good damn about having anyone killed. I pegged her as a cleaning lady, coming off a rough night, too tired to do much more than scrape at her burned toast and runny eggs. She had dust on her gray sweater and smudges on her too-thin face and gray eyes that looked beaten. That left the shiny happy broad over in the opposite corner. The redhead who kept reapplying her lipstick, using her mirror to scope out the room. She wasn’t completely dim, then. That’s a problem. I don’t mind stupid criminals. It’s when they’re stupid-but-think-they’re clever that someone usually gets hurt.
Lately, that someone had been me. I was battin’ a thousand in shitty luck, and tonight, I had a bad feeling.
One day, I’m gonna learn to listen to that.

Okay, not that that’s great, but I wanted to show you how that set up does several things in 645 words and what you “get” about that room is now significantly different than the generic version: 1) we know that room is being described by a very specific person with a very specific attitude, and (2) we know he’s a cop—though he never actually tells us and (3) we know he’s weighing and measuring everyone in the room, and how the room is laid out, (4) who might be carrying a weapon, (5) that he was in danger and knew it and (6) that he was going to do his job anyway. At the same time, you’ve gotten enough details to see the scene (the bistro)—and it’s the same details as what I described earlier, but it’s told with his very specific perception / attitude. That cop would count the people when he walked in, would assess the threat level, would look for ways to place himself in a position of retreat, should he need it, etc. Other patrons might not notice anything like that. Without actually telling you his attitude (I never said “he has a pessimistic attitude”), I showed it through his slant on what he saw, and how he perceived those things around him. That attitude has to be consistent throughout. Every time we’re in his point of view, we should have his persistence of vision—his specific way of seeing the world—which does more to characterize him than all of the descriptive modifiers any author could attach to him.

Let’s look at the same scene told through one of the other patron’s eyes. This time, I’ll use third person. (Third person is generally used when the author wants to convey a little bit more about the scene than a character might convey in the strict sense of “telling” the story. If an author wants the reader to know more than the protagonist knows, the author can switch to other characters’ POV—generally done now in their own sections or their own chapters—which can reveal information that creates stress for the reader, because they know more about the danger the protagonist is in than the protagonist does—yet. And the reader feels tension as the protagonist catches up to that realization.) Now, I’m purposefully not doing dialog or action here, just a section of description to show point of view. Here ya go:

It was a quaint place, as places go, for hiring a killer. She hadn’t expected it to even have tablecloths, or actual silverware. She’d done a little bit of research before agreeing to meet with the killer-for-hire here: rundown little bistro out on the edge of civility, struggling to survive in this economy. She felt for the place, really. She knew what it was to be struggling on the edge, barely able to make ends meet, trying to figure out a solution.
They’d done a fairly decent job, here: there were daisies in the vases on the tables. Sure, the vases were cheap—the kind you’d get at Wal-Mart, maybe, but there was nothing wrong with Wal-Mart. She didn’t know why people always said Wal-Mart with their noses in the air, like they were too good for the place. She bet every one of those people secretly shopped there and didn’t want to admit they were the same as regular, normal people. She just really didn’t understand people like that. Staring down their noses at perfectly good vases, for example, acting all high and mighty. People like that? Were no good. No good at all. She wanted to give them a piece of her mind, sometimes, and she bit back the words. It didn’t make for a good alibi to be the kind of person who stuck out in people’s memory as having been angry. No, no, she’d just bide her time. Her time would come.
But she liked the little white daisies. Real flowers instead of plastic. They were trying hard to be pleasing. The whole place was, really, like that waitress in the kitchen who’d looked harried, who’d worked hard to keep the tables bussed and the orders coming out quickly, who’d been crying her eyes out over something bad that had happened this past week, she’d said, as she apologized for sobbing over her order. She had wanted to soothe the girl, to empathize. Empathizing, though, made you memorable. She knew better than to be memorable.
She’d been waiting for the killer for the last hour, coming in early to get a feel for the customers—which ones were the regulars (the old guy at the bar looked like he’d grown there since the fifties… she was actually surprised when he was able to stand to go to the restroom)… and the not-so-regulars… the hussy who kept applying her lipstick, checking out the room. Probably some floozy, waiting for some woman’s husband to come along, checking out all of the angles, making sure the wife wasn’t hanging around in the shadows, about to catch them. She was probably someone in the process of breaking up a home, that hussy.
She was in the middle of thinking about changing her hired-killer order to a two-fer when the skeevy guy came in, creeping across the room like some sort of nasty beetle, his eyes shifting around, taking everything in, looking at her, passing her over as just another fixture. It was probably the dust on her sweater, the smudges on her face, the sturdy cleaning-lady shoes that had done it. It was what she’d intended, to be forgettable. Still, it rankled. She’d apparently been forgettable to Harry, too, with him cheating on her with another hussy, just like that one over there in the corner.
The skeevy guy was reflected in the big picture window, since it was dark outside. She watched him without being obvious about it, and he looked tense. He checked out everyone in the place, over and over, waiting. Nodded to the bartender about something she couldn’t see. She thought maybe he was the killer-for-hire, but there was something odd about him. Something a little too TV-villain perfect, and little warning bells went off in her head. Maybe he was a cop.
He was already making his way over to the hussy, and she watched, eating her bad eggs—they really could do a lot better in this place with a decent cook—and the skeevy guy asked the girl, “So, you looking for me?”
The girl screamed, then, and jumped up and did the damndest thing: she shot the guy. Twice. And then ran.

Okay, that’s 701 words, and we have an entirely different POV: we’re in third person, and specifically getting that person’s attitudes about life, about her surroundings, about the people there, the details that she would notice that the cop wouldn’t. We’re seeing her point of view as well as her persistence of vision: her take on that world. Nowhere does she tell us what she does for a living (but we get the details). Nowhere do I give you her slant on life, but you can tell it’s a bit schizophrenic—empathizes with the place, loves the daisies, but is obviously contemplating killing not just Harry, her husband, but some random woman who she feels is a hussy. We know a great deal about that woman just from what we see through her vision. How she sees her world and the details she picks out matter. They’re tools for you to use.

We could keep going with the other characters, playing with other forms of point of view. Omniscient has the advantage of giving us a lot more information than the protagonist usually has, and as such, can sometimes create a lot of tension (we see the bomb beneath their seat that they have no clue is there)… but it can also leave us feeling a bit detached, emotionally, from the characters if not handled very carefully. There’s also the risk of losing or confusing the reader with too much head-hopping (moving back and forth between character’s POVs)—which you can do in omniscient, but it is a real risk, and the reader has to be carefully led (the segues better be fabulous).

The pros and cons of the mechanics of point of view—which one you choose to use—have to be weighed carefully. If you want us to be in the shoes of the protagonist, then we can’t know more than he or she knows, and that in and of itself can create a lot of obstacles. One, for example, would be: how do you show important stuff that he needs to see which is a clue, but not have him pick up on the clue right now (which might mean he either looks dumb or he’d figure it out too soon and oops, the story is over). This issue definitely applies to first person, but can apply to third person, if the only point of view in the book is that one person.

The drawback to third person is that you have the ability to show some of the things the character doesn’t quite pick up on, but you run the risk of the reader being too far out ahead of the character and getting frustrated with the story as the character catches up.

The pros to using omniscient is, of course, scope: big epics, S/F/F (where there’s a tremendous amount of world-building), and period pieces can truly benefit from omniscient. The pros to first person is that immediacy of emotion / reaction—the reader tends to more closely identify with the character. The benefit of third is that you have some of the advantages of first (that close identification with the character), but you have a bit more ease in switching into another character’s point of view (and I’d generally recommend doing that with a section break or a chapter break when you make the switch, just to keep the voices of each character clear). The disadvantage to multiple point of view characters (third person or omniscient) is that, if you’re doing your job right, you’re creating different voices (styles of thinking/speaking/seeing the world) for each character. (This is not to be confused with “voice” of the overall project. That’s a different subject for a different day.) If you’re utilizing POV well—giving us the attitudes and details that only that character could give us, then when you switch into another character’s point of view, we should be able to tell it just from what they relate to us and how they are seeing their world.

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Take a few minutes to click through the links below – you’ll learn more about POV than you ever thought possible!

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Join us all week long for our POV workshop with Toni McGee Causey!

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Bio: Toni McGee Causey is the author of the critically acclaimed and nationally bestselling “Bobbie Faye” novels—an action/caper series set in south Louisiana; the series was released last summer in back-to-back publications, beginning with CHARMED AND DANGEROUS, GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE GUNS, and WHEN A MAN LOVES A WEAPON. While pursuing an MFA in Screenwriting, Toni had scripts optioned by prominent studios and, just this year, produced an indie film, LA-308, which now has offers of distribution pending. Toni began her career by writing non-fiction for local newspapers, edited Baton Rouge Magazine, and sold articles to places like Redbook and Mademoiselle. She was recently a contributor to the anthology Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans, as well as Killer Year: Stories to Die For. She has had several of her blogs syndicated nationally from the group blog, “Murderati,” and she can also be found at “Murder She Writes.”

When I decided to take workshops last year, I was amazed at the myriad of classes available. It’s kind of like being at a shoe sale. You’re there to buy a pair of sensible pumps and you end up with several pairs of shoes you don’t need. I say this because I took at least twelve workshops in 2010. While I learned something from each one, I went overboard.

Some workshops sounded fun, but they didn’t fit my current needs. Some workshops weren’t interesting enough to keep my attention. And some workshops made me question my sanity and ask myself why I wanted to be a writer. Ironically, it was these workshops that helped me the most.

The Plotting Wheel: Instructors - Becky Martinez and Sue Viders
This workshop covers the ten integral parts of plotting a story. Characters-Crusade-Cause-Complications-Companions-Clashes-Crisis-Change-Climax-Conclusion.

The class consisted of ten assignments beginning with characters and ending with the conclusion. I thought I knew my characters, their GMC and the plot. After all, it was my story. Wrong. But why, Jennifer? I heard that a lot in the first couple of weeks. Becky and Sue made me reach for the pickaxe and shovel. Why became my mantra for the next few weeks.

Why does Casey refuse to get involved with Gray?
Uh, because she’s had a string of bad relationships.
But why has she had a string of bad relationships?
Um, because she doesn’t feel worthy of being loved.
But why doesn’t she feel worthy of being loved?
Gee, because her mother’s a cold-hearted social climber with a penchant for Italian leather goods, who physically and emotionally abused Katie. (Applause)

The class forced me to dig deeper and flesh out my character’s true motivations, their attributes and flaws, the cause of their fears and needs. I was the shrink asking questions and taking notes while my characters lay on the sofa in my imaginary office and spilled their guts. The answer was there. I just had to find it. And boy, I suffered through a lot of ‘duh’ moments.

I learned the importance of fully developing my characters from the inside out. Because of this, I was able to weave their emotions and motivations into the plot more effectively and make the story more engaging. A great plot is nothing without strong characters.

Becky and Sue commented on every assignment and addressed all of the participant’s questions. I found it interesting that they each pointed out different problems when commenting on my assignments. The class handouts are definite keepers. I still refer to them to when I’m creating a character.

Synopsis Workshop: Instructor – Mary Buckham
As writers, we all know the synopsis is a permanent part of our landscape. A contest newbie, I’d noticed some contests which required a synopsis. There were several examples of synopses on-line and lots of blogs on how-to-write-a-synopsis. And they all had conflicting information.

In Mary’s class, the assignments required us to fill out a template. Each template covered one of the elements of a synopsis—characters, internal and external plots, the first plot and second plot points, the black moment and resolution. Combine the templates in their respective order et voilà a synopsis! It’s a simple, no-nonsense approach, and it’s a lot tougher than it sounds.
Answering the questions on the templates required more digging.

Again, I thought I knew my story, but Mary (a serious taskmaster, who’s also seriously nice) questioned my character’s motivations and pointed out possible plot holes. While I knew the answers, my problem was presenting them in a concise and coherent manner. By the end of class, I understood the importance of each component in a synopsis. I managed to write a 500-word synopsis for my projected 100K word manuscript. Let me tell you, amazed doesn’t even come close.

Mary also provided two different methods of writing a synopsis, one which includes back-story, derived from the internal conflict (for romance) and another, written with back-story based on external conflict (for suspense-action).

While there was a limit to the number of participants in the class, I was astonished that Mary followed everyone’s stories, gave individual feedback and patiently answered our questions. Writing a synopsis isn’t my favorite thing to do, but this class clearly defined the purpose of a synopsis and made it less scary. I completed a ten-page synopsis two weeks ago. I know I would’ve been in a straitjacket if not for this class. The handouts are the bible of synopsis writing. Learn from the master. www.marybuckham.com

Writing Hot Delicious Love Scenes: Instructor – Nicole North
A kiss isn’t just a kiss when you’re trying to convey the emotion behind that kiss, how it feels and tastes. Providing examples through written scenes and videos, Nicole combines the necessary elements of a love scene beginning with vocabulary. What you say? Well, how many different ways can one describe body parts?

One of the things I liked the most about the workshop was the way it progressed, much like a build-up to a love scene. That is, there was a logical order to the lessons. After gaining a foothold on vocabulary, we explored sexual tension, motivation, and foreplay as well as the physical and emotional aspects of sex.

I learned a lot about writing internal thoughts and deep POV, which is necessary in a love scene. What are your characters thinking about during intimacy? Is your heroine mentally balancing her checkbook while the hero’s thinking she’s the next best thing to the NFL cable channel and a cold six pack? Does your heroine have an emotional response in addition to her physical one? If there’s one thing that stuck with me, it was how a love scene wasn’t really about the sex, rather how the act affected the character’s emotions and how it added to the conflict.

This was my first workshop. It taught me how to write a well-balanced, emotionally satisfying love scene through the use of dialogue (establishes the personality of the character) and the senses (very important), deep POV and internalizations (get inside his/her head), and humor (personalizes the scene).

I’ll admit I’m shy about having people read my stuff. However, Nicole created a comfortable environment for the class participants to share their assignments. I’ve taken two other workshops from Nicole, Sexual Tension and Instinctive Characterization, which were well worth my time.

A gifted and enthusiastic instructor, Nicole gives plenty of feedback and patiently answers everyone’s questions. I’ll share a secret with you….the class handouts alone are worth the price of the workshop.
Nicole’s teaching a workshop beginning February 1st on Description and Detail: Bringing Your Story to Life. www.nicolenorth.com

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Are you still with me? Let’s talk shop! Tell us about some of your favorite or most useful workshops.

On Wednesday, join us for an interview with world traveler and author Loucinda McGary.

Jen’s Bio:

Jennifer Tanner writes contemporary romance with a sprinkle of humor. By the time she was ten, she’d read through the entire children’s section in the bookmobile and began forging her mother’s signature in order to check out adult-themed books. After twenty-five years in the transportation business, she now writes full-time and fantasizes about a spotless house and perfect risotto.Currently finishing her first manuscript, Jennifer is a member of the RWA and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two cats.

If you saw yesterday’s wonderful post – and who didn’t? – you’re going to LOVE our workshop today! Toni will be stopping by throughout the day to answer questions about POV and comment on your snippets. Only 2-3 lines please! Get out your masterpieces and let Toni have a look-see. =)

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Join us on Monday when Jennifer Tanner talks shop about her favorite writing workshops.

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Bio: Toni McGee Causey is the author of the critically acclaimed and nationally bestselling “Bobbie Faye” novels—an action/caper series set in south Louisiana; the series was released last summer in back-to-back publications, beginning with CHARMED AND DANGEROUS, GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE GUNS, and WHEN A MAN LOVES A WEAPON. While pursuing an MFA in Screenwriting, Toni had scripts optioned by prominent studios and, just this year, produced an indie film, LA-308, which now has offers of distribution pending. Toni began her career by writing non-fiction for local newspapers, edited Baton Rouge Magazine, and sold articles to places like Redbook and Mademoiselle. She was recently a contributor to the anthology Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans, as well as Killer Year: Stories to Die For. She has had several of her blogs syndicated nationally from the group blog, “Murderati,” and she can also be found at “Murder She Writes.”