Welcome back, Theresa!

This month we continue our line editing series with an entry that gives us a chance to talk about content editing as well as line editing. Let’s start by reading the full excerpt.

Sienna Edwards loved the feel of power and the roar of the engine right beneath her. She easily moved through the thick Chicago traffic on her beloved Suzuki Hayabusa. She didn’t know of any more powerful feeling in the world than the wind rushing through her long curls and the honks from upset drivers.

Thoughts whirled around inside of her head and as usual were spinning out of control on her birthday. A horrible day to her if she had to be honest about it. Normally everyone got older and that hadn’t been what bothered her, it was the past birthdays, or the lack thereof. Life wasn’t always as peachy as people thought, but she was determined to have fun on this particular birthday, finally being able to spend it with friends that truly cared.

Through the thick fog that settled throughout the city, Sienna could finally make out her destination from a distance. The club Diablo announced itself to the world with glowing red lights and the flashlights that seemed to make it all the way to the sky. Since her and her friends knew the owner, they were frequent visitors. The fact that her kind could also feel completely safe there, only added to its appeal.

With a motorcycle, curbside parking did not take long to find. Before she managed to perch the bike and start walking towards the entrance, Sienna pinned her hair back in a messy bun with a handy chopstick that rested between her breasts.

Glares definitely lingered on her small but endowed figure which had been accented by the tight black leather pants, the knee high stiletto boots, and the tight black V-neck t-shirt that showed the top of her breasts. Men were definitely attracted to her, which she enjoyed, though didn’t let on. After one look from her in their direction and the whole group of guys that stood smoking and waiting to get in, averted their eyes.

“Hey my lady,” the bouncer smiled as she walked up. James, one of her own, knew her since before the bar even opened. The fact that he called her his lady always flustered everyone else. James, being a man easily over six feet tall with muscles that gave Schwarzenegger a run for his money, could definitely be mistaken for a common convict. Tough though he may be on the outside, Sienna knew all too well how a gentle of a soul he could be.  His mate being one to attest to that fact first and foremost. Cutting through the entire line, to a mass of groans and some appreciating whistles, she stood before him.

“Hey James. Not being too mean I hope,” she motioned towards the line before giving him a slight peck on the cheek.

“Nah, you know me. Just wanna build the suspense up a bit,” he smiled wickedly, “but you go on and have fun. Lauren and Sonya area already waiting for you,” he said lastly and turned his attention to the next guy in line causing trouble. No one could get past James especially with his hunter senses.

My first response to this is that it’s inconsistent. Sienna could very well end up being an interesting character, but in this specific moment in time, she’s not as clear as we want her to be. The line editing in cases like this has to start with something more akin to content editing. We have to examine the way the character is coming across on the page, and we have to do what we can to shape her up – but on a sentence and paragraph level rather than on a scene and story level.

Take another look at the first two paragraphs. Look at them separately, and then look at them together.

Paragraph 1:

Sienna Edwards loved the feel of power and the roar of the engine right beneath her. She easily moved through the thick Chicago traffic on her beloved Suzuki Hayabusa. She didn’t know of any more powerful feeling in the world than the wind rushing through her long curls and the honks from upset drivers.

Okay, so (ignoring for the moment the line editing concerns), this is a paragraph about a woman who feels free and powerful on a motorcycle. There’s something uplifting and bold about her in this moment. Because of the repetition in power and powerful, we might decide she’s an ambitious, power-hungry person. Because of the repetitions in loved and beloved, we might also decide she’s a force for good, maybe even big-hearted.

But then we get to paragraph 2:

Thoughts whirled around inside of her head and as usual were spinning out of control on her birthday. A horrible day to her if she had to be honest about it. Normally everyone got older and that hadn’t been what bothered her, it was the past birthdays, or the lack thereof. Life wasn’t always as peachy as people thought, but she was determined to have fun on this particular birthday, finally being able to spend it with friends that truly cared.

This is not the same character from paragraph one, is it? This character is mopey, overwhelmed, maybe a little self-pitying, though she’s trying to overcome it. She has bleak thoughts, which she might be trying to replace with more positive thoughts, but nevertheless, this paragraph is packed with a kind of gloominess. Spinning out of control, horrible day, feeling gypped on past birthdays, life isn’t peachy – these add up to a negativity that seems hard to reconcile with the power-lover from the first paragraph.

So what is the character’s dominant mood in this moment? The reader won’t know because the text hasn’t told her. The character could be exhilirated from the ride, or she could be the determined-to-be-cheerful sad girl from the second paragraph. Because it’s unclear, the reader will have a harder time bonding with the character. So the first step here is to figure out what she’s really thinking and feeling in this moment, and stick with it. The character might be complex enough to feel everything currently on the page, but that kind of complexity is best developed over the whole text.

Next up, paragraphs 3 and 4 – which I won’t repeat here – focuses mainly on the fact of travel to a destination. It’s my standard practice, when an author presents a first scene with travel details, to cut most of this run-up material and start at the moment of arrival. Some editors might let this kind of short leading material to stand, but I usually won’t. The moment of arrival is almost always going to be more interesting than the moments of travel, and the descriptive details can be blended into the actual arrival. So I would cut most of what’s in these two paragraphs, though some of the details might be seeded into the rest of the scene.

One option might be to start with the moment she parks the motorcycle – that way, you still get the motorcyle into the text – and go from there. Establish her dominant mood in the first paragraph, and don’t dilute it with material that doesn’t support that mood. For the purposes of demonstration, I’m going to choose “determined to have fun” as her dominant mood in the revised excerpt below.

You can use the conversation with James to bring out the fact of her birthday, and some of the other details can be salted in along the way, too. But you don’t need to explain a lot at this point. Your goal is to hook the reader and build a quick bond, and a little bit of mystery will help with that.

Just for an example, I’m going to take a swing at this. But this is for demonstration only. I’ll use your words as much as possible, but I’m going to trim and tighten quite a bit so that the focus is on the action and interaction.

Sienna Edwards perched her beloved bike, a Suzuki Hayabusa, next to the curb and walked toward the club entrance. The club Diablo announced itself to the world with glowing red lights and the flashlights that seemed to make it all the way to the Chicago sky. Sure, she came here all the time, but tonight was different. It had to be. With a determined little sigh, Sienna pinned her hair back in a messy bun with a handy chopstick that rested between her breasts.

The group of guys that smoked and waited in line lingered on her small but endowed figure which had been accented by the tight black leather pants, the knee high stiletto boots, and the tight black V-neck t-shirt that showed the top of her breasts. Men were definitely attracted to her, which she enjoyed, though didn’t let on. Not even tonight, not even when her one and only goal was pleasure. She cut through the entire line to a mass of groans and some appreciating whistles, until she stood before the heavily muscled bouncer.

“Hey, my lady.” James, one of her own shapeshifting kind, had known her since before the bar even opened.

“Hey James. Not being too mean, I hope.” She motioned towards the line before giving him a slight peck on the cheek.

“Nah, you know me. Just wanna build the suspense up a bit.” He smiled wickedly. “But you go on and have fun. Lauren and Sonya area already waiting for you. They tell me it’s your birthday.”

“Yes, and for a change, I thought I’d have a fun birthday. You could say I’m determined.”

“Uh-oh. And we all know, what my lady wants, my lady shall have.”

See, now the premise has been established. It’s her birthday. She is approaching it as a task to be accomplished: Have fun on my birthday, for a change. We don’t know why she has this attitude, but at this point, any explanation would slow down the pacing of the narrative. So skip the explanation. Establish the facts, and get the scene moving. Use James to throw in some details, and get to the interior of the bar more quickly. You can keep the sexual interest from the men in line because that accomplishes two purposes: it gives us a little bit of character description, and it establishes the fact of her sexual power. We lost a small sense of her love of power when we cut the paragraph about riding the motorcycle, so this reinserts it in a different way.

The revised opening has a clearer emotional content and a faster pace. I think it works better, don’t you?

***

RU Crew, do you have any questions for Theresa regarding her suggestions? 

On Monday, Jessica Scott tells us how an Army company commander became a romance writer. 

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.

This month we continue our line editing series with an entry we are told is YA fantasy.

Chapter One – A Mother’s Sacrifice

We haven’t made it past the chapter heading, and I already have to pause for comment. There’s a tendency with new-ish YA writers to focus too much on the adults and not enough on the kids. Because we’re told that this chapter will be about the actions of the mother, I’m already wondering if this book will fall into that trap. I will be watching as we read for evidence that the young people are the central characters.

Midnight, 30th September, 1509

Serena wanted to run.

This is a little vague. You can run to something or run from something, and these are very different kinds of activities. If I were line editing this for publication, I would make a note requesting the author clarify this sentence by completing the sentence, or perhaps by revising it.

The hourglass stood on the altar stone in the centre of the clearing. A cruel wind sliced through the trees, stinging Serena’s hands and drawing tears from her eyes, but that was a welcome sensation: at least, for now, she could feel.

Good sense of setting and emotion and tension, but I still want to tinker with this. The colon sounds the wrong tone for this kind of prose. It’s too formal. I’m also not wild about that pair of present participial phrases in the middle of the compound sentences. It’s not the trees stinging and drawing, even though the ordinary rules of sentence structure tell us that those phrases modify the trees. It could be read as a cumulative modifier except that the trees still get in the way of our interpretation. I would reference the trees in the first sentence and get them out of the middle of this sentence. So the new paragraph would read,

The hourglass stood on the altar stone in the centre of the forest clearing. A cruel wind stung Serena’s hands and drew tears from her eyes, but that was a welcome sensation. At least, for now, she could feel.

“Take the glass,” the witch instructed. “Turn it once and see that you have controlled time.”

On first reading, it wasn’t clear to me that these instructions were directed at Serena, so I would add the object to the dialogue tag.

It felt like ice in Serena’s trembling hand as she turned it. Beneath its surface, the rushing sands of time slowed to a trickle and were still.

That first sentence lacks the impact it probably ought to have. Despite the hand/cold, it’s a bit disembodied, perhaps because of the two uses of the pronoun it. Also, felt is a weak verb, which is a surprise because most of the other verbs in these two pages are robust and strong. And the sentence feels a bit rushed. We don’t get a sense that Serena believes this act to be momentous because she rushes to follow the instructions without hesitation. And we don’t know the goal of the magic — which is fine at this point, and actually raises the tension level, except that the lack of emotional context from Serena in this instant further undermines that first sentence’s impact.

The solution is to slow down that moment and reel out the details. Ordinarily, I would notate this to ask the author to expand the moment. Just for an example, here is something that might work.

Hesitation would be dangerous. Still, her trembling hands stretched toward the hourglass, more slowly than the witch would like but certainly more quickly than Serena preferred. Her heart fluttered as she lifted the hourglass, heavier than it looked and as cold as the witch’s heart. She turned its icy weight. Beneath its surface, the rushing sands of time slowed to a trickle and were still.

She replaced the hourglass on the sacrificial rock.

I think the actions in these last two paragraphs are out of order. I think she has to replace the hourglass on the altar before she checks the one in her pocket. So I would reverse these two pieces, and I think that single-sentence paragraph makes a nice offset conclusion to the tense actions in the stretched-out paragraph that precedes it.

As to the second paragraph, I’m again troubled by the structure of the first sentence with its present participial phrase. Good writers shun this structure, and with good reason. These phrases are adjectives. This means that they must be used to modify nouns. Adjectives go next to the nouns they modify, which means that this sentence’s structure literally means that the pocket is reassuring. Obviously, this isn’t what the writer intends. Instead, she intends to indicate that the first action (reached) serves the purpose of reassurance. For that reason, I would revise that sentence like this,

Serena reached into her cloak pocket to reassure herself that the second hourglass was tucked inside.

It’s a small change with a big impact, and I would put it in the category of a mandatory grammar change rather than an optional style change. The next sentence in the paragraph flows neatly from this first sentence, though I do wonder if we ought to have some indication about whether the second hourglass is secret. This might not be necessary. In sentence three, I would cut the phrase at the thought, which is redundant. The point of view is deep enough and the action is clear enough that we know Serena is the one thinking, and we can see the causation because nothing interrupts the action of the second sentence and the reaction of the third sentence.

This leads us to the fourth sentence in this paragraph.

Such a mistake would cost thousands of lives and rob her of her children… again.

There are two issues here. The first, and more minor, is that the ellipsis is being used to provide cadence. This is not a good use for ellipses, which ordinarily should signal either missing information or a trailing off of dialogue or interior monologue. This kind of emphasis ellipsis, much like scare quotes, multiple exclamation points, and emphasis capitalizations, is acceptable in modern, casual communication such as social media posts or emails between friends. In a book set in the 1500s, though, it sounds a too-modern note. And even in a contemporary-set book, you’re better off using diction to create cadence. So I would cut the ellipsis. Even a period would be better.

The second issue with this sentence is that we now know Serena is an adult, old enough to have children of her own. As it stands now, we understand her to be the main character because we started in her pov. We understand that her main problem is that she has been separated from her children, and this ritual is meant to get them back. This is reinforced by the next two paragraphs.

“Alasdair,” the witch continued, “you, too, must control the passing of time.”

Serena glanced at her husband; his eyes, like hers, were wet. He turned the glass and set it down again. Then his hand found hers, and their fingers intertwined as they embraced this final, physical memory together. In marrying him, she had bound him to this fate. She wore her guilt like an open wound.

She’s married. Her husband is going through this ritual with her. She feels guilt about whatever she did to land them in this situation. And that semicolon in the first sentence should be edited out, but I’m no longer focused on the line edits now because I’m facing a bigger concern. This might not be a suitable story for this genre. YA books ordinarily don’t take adults as protagonists. It’s possible that this scene is a prologue of sorts, and that the action will shift away from Serena and to a more suitable protagonist. But if that’s not the case, then my advice to this writer would focus more on the substantive concerns than the line editing concerns.

Nevertheless, I would describe this piece as competently written. If I were reading this as a submission, at this point, I would pause reading to check the synopsis. I would be looking for specific evidence that the book becomes more genre-appropriate after this first scene. If I found that evidence, I would be inclined to keep reading because the line editing concerns are fixable. The story has a good sense of tension. The scene is set well. The pace is generally good. It’s not a bad piece at all, and the changes we’ve made are minor.

Putting it all together, we get,

Chapter One – A Mother’s Sacrifice

His eyes, like Serena’s, were wet. He turned the glass and set it down again. Then his hand found hers, and their fingers intertwined as they embraced this final, physical memory together. In marrying him, she had bound him to this fate. She wore her guilt like an open wound.

***

Do you see why Theresa made the suggestions she offers here? If you have any questions, post them in the comments below.

On Monday, JENEL LOONEY and SHERIDAN STANCLIFF discuss outsourcing business tasks. Join us! Enjoy your weekend, and have a Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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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.

The classroom is yours, Franzeca!

One thing I’ve noticed in working with authors of historical romance is that we tend not to have an instinctive grasp of pre-mechanized transportation. The food, clothing, language that we use today are recent descendants of Regency times, and mostly manageable (with the exception of our casual reference to Freudian terms and modern psychology, which can be circumvented by careful language choices.) But our sense of travel and distance is so unlike the reality of 200 years ago that it’s often hard to get everything right. You have someone on horseback who needs to speedily dismount. But you HAVE to do something with the horse—tie it to something, hand the reins to someone. You can’t trust that it will stay in place like a parked car. A coachman cannot descend and knock on a doorway for you for the same reason: someone has to stay with the horses. You cannot assure your characters of good roads, sound horses, indestructible carriages, and an absence of highwaymen, though any deviation from the ideal can provide excellent plot twists. We forget that people walked to their destinations, often many miles away. Remember Lizzie Bennet’s determination to walk to Netherfield to see an ailing Jane? We tend to dismiss the process of the journey as something negligible between two places, but it was a Huge Deal in early 19^th Century Britain. Huge.

For reasons of space limitation, I’m continuing this discussion on my website.

Here’s a link to a recent question I had about travel times:

http://franzeca.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/questions-about-travel-times/

Here’s the bulk of my information about travel in Regency times, including where travelers could stay overnight. It’s rather long, sorry, and has a list of useful websites that also have information about 19^th Century travel.

http://franzeca.wordpress.com/romance-university/

And here’s a link to my collection of travel books:

http://franzeca.wordpress.com/sources/travel/

The thing I want to talk about most is the oldest and most expensive book in my collection of reference books. The sticker, still attached to the inside of the front cover, indicates it’s the 15^th edition, includes eight maps, and costs 12 shillings. In the back, it advertises itself available in a “pocket size…for the convenience of travelers on horseback” and costs a mere four shillings. I bought mine a few years ago for £100 from a little bookstore in England, and I’m currently celebrating the 200^th birthday of my copy of Paterson’s Roads. That’s what the gilt letters hand-tooled on the spine show, though the complete title is A New and Accurate Description of the Direct and Principal Cross Roads to England and Wales and Part of the Roads of Scotland, by Daniel Paterson, Lieutenant-Colonel and Assistant Quarter-Master-General to his Majesty’s Forces. I saw a photo of a first edition, from 1771, and already Paterson’s Roads was on the spine, the beginning of the AAA travel book of pre-railway Britain. University libraries frequently have a copy of the book, and I’ve seen that it has finally been reprinted, and is available on Amazon for considerably less. Interestingly, the reprint is also the 15^th edition, which Sir Herbert George Fordham refers to as “the final edition of the original work.” Paterson himself was no longer associated with the writing or publication of the book after 1785, and lawsuits ensued as to whom actually held the copyright. The final, eighteenth, edition was dated 1826 and 1828, with undated copies printed in 1829 and 1832. So, Paterson’s Roads faded into the sunset just as the age of the railway dawned.

Very little is known about Paterson, other than the dates on his tombstone. He was born 1738, and became a commissioned officer in 1765; I presume he purchased his commission. He spent his entire career attached to the Headquarters Staff at the Horse Guards, and never did active service or regimental duties. He retired as an Assistant Quartermaster-General of the Forces at the end of 1812. He was then named Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, a post he held until his death in 1825, at the age of 85. The post was apparently a sinecure, as he never went to Canada, and the duties were probably neglected or performed by poorly-paid deputies in Canada.

The book itself is a wonder, the cover still square and sturdy. The hand-made (?first mechanical paper presses in England were installed in 1803,)  paper, all deckle-edged, the elegant type, in different sizes to indicate different information, roman, bold and italic, all hand-set. I like to think that Lizzie Bennet and the Gardiners had a copy they used to locate the sights and gentlemen’s residences they visited during their tour of the Lakes.

The main part of the book is a listing of roads, mostly from locations (posting inns?) in London, to various cities all over England, Wales and some of Scotland. And each list carefully names each hamlet passed en route, the direction of each crossroad, the distance between each named settlement, the distance from the starting point of the journey (in London), which towns have a posting house where fresh horses can be obtained (if there’s only one posting inn, the name is given) and the market day for that town. Running parallel to that are various description of sights, natural and architectural, to be seen in the area, gentlemen’s homes to be visited, and historical factoids.

In the back of the book is an index to all the country seats, by name of house or estate, or gentleman proprietor, occupying 50 pages. There’s a table giving the elevation of various hills and mountains encountered on the route. Next, there a list of all the towns where the post coaches stop, including the time of their arrival and return on their circular routes. (No need to give the departure time, as that will be mere minutes after the arrival.)

At the end is a very interesting schedule of the packet boats that take the British mail overseas, though the asterisk attached to the schedule for Holland and France noted “except in time of war.” I wrote to the British post office about this, and they confirmed that, indeed, mail delivery continued sporadically to France during the Napoleonic Wars. Packet boats also went to Ireland, the Channel Islands, North America, (via Halifax, except during the winter, when it went straight to New York,) Prussia, and the West Indies. I couldn’t find out if they took passengers, though I would think they would have room, and like the post coaches, it would be a good revenue source.

So, yes, give your Regency characters a copy of Paterson’s, and send them on their way. They’ll have a splendid adventure.

***

RU Crew, how many of you have a favorite rare book you’d like to share? Have you ever considered writing a Regency historical? For our readers, did you know so much had to go into writing a Regency-set (any historical-set) novel? Franzeca is an expert at all-things historical, so if you have a burning question, please feel free to ask.

For added fun, as part of Romantic Suspense Week at Carina Press, Adrienne and two of her Carina author pals, Betsy Horvath and Dee J. Adams, are doing a book giveaway.  Here are the deets:

The first reader to collect all the clues in the Carina Press scavenger hunt and PRIVATELY email Adrienne the code will win one copy of Man Law, the first release in the Private Protectors series, as well as Dangerous Race by Dee J. Adams and Hold Me by Betsy Horvath. Please do not post the code in the comments section. We’re trying to make this an entertaining week and giving the code away will spoil the hunt.  So, if someone forgets and places the code in the comments section, Adrienne will remove it.

Go forth and find those clues gang.  Good luck!

Be sure to stop back on Monday for author Pamela Callow’s lecture.

***

Franzeca Drouin has worked as an editor and/or researcher on more than forty books. She is very much looking forward to having her wicked way with the next forty. In her spare time, she cooks, gardens in tiny spaces, sings, loves cats, and struggles with sudokus. You can find more information about Franzeca at http://franzeca.wordpress.com.

This month, we’re taking a question from the mailbag. This one was sent in by Pauline Allen.

Regarding POV, do publishers prefer two person POV or is singular deep POV acceptable?

Pauline, although most romance publishers want scenes in the hero’s viewpoint, the proportions of hero POV to heroine POV vary somewhat depending on your target market. So let’s use this question as an opportunity to take a closer look at submission guidelines.

When a publisher is concerned about the number of scenes from the hero’s viewpoint, the guidelines will reflect that. For example, let’s take a look at the guidelines for the Silhouette Desire line, found at:

http://www.eharlequin.com/articlepage.html?articleId=553&chapter=0

Buried in the paragraph about the ideal Desire hero, we see a clue about POV proportions. “The Desire hero often has fewer scenes from his point of view, but in many ways, he owns the story.” How do we interpret this? Let’s break it down.

1. The hero has scenes from his POV.
2. But the heroine has more POV scenes.
3. This means we need more than 50% from the heroine’s POV, and fewer than 50% from the hero’s POV.
4. This is important enough to rate mention in the guidelines.
5. Scenes from the hero’s POV should be strong and purposeful. (He “owns the story.”) Don’t just switch because it might be time to switch.

So now you know, if you’re targeting Silhouette Desire, one possible interpretation of those guidelines. For contrast, let’s take a look at the submissions guidelines at Avon, found at:

http://www.avonromance.com/2010/03/19/avon-romance-submission-guideline/

You can search this page a long time and never find any tips about point of view. Does this mean they don’t care about the hero’s POV and you can safely skip it? Not necessarily. It just means they don’t feel so strongly about it that they’ll make it a formal guideline. But keep in mind that there are real people with preferences and opinions going through the submissions inbox. They’re highly trained and sensitive to market preferences. They know what they want, and they know what works for their readers, even if it’s not carved into the guidelines.

So how do you determine what their preferences might be? Check the line. If you’re targeting their historical line, scan some of the titles and look at the range of POVs. For example, Stephanie Laurens, a bestselling Avon author, sometimes has more than half the scenes in the hero’s POV. So we know that Avon historicals will at least consider a hero-heavy book. Will they consider a book with a single POV? Look through their current titles and recent backlist, and you’ll get some idea of that.

I think that your study of guidelines and current titles will show you that most romance publishers release books with scenes in both hero and heroine POVs, and few release books in single POVs. Why is that? Because it takes two (or more) to make a match. These stories aren’t about the adventures of one person, but about the formation of a bond between two people (or more – I keep adding that “or more” because of the popularity of polyamorous erotic romances). Readers don’t want to worry that a character is alone in the relationship. They want to see the bond develop from all sides.

But if the story has more to do with one character’s personal mission – some women’s romance or chick lit would fit this pattern – then a single POV is more appropriate. In that case, though, the story is probably not a romance even if it has romantic themes or threads.

All of which is to say: know your book. Know what you’re writing, your target market, your potential audience, and your potential publishers. And then you’ll know if you need to slant your story in any particular way, whether with POV choices or with changes to some other element.

* * *

RU Crew, have you ever scratched your head over submission guidelines? Feel free to pick Theresa’s brain today!

Be sure to stop by Monday when the one-of-a-kind Anne Stuart will join us!

Theresa’s 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.

Very commonly, writers want to know what separates the publishable-but-ordinary book from the publishable-and-great one. The answer is that there are many markers which separates an almost-great from a great. Point of view, tension, voice – give any two writers the same set of story elements to work from, and the better scene will come from the author with better control over those elements. And it’s not exactly a secret. We talk about these things pretty frequently.

One marker of excellence which we talk about less often, though, is setting. Your choice of setting and the way you manipulate it can have a powerful impact on the way the scene reads. Here are my top tips for writing a well-set story.

Don’t Use Block Descriptions

A character walks into a room and describes the furniture and walls and windows for a five-sentence clump of text. The entire story comes to a dead stop for this description. Nothing happens. The cast is frozen on the stage while the spotlight moves from the couch to the draperies. This kind of description is a pace-killer, and what’s more, it’s almost always unnecessary. Instead of block descriptions, drop in setting details when they become relevant to the scene action. The couch doesn’t matter until someone sits on it, and that’s when you can safely reference it.

Don’t Narrate Ordinary Details

They’re in the bedroom, so you describe the bed. They’re in the dining room, so you describe the table. Why? It’s probably a safe assumption that bedrooms have beds in them and dining rooms have tables in them. Is there any need to elaborate? Probably not, and if you spend page space on unsurprising details like this, you’re at risk of boring the reader.

But Do Describe the Unusual Details

Now, if that dining room table is built from the bones and skins of the villain’s victims, then it might be worth a mention. Don’t think of the ways your character’s rooms are typical – a blue sofa in the living room, a roller shade over the bedroom windows – unless the point is that your character is so ordinary as to avoid particular notice. Instead, look for the unique personal details that would act like conversation pieces in real life. These are the things that stick out in an ordinary environment, and they can be described in your book without a loss of tension or reader interest.

And Do Show When the Environment Changes

Your character is ordinarily as tidy as a surgeon, but on this occasion, his desk is a litter of paper, pens, clips, and there’s even a plate with a dried-up half sandwich in one corner. Sure, we expect to see desk items on a desk, so the paper and pens, at least, ordinarily wouldn’t rate a mention. But in this specific case, they’re worth describing because they create tension. “Something is different. Something has changed. Something might be wrong here.” Throw in the nasty leftovers, and we know it’s more serious than just a busy day. He’s so busy that he’s distracted. Forgetting to eat. Willing to attract vermin rather than clean up his lunch. And we instantly want to know why.

This trick works best when character has already been established, but it can also be used with minor and new characters. Just make sure you communicate to the reader that this setting detail is unusual, or build in other contextual details that connect to the emotion you’re trying to raise.

Do Opt for Unusual Settings

Sex in the bedroom? There are times when a bedroom setting is necessary and says something about the plot and characters. Think, for example, of the couple in an erotic romance that sneaks sex everywhere and anywhere but pretends they’re not emotionally invested in each other. Doing it in a bed for the first time might signal an emotional acceptance of the true nature of their relationship. In that case, the ordinary setting advances the internal plot and becomes meaningful.

But in ordinary cases, don’t just automatically put the sex scene in the bedroom, the dinner scene in the dining room, the picnic in the park, and so on. Take a moment to question why the scene is set in this location. Brainstorm a list of possible settings – they don’t have to be logical or even likely, but taking a moment to think through the geography of the characters’ world will soon show you that there are almost infinite setting possibilities. The simple act of picking an unexpected setting can make a reader more alert and engaged, even when the setting isn’t particularly important to the plot.

Do Let Characters Interact With Setting

They kick at rocks in the street. They fuss with decorative items on the coffee table. They fiddle with the radio dial in the car. When we say, “Give your characters something to do in this scene,” we’re not always talking about turning them into gardeners and chefs while they have important conversations with other characters. Sometimes, the solution is to have the character signal his internal state with the way she moves through the world around her. Keep the main focus on the character interaction, but incorporate setting details with action and emotion.

An added benefit of this technique is that it will help you avoid cliched gestures. A hand through the hair when frustrated? Or shredding a tissue into careful squares? Which feels more fresh? The second, I think. Don’t you agree?

* * *

What other setting tricks do you use? Do you have any examples of a setting which was particularly interesting or well-written?

Join us on Monday when Mills and Boons New Voices contest finalists Leah Ashton and Heidi Hormel share their after the contest stories.

Theresa’s 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.

Hi, Carli,
Great question! I agree that emotion is a critical element in not just romance, but in all good stories. And yes, I also agree that there can be too much emotion. This is sometimes called melodrama or sentimentality, and it can be a real turn-off for readers. But the truth is that in all those years of scouring the submissions inbox, I rarely saw a melodramatic manuscript, but I saw heaps of manuscripts that were flat or inappropriately subdued. So for most writers, you don’t have to worry about how much is too much.

Instead, think about ways to get more emotion into each scene, line by line. Here are my top ten tips to help you achieve this.

1. First and most important, get your reader invested with your characters and their situations. This generally means three things: a worthy goal, a dire consequence, and a character we want to see succeed. If any of those three pieces is missing or inadequate, the reader’s emotional investment will suffer.
2. Modulate the emotion over the course of scenes and sequences. A steady stream of shrill anger, for example, will soon numb the reader. But building peaks and valleys into the expression or experience of that emotion will give it more impact.
3. Vary the emotions themselves. We tend to focus on lust, anger, suspicion, and of course, love itself. But this is a tiny subset of human emotion. Incorporate a variety, and you’ll instantly have “more” emotion, quite literally.
4. Use contrasting emotions against each other to heighten the impact of each. Remember the line from Steel Magnolias, “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion”? Pairing the heartbreak with the laughter made each feel more poignant.
5. Don’t shorthand important emotional moments. Naming an emotion is probably the most common form of emotional shorthand. (She said angrily, he appeared baffled, she felt anxious, etc.) This is weak writing, though it’s appropriate for moments when you want to downplay the significance of a character’s reaction and move on quickly to other things.
6. Focus instead on action and dialogue to convey emotion. Emotions often have physical components and lead us to say particular things. Let the emotions shine through these details.
7. Interior monologue can also convey an emotion, not by focusing on the emotion itself but by focusing on the facts that give rise to the emotion. Compare: 1- “I feel very determined to leave this house.” 2- “If Carson thinks he can keep me from going out just because of a little rain, well, let him try to stop me!” Second one has more impact, right?
8. Avoid cliches. This one might seem like a no-brainer, but really, I don’t ever want to read about a man shoving his hand through his hair out of frustration. When an action is this overused to convey an emotion, the emotional impact is flattened.
9. Choose the concrete over the abstract. Sometimes we can’t help but get abstract when a character is experiencing an emotion, especially when that character is trying to understand or come to terms with that emotion. Find ways to anchor these moments in the concrete world of the story. Make them *do* something while they analyze their hearts, and let those actions reflect their true emotions.
10. Make sure you know what the characters’ true emotions are, moment by moment, throughout the story. This might sound obvious, but you can’t narrate an emotion that you don’t know about. Go deeper. Feel what your characters are feeling in that moment. How does it color their view of the world around them?

* * *

So, writers, what other tips would you add to this list?

Join us next week Monday when Adrienne talks with agent Kevan Lyon. You won’t want to miss it!

Theresa’s 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.

• 1. Just what the heck is an ordinary world, anyway?
• 2. How much ordinary world do I really need?
• 3. How do we know when it’s not ordinary world anymore?

Confusion over ordinary world issues stems, I believe, from the fact that most of the material written on this subject deals with dramatic writing rather than with novels. Their requirements are different from ours. Study their techniques, by all means, but do it with the understanding that not every script technique necessarily adapts to genre romance. Even in film, ordinary world is far from a universal principle, but tends to apply more to mythic quest structures. Romance probably bears a stronger resemblance to fairy tale structure than to quest structure, and though both structures have something like an ordinary world to start, there are substantial differences between their natures.

So what is ordinary world? In a mythic quest structure (in which the protagonist is usually, but not always, a youthful male), the ordinary world is the hero’s day-to-day home (usually safe or otherwise protected from antagonistic forces) before he is issued his quest challenge. The environment is always “ordinary” even if the hero himself is not. (In fairy tale structure, by contrast, the world itself contains dangers or instabilities, but the heroine or hero is “ordinary” in the sense of being virtuous and pure.) The quest hero will engage in a bit of resistance before accepting the challenge. The moment when the challenge is accepted is the moment when the plot shifts into a new gear — in Aristotelian terms, this is the moment when the conflict is set and the rising action begins.

How does this transfer to romance? In romance, we often have both internal and external plots. The internal plot focuses on the development of the pair-bond, and it would be a mistake to think that the heroine accepts the challenge of forming this bond at the outset of the rising action. Instead, she’s more likely to respond to the hero’s arrival with something akin to entrenched resistance. She doesn’t see him as an objective to be met or a task to be accomplished. She sees him as “that hot guy with the perfect arms who is trying to ruin everything.” He is a problem to solve rather than a man to love, at least until the romantic conflict is resolved at or near the end of the book.

In romance, then, the ordinary world is the world before the hero’s meaningful arrival in the heroine’s world. He can exist in her world in non-meaningful ways all her life: as her brother’s best friend, as a neighbor, as the Heathcliff to her Cathy. But the moment when she becomes aware of him as a man, the moment when she thinks simultaneously, “I want him/I can’t stand him,” is the moment when the conflict is set and the rising action begins in the internal romance plot.

How much ordinary world do you need before this moment in the romance plot? This is partly dependent on your external plot. Events in the external plot might precede the full engagement of the romantic conflict. And this is probably why romance writers struggle so much with this ordinary world concept. It’s not that we don’t “get” what ordinary world is. It’s that we don’t always know how to balance the internal and external plots when trying to apply this mythic quest structure to a romance.

My general rule — and indeed, this isn’t “my” rule so much as a genre principle — is to engage the romantic conflict as quickly as possible. The external plot’s function is to propel the romantic conflict, so in one sense, the external plot’s true function can’t engage until the romantic conflict exists. Even so, there are times you’ll need scenes relevant to the external plot before you get the hero and heroine together on the page, and that’s fine. But examine those scenes with a critical eye to be sure you actually do need them. Many times, you will not.

Probably the most worrisome of our FAQ “ordinary world” questions is the third: how do I know when it’s not ordinary world anymore? This question comes up surprisingly often, and I always want to respond with a question of my own. Do you know what your conflict is? Because once the conflict is set — once that conflict engine has driven the characters to a point where they can no longer walk away — the ordinary world no longer exists.

Often when I ask writers to define the conflict, instead I get a list of obstacles. “He thinks all women are gold-diggers” might very well impede the formation of the pair-bond. But is that a conflict or an obstacle? (Or a characteristic? Hmm.) If it’s generic, it’s more likely to be an obstacle. That is, she might not trust men because she had her heart broken in the past. But what is it about this man, this specific hero, that triggers her trust issue? Move it from the generic to the specific, and you begin to understand your romantic conflict. And once you understand your romantic conflict, you can more readily pinpoint the moment when you’ve left behind the ordinary world and have entered the rising action.

Indeed, given the dual nature of romance plots, you might find you have two separate moments of engagement. Your external plot — slay the demon, save the rainforest, etc. — might begin to rise at a different moment from the internal plot. A tightly plotted book will usually have both conflicts kick into gear at the same moment, but it’s not a universal. Be careful, again, and eye your external plot with a healthy dose of wary suspicion. It exists to serve the romance, and if it fails to do so, you might want to rethink the way you present it. Compress the timeline (good advice no matter which portion of the structure you’re examining), and examine the specific way the external serves the needs of the internal.

This is a big topic for a blog post, and if history teaches anything, it’s that there may be more questions on ordinary world out there. Ask away. Let’s see if we can clear some of this up.

One commenter will win a spot in my December workshop, “Super Sentences.”

* * *

Do you have questions about your “ordinary world?” Today’s the day to ask!

Join us on Monday when Barbara Vey of Publishers Weekly shares her thoughts on the good and the bad of book reviews.

Theresa’s 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.

If you wouldn’t mind, I would like some clarification on third person points of view and which one if any are good idea for a romance novel.

Thank you,
Cole Goodwin

Nora Roberts, one of my personal favorites, changes POV several times in a chapter, and not just at a change of scene or chapter. Do editors in general frown on that type of POV, or can Nora just get away with it because hey, she’s Nora?

Carrie

Hi, Cole and Carrie,

There are several different ways to analyze POV. In traditional literary analysis, we assign “person” to POV – first, second, third, omniscient. Generally, the “person” is indicated by sentence subject. First person takes an I subject, second takes you, third takes he/she/they, just like verb conjugations.

Omniscient can take a range of subjects depending on the transparency of the omniscient narrator. A perfectly transparent omniscient narrator will stick with third person subjects. An intrusive narrator will often include a few first-person or second-person pronouns as subjects or objects.

This method for analysis is a useful but imperfect classification system for writers because, although it is subject-focused (and therefore character-centered), it ignores what is perhaps the most important aspect of POV to us.

Instead of thinking of POV as a matter of sentence subject, think of it as a matter of subjectivity or objectivity. Think of it as a spectrum, a sliding scale of perspective, with subjectivity on one end and objectivity on the other, and a range of degrees in between. Given that most genre novels will be written in third person, the most important decision you face as a writer is where to set the pointer on your slider bar between the purely objective and the purely subjective.

You might think that we can assign the “person” a particular spot on the POV scale, but this isn’t as clear and easy as it first appears. For example, first person, which we might expect to be very close and intimate, is the most prone to slide out of scene and into summary. Summary inserts distance between the reader and the narrator, and so in those moments, the intimacy will usually be diminished. In other words, the pointer on our subjectivity/objectivity slider bar will slide toward the objective in those summary passages even though they’re still in first person.

Similarly, omniscient can be very intimate and subjective (as when a narrator directly addresses the reader or otherwise intrudes) or very objective and impersonal (when the narrator is transparent). We’re still in omniscient either way, but they’re very different kinds of omniscient with very different effects on the reader.

So, which should you use in a romance novel? Most romances are in third person, with an occasional first person here and there. The trend these days is to use an intimate form of third person – limited third, subjective third, deep immersion third. Whatever you call it and however you define it, the pointer on the slider bar will be closer to subjective than objective.

And how do you transition between character viewpoints when the POV is subjective? Within a scene, it is possible to temporarily shift the pointer on the slider bar closer to the objective side and to use those temporary slides as a transition of sorts between character viewpoints. This is a wonderful trick to master, and Nora does it particularly well. Some pieces of narrative (such as dialogue or some description) can be made more objective by stripping out the POV character’s viewpoint.

Compare:

“But we had salad for lunch yesterday,” Lizzie said.

“And we’ll have salad again today,” Kate said.

To:

“But we had salad for lunch yesterday.” Lizzie stared at the limp lettuce and scattered orange carrot bits on her plate. Ugh. Sick of salad.

“And we’ll have salad again today,” Kate said with a scowl that made Lizzie pick up her fork.

Both are in third person, but one is objective and the other is subjective. In the first, we get dialogue alone, and it reads objectively. In the second, we get dialogue viewed through the prism of Lizzie’s viewpoint.

It would be possible to use a slightly longer version of the first objective example as a transition between Lizzie’s and Kate’s subjective viewpoints. As it stands, it’s probably too short to really accomplish that – for this technique to work, you need a good bit of narrative space between the two viewpoints.

How much space do you need? Take another look at Nora’s books and see if you can measure this for yourself. Mark the points where the first viewpoint ends and the next begins, and notice what comes between them. Count the words. Count the lines. Is it dialogue, description, or something else?

If you want to learn more about POV, let me recommend Alica Rasley’s excellent book, “The Power of Point of View,” from Writers Digest Books. Most POV books have a strong academic slant, but Alicia’s looks at it from the writer’s perspective. Much more useful for us, then.

* * *

Once we get past the first, second and third details, we often think we have POV down cold. Uh, it’s not always so simple so RU Crew, this is a great chance to pick Theresa’s brain about point of view!

Join us on Monday when Carrie welcomes author Lori Wilde to discuss her Beginning Romance Writing classes and her upcoming release!

Theresa’s 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.

RU crew, today Theresa Stevens is back with another great Ask an Editor lecture. Want to make sure the first meet between your H/H (hero and heroine) is on target? Then read on!

A special perk today: Theresa and her business partner, Alicia Rasley, have agreed to give away a spot in Alicia’s October character workshop to one commenter today!

Dear Theresa:

One of the most important events in writing a romance novel is, of course, the first meeting of the hero and heroine.  I’ve been kicking them around for my WIP and wondered… What should a writer keep in mind/ask themselves when considering the construction of that first meeting?  How do you decide if the meet “works” or not?

Thanks!

Julie Harrington

Hi, Julie,

That’s a great question. The first meeting between the hero and heroine is a major turning point in a romance plot, which means that it’s a scene worthy of much authorial attention. It should pack a good, dramatic punch in the development of the plot, and it should leave the reader hungry to find out what these two people will get up to the next time they meet.

There’s a lot of information out there about first meetings. In fact, googling “cute meet” yields about two hundred million hits, and there’s a wiki for “meet cute,” which is the 1940s screwball comedy version of the first meeting between hero and heroine. However, a first meeting doesn’t have to be cute in order for it to be effective.

Conventional wisdom regarding first meetings is pretty basic:

1. The hero and heroine should meet as early as possible in the plot.
2. The romantic conflict should be initiated during this first meeting (if not before then).
3. It should be memorable. That is, the characters will be unable to shake it off and return to ordinary life as though this meeting never occurred.
4. Avoid cliched circumstances (such as two people colliding around a corner), forced plot details (that is, contrivances that don’t suit the character or circumstances), and pettiness (conflict over inessential details).

Beyond that, what’s a writer to do?

Because the first meeting establishes the characters and sets the romantic conflict in motion, it’s important to demonstrate two key facts about the hero. First, we want to see that he’s good hero material. And second, we need to understand that he isn’t quite *there* yet.

Showing his heroic potential is easy. Make him physically appealing, and give the reader hints that he is successful, ambitious, protective, powerful, and so on. These are heroic traits that will convince the reader — and eventually, the heroine — that this man is worthy of her devotion.

The flipside of this is a bit trickier. We sometimes talk in terms of character flaws — make him crabby, make him disdainful, make him a loner or a playboy or a heartless and cruel alpha. The danger in this approach is that you can invest the hero with flaws so unheroic that no rational woman would take a second look at him. For example, if she sees the rogue in a nightclub making out with three different women over the course of the evening, why would she sign up to be number four on that list? Ordinarily, she wouldn’t unless she herself is deeply flawed or, even worse, the dreaded TSTL heroine.

So, if you make him flawed in the beginning, you have to make sure those flaws are not absolute barriers to intimacy. But truly, he doesn’t have to be flawed in the sense that his character contains defects. It’s possible to have a charming, pleasant, winner of a hero who is still not ready for prime time in the first meeting. For example, perhaps his ambition swamps the rest of his character traits and makes him blind to key facts. By enlarging the heroic trait to drastic proportions, it becomes a hindrance to intimacy even if it would not be considered a flaw.

Or other traits — not flaws, but positive traits — can prevent intimacy from developing smoothly. For example, in the movie Serendipity, the hero and heroine meet while Christmas shopping and click instantly. He’s charming, kind, attentive, and generous. He’s also involved with another woman. Though he makes friends with the heroine, his loyalty to his current lover prevents him from pursuing a romantic or sexual connection with the heroine. This is heroic behavior based in virtue, not flaw, and yet it helps establish the conflict and move the plot forward.

If you think in terms of barriers to intimacy rather than outright flaws, you might find new ways to deepen the impact of that first meeting. Let the barriers to intimacy and the heroic traits be demonstrated vibrantly in the first meeting, and you’ll get the romantic plot moving forward in a strong way.

* * *

Theresa, thanks for the fabulous info on the first meet between a hero and heroine!

RU Crew, one lucky commenter will win a spot in Alicia’s October workshop (see details below) on character. Let’s see those comments!

Don’t miss Monday’s lecture when Kim Castillo will tell us why authors should have a personal assistant. (Oh, me, me! I want a personal assistant. Or I’ll settle for a clone, if I must).

Workshop Details:

http://edittorrent.blogspot.com

Do you ever worry that your characterization isn’t deep enough or that your characters are wooden? This is the class that will help you! The character journey is a way of charting through the plot the change in the main characters, giving them both a reason and incentive to change. In this interactive class, you’ll determine where the character starts and ends, and how the plot events can move them along that journey.

Class Begins: October 1, 2010

Class Ends: October 14, 2010

Signup Deadline: September 28, 2010

Class size is limited! Don’t delay!

Cost: $50

Instructor: Alicia Rasley

Alicia Rasley is an award-winning novelist and a nationally known writing workshop leader. She has worked as a fiction editor for a small press, and currently teaches popular fiction in an Master’s in Fine Arts program.

Theresa’s 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.

This month, we’re looking at a question that comes up frequently in the mailbag, though it takes many varied forms. The upshot: a writer is sitting on a completed manuscript. It belongs in a genre which isn’t a strong seller at the moment, or it straddles genres, or she isn’t entirely sure what genre it belongs to. How should she describe it when pitching it to agents or editors?

First, and most important, don’t lie. For example, if your book is clearly a western, don’t pitch it as a general historical in an attempt to overcome any current market bias against westerns. Lying about the nature of your manuscript will only irritate the very people you’re trying to court.

You might think this is a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised by the number of people who violate this simple rule. I’ve had queries for books pitched as romances that had no heroes, for erotic romances that had no sex scenes, and for paranormals that had no paranormal elements. Yes, I read at least part of these manuscripts based on the deceptive queries. And then I rejected them. Yes, even the ones that were written competently, though in my experience, writers who must resort to such tactics generally don’t have publishable manuscripts. These kinds of deceptions are generally desperation moves.

Second, if your book straddles genres, say so. Again, this might seem like a no-brainer, but there have been plenty of times I’ve heard pitches for straight-up contemporaries that ended up having a dash of time travel, magic, or other non-niche elements. This always strikes me as a lesser crime than lying outright about the genre, mainly because a dollop of cross-genre influence is not always enough to pull a book out of its main niche. Nevertheless, you’re better off describing it accurately: “My Awesome Novel” is a contemporary romance with a dash of urban fantasy. Or, “My Awesome Novel” is a hot Regency historical influenced by alternate-history paranormals. See how easy that is?

What do you do if you legitimately don’t know how to position your manuscript? Go to the bookstore. Wander the aisles until you find the book that most nearly resembles yours. Where is it shelved? Let’s say you have a murder mystery plot with a traditional romance arc. If the similar book was shelved in mystery, pitch it as a mystery. If with romance, pitch it as a romance. (But don’t forget to tip off the agents and editors that it straddles genres. Truth in advertising.)

Maybe you already know it’s romance but don’t know what type of romance. What kind of cover does your similar book have? Subgenres often share cover characteristics: flowery covers for sweet single titles, half-unlaced ballgowns for hot historicals, tight black costumes for urban fantasy, and so on. If you can’t quite figure it out, find books with covers that resemble the cover of your similar book. If, for example, they’re all light Regencies, then you know your similar book was branded a light Regency, and you can safely describe yours as a light Regency, too.

When questions about positioning a book come into the Ask-an-Editor mailbox, they often include a plea for advice on how to find a good agent. Good agents are not hard to identify. Watch the deals reports from Publishers Marketplace. They have a marvelous paid service (http://www.publishersmarketplace.com) and a free daily newsletter that’s well worth a few moments of your time.(http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/free/). Other online databases such as agentquery.com can give you a glimpse at client lists and past deals, also very useful. Spend some time searching the web and you’ll find plenty of similar resources.

But the best resource for agent and editor information is (and probably always will be) your writing network. Build it and nurture it, and become a resource within it. Be friendly and undemanding with your peers. Encourage people to come to you with information, and give them a reason to do so by being open with your knowledge and time. But always protect the reputations of the people who trade with you. One of my personal rules — and it’s iron-clad — is that I never reveal my sources. Sources can share information with me knowing that their identities will be protected, and they can come to me for information knowing that I will reveal as much as I safely can.

A well-developed network will be able to tell you things that can’t be written in online databases. They’ll tell you which houses are slow pays, which agents don’t answer email, which editors have restricted power, what are current advances at various houses, and so on. You’ll have to learn to separate the sour grapes from the facts — learn, for example, to ignore most of the generalized grumbling about how agents don’t do enough for their clients or how editors take too long and expect too much. There may be a grain of universal truth in those complaints, but that’s probably more a systemic problem than a sign of weakness in any individual professional.

So, if you want to know how to match your unique book with an agent and editor who will love it, it’s really a three-step process. Know your work. Know the industry. And tap your network.

* * *

Thank you, Theresa for the great tips on ptiching multi-genre manuscripts.  

RU Crew, one lucky commenter will win a spot in Theresa’s September workshop (see details below) on structure. Let’s see those comments!

Workshop Details:

http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/2010/08/announcing-september-workshop.html

 Good structure is the basis for a well-told tale. In this workshop, we’ll look at classic and modern structure theories and analyze structure on three levels: large scale (the book as a whole), mid scale (scenes and scene sequences), and small scale (sentence and paragraph level).

 Class Begins: September 1, 2010

Class Ends: September 14, 2010

Signup Deadline: August 28, 2010

Class size is limited! Don’t delay!

Cost: $50

Instructor: Theresa Stevens

Join us on Monday when writer Edie Ramer shares some of her favorite industry tid-bits.  

Theresa’s 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.